The Temple Roots of the Liturgy

Margaret Barker
The Temple Roots of the Liturgy

‘It is remarkable how few traces of the solemn liturgies of the High Holy Days have left in Christian worship’. ‘Christ was more associated with the synagogue type of worship than with that of the temple’[1] These two quotations from books written some forty years ago are not untypical of the approach at that time to the origins of Christian Liturgy, namely that they are to be found in the synagogue. In this paper I shall show some of the similarities between the early Christian liturgies and temple rituals

Since the New Testament interprets the death of Jesus as atonement (e.g. 1 Cor.15.3) and links the Eucharist to his death, there must have been from the start some link between Eucharist and atonement. Since the imagery of the Eucharist is sacrificial, this must have been an Atonement sacrifice in the temple, rather than just the time of fasting observed by the people. It is true that very little is known about the origin of the Christian liturgy or about temple practices, but certain areas do invite further examination. In the Letter to the Hebrews, for example, Christ is presented as the high priest offering the atonement sacrifice, and this surely should be taken as the starting point for any investigation into roots of the Christian Liturgy. In his book The Christian Understanding of Atonement, Dillistone made this observation: ‘From the New Testament there come hints, suggestions, even daring affirmations of a comprehensive cosmic reconciliation’. He doubted that this came from Hebrew thought and so suggested: ‘It was not until early Christian witnesses found themselves confronted by pagan systems in which a full theory of cosmic redemption played a prominent part that the effect of the work of Christ upon the cosmos at large began to receive serious consideration’[2]. The pre-Christian roots of the idea of Atonement have played a very small part in Christian treatments of the subject; a recent report by the Church of England’s Doctrine Commission dealt with atonement without mentioning Leviticus[3].

The Eucharist has frequently been linked to the Passover, for the very obvious reason that the Last Supper is linked to that festival[4], and Paul wrote to the Corinthian church that ‘Christ our Passover has been sacrificed’ (1.Cor.5.7). But there are immediate and obvious problems trying to link the Eucharist with Passover to as we recognise it: the Passover was the only sacrifice not offered by a priest (m.Pesahim 5.5ff on Exod 12.6), and the essential element was that the offering was whole, (Exod 12.46), whereas the words of institution in their various forms all emphasise that the bread/body was broken[5] Further, the cup at the Last Supper is linked to the covenant [except the Western text of Luke], and the Letter to the Hebrews links the death of Jesus to the covenant renewed on the Day of Atonement (Heb.9.11-15). Matthew’s form of the words ‘My blood of the covenant poured out for many for the aphesis of sins’ (Mat.26.28) suggests the same context, since aphesis was the translation for deror, liberty, the characteristic of the Jubilee which was inaugurated on the Day of Atonement (Lxx Lev.25.10; Isa.61.1 also Luke 4.18). Since the great Jubilee at the end of the second temple period was associated with the appearance of Melchizedek and his atonement sacrifice (11Q Melch), we have here a possible contemporary context for the words of institution. And again, there are the words of the early liturgies, which do not use the Exodus imagery of being the Chosen people and being liberated from slavery. We find in the Didache thanksgiving for the gifts of knowledge and eternal life, and for the Sacred Name dwelling in the hearts of those who have received the spiritual food (Didache 9-10). This, as we shall see, is priestly Wisdom imagery. The hope is for the ingathering of the scattered Church into the Kingdom. Bishop Sarapion (mid 4th century Egypt) prayed that his people would become ‘living’, i.e. resurrected, and able to speak of the mysteries, that the spiritual food would be the medicine of life to heal every sickness. ‘Make us wise by the participation of the body and the blood’.

Let us now consider the words of Bishop Sarapion’s contemporary, St Basil of Caesarea, who died 379CE. In his treatise On the Holy Spirit, he emphasised the unwritten traditions of the Church. Where, he asked, do we find in writing anything about signing with the cross (at baptism), or about turning to the east to pray. ‘Which of the saints has left us in writing the words of invocation (epiklesis) at the offering of the bread of the Eucharist and the cup of blessing? For, as it is well known, we are not satisfied with saying the words which the Apostle and the Gospel have recorded, but, before and after these words we add other words, on the grounds that they have great strength for the mystery. And these words we have received from the unwritten teaching.’ (On the Holy Spirit 66)

Origen had written something similar a century or so earlier, in his Homily 5 on Numbers. He compared these same Christian practices - praying towards the East, the rites of baptism and the Eucharist - to the secrets of the temple which were guarded by the priests. Commenting on Numbers 4, the instructions for transporting the tabernacle through the desert, he emphasised that the family of Kohath were only permitted to carry the sacred objects but not to see them. Only Aaron the high priest and his sons were permitted to see what was in the holy place; then they had to cover the sacred objects with veils before handing them to others, who were only permitted to carry them. The mysteries of the Church were similar, ‘handed down and entrusted to us by the high priest and his sons.’ Origen does not say who this high priest was; we assume it was Jesus and his disciples, but Origen could have known a continuity between the Christian mysteries and those of the temple priesthood[6]. Origen had close contact with the Jewish scholars in Caesarea and he knew at least one of what we nowadays call the Dead Sea Scrolls[7].

The duties of the priests were defined as ‘guarding all matters concerning the altar and what was within the veil’ (Num..3.10; 18.7 LXX), and as early as the letter of Ignatius to the Philadelphians, we read: ‘Our own high priest is greater (than the priests of old) for he has been entrusted with the Holy of Holies and to him alone are the secret things of God committed’ (Phil.9). Clement of Alexandria used similar imagery: those who have the truth enter by drawing aside the curtain (Misc.7.17). He knew that there were ‘among the Hebrews some things delivered unwritten’ (Misc.5.10). Origen too spoke often of the unwritten or secret tradition (e.g. Cels.3.37; 6.6; Preface to First Princ), the mystery ‘established before the ages’ (On Mat.7.2)[8].

Of the examples given by Basil, facing the east to pray and signing with a cross at baptism can be identified as customs dating back to the first temple. The Mishnah records that during Tabernacles, a procession would turn back at the eastern gate and face towards the temple saying: ‘Our fathers when they were in this place turned with their backs towards the temple of the Lord and their faces towards the east and they worshipped the sun towards the east; but as for us, our eyes are turned toward the Lord’ (m.Sukkah 5.4). This clearly refers to Ezekiel’s account of men in the temple facing east, holding branches before their faces and worshipping the sun (Ezek. 8.16-8), presumably in a celebration akin to Tabernacles. The Therapeuts (Philo Cont.Life 27) and the Essenes (Josephus War 2.128) also worshipped towards the rising sun, and the vision in Revelation 7 describes a great multitude holding palm branches, standing before the angel who came from the sunrise with the seal of the living God. Worshipping towards the east must have been a practice which distinguished the adherents of first temple customs from those favoured by the compilers of the Mishnah.

Signing with a cross was also a custom from the first temple. When Ezekiel received his vision of the destruction of Jerusalem, he saw the six angels of destruction and a seventh, who was instructed to pass through the city and mark a letter tau on the foreheads of those who were faithful to the Lord (Ezek 9.4). In the old Hebrew alphabet, the tau is a diagonal cross, the sign which was also used when the high priest was anointed on his forehead (b. Horayoth 12a). The anointed high priest was distinguished from the one who only wore the garments of high priesthood (m.Horayoth 3.4), and, since the true anointing oil had been hidden away in the time of Josiah (b.Horayoth 12a, b Kerittoth 5b), the tradition of anointing the high priest in this way must have been another first temple custom which was not observed during the second temple.

Christian customs, then, perpetuated practices which had very ancient roots but had not been current in the second temple. Presumably the Christians also perpetuated the beliefs that accompanied those practices: the belief that the gift of Wisdom was good, for example, and that it made humans like gods (i.e. gave them eternal life), just as the serpent in Eden had said. We are not looking for continuity with the actual temple practices of the first century CE (nor with its scriptures), but with a remembered, perhaps idealised, system that was much older. We are looking for the temple destroyed in the time of Josiah, rather than the second temple which was condemned in the Enoch tradition as impure and polluted (1 En.89.73).

Where had this system been preserved? The Melchizedek Text has a possible reading about people in the last days whose teachers have been kept hidden and secret (as in DJD XXIII 11Q Melch 4-5). The Damascus Document is quite clear: a remnant knew the ‘hidden things in which all Israel has gone astray’ and the examples given are ‘his holy Sabbaths and his glorious feasts’ (CD III)[9]. These are usually interpreted as a dispute about the calendar and this was certainly a part of the problem. But only a part! There could well have been disputes over the significance and manner of observing those Sabbaths and feasts: ‘They shall keep the Sabbath Day according to its exact interpretation and the feasts and the Day of Fasting according to the finding of the members of the New Covenant in the land of Damascus’ (CD VI). The problem concerned the Sabbath and especially the Day of Fasting i.e. the Day of Atonement.

This remnant is very similar to the group depicted in the Book of Revelation; the Damascus remnant are ‘called by Name and stand at the end of days’ i.e. they are the resurrected to wear the sacred Name, just like the redeemed in the holy of holies at the end of the Book of Revelation (Rev. 22.4)[10], and also like those who participate in the Eucharist of the Didache or Sarapion. The group depicted in the Damascus Document and the Christians were guardians of the true teaching ‘they keep the commandments of God and the visions of Jesus’ (Rev.12. 17). The writers of CD had similar concerns to those of the early Christians, although, as is well known, there were also important differences. What we seem to have here is a continuity; an awareness of what is behind the Hebrew Scriptures (what I called The Older Testament[11]) that passed into the New Testament and then into the Liturgies.

Basil’s third example of unwritten tradition is the epiklesis at the Eucharist. The later forms of this prayer, known from the time of Cyril of Jerusalem (Catecheses 23.7, died 387 CE), call on God the Father to send the Holy Spirit onto the bread and wine, but the earlier forms seem to have been different, calling for the Second Person, the Logos, the change the bread and wine. In Egypt in the middle of the fourth century, Bishop Sarapion prayed: ‘O God of truth, let thy holy Word come upon this bread (epidemesato, literally ‘dwell’)...[12] The Liturgy of Addai and Mari is a problem; although acknowledged as important evidence for early practice, there is no agreement on the original form of the prayers[13]. Dix’s reconstruction offers a prayer addressed to the Second person, the Lord who ‘put on our manhood’: ‘May there come O my Lord, thy Holy Spirit and rest upon this oblation of thy Servants..’. Later prayers speak of the Spirit being ‘sent’ but these examples of early practice imply that the divinity addressed ‘came’ to the bread and wine. There is some confusion in the earliest texts because they can call the Second Person either Word or Spirit, as did Philo for whom the Word and Wisdom were equivalents[14]. Possibly the earliest evidence of all, apart from the New Testament, is the Didache, which concludes with the Maranatha, praying for the Lord to come.

Given the temple and priestly context of Basil’s other ‘unwritten’ traditions, it is likely that the epiklesis also originated there, in the prayers for the Lord to ‘come’ to the temple. The tabernacle had been built so that the Lord could ‘dwell’ there (Exod.25.8 Lxx ‘appear) and could speak to Moses from between the cherubim on the ark (Exod 25.22). When the tabernacle was completed, the Glory of the Lord came to fill the tabernacle (Exod.40.34), as it also came to fill the newly built temple (1 Kgs 8.11). Ezekiel later saw the Glory leaving the polluted temple (Ezek.11.23). Isaiah had seen the Lord enthroned in the temple (Isa.6); and the Third Isaiah prayed that the Lord would rend the heavens and come down (Isa.64.1)[15]. Several passages in the later Merkavah texts have suggested to scholars that drawing the Lord down into the temple was a major element of the temple service. Moshe Idel concluded: ‘We can seriously consider the possibility that temple service was conceived as inducing the presence of the Shekinah in the Holy of Holies’[16]. So where might the Maranatha prayer have originated?

The rituals performed in the Holy of Holies are still as veiled as they ever were, but we can at least place them in their original setting. The tabernacle/temple replicated the days of the creation. Moses began to erect it on the first day of the year, and each stage corresponds to one of the days of creation (Exod.40.16-33). The veil corresponded to the firmament set in place on the second day, to separate what was above from what was below. Everything beyond the veil corresponded to Day One, beyond the visible world and beyond time. This seems to have been an ancient pattern, but the Hebrew and Greek texts of Exodus are notoriously divergent, and any discussion of the affairs of the holy of holies was forbidden. The creation of the angels on Day One was as sensitive issue, as were their names, and the prohibition in the Mishnah concerned the secrets of the holy of holies which the priests had to guard: the story of the creation, the chapter of the chariot, what is above, beneath, before and hereafter (m Hag 2.1). The rituals of the holy of holies were thus taking place outside time and matter, in the realm of the angels and the heavenly throne, and those who functioned in the holy of holies were more than human, being and seeing beyond time.

Psalm 110 (109), is obscure (perhaps obscured) in the Hebrew. The Greek, however, describes how the king is born as the divine son in the glory of the holy ones, i.e. in the holy of holies, and declared to be the Melchizedek priest[17]. The last words of David describe him as one through whom the Spirit of the Lord has spoken, a man who was anointed and raised up (qwm, anestesan kurios), a word that could also be translated ‘resurrected’ (2 Sam.23.1). This is how it must have been understood at the end of the second temple period, because the Letter to the Hebrews contrasts the Levitical priests and Melchizedek; the former have their position due to descent from Levi, but Melchizedek has been raised up (anistatai) with the power of indestructible life (Heb.7.15-16). The Chronicler’s account of Solomon’s enthronement says that he sat on the throne of the Lord as king, and the people worshipped the Lord and the king (1 Chron.29.20-23). That the Davidic monarchs had indeed become ‘God and King’ in the holy of holies, and that this had not been forgotten, is confirmed by Philo’s extraordinary statement about Moses: he became god and king when he entered the darkness where God was (Moses I.158). In his vision, Ezekiel saw this divine and human figure enthroned, the glory of the Lord in human form (Ezek.1.26-28), and the later account of the tabernacle in Exodus 25 remembered the king on his cherub throne as the voice of the Lord above the kapporeth, between the cherubim (Exod.25.22).

The holy of holies was the place of the pre-created light of Day One, but in the temple this was in fact the darkness of the divine presence in the holy of holies. Texts which describe what happened before the world was created, or what happened in eternity, are describing rituals in the holy of holies, presumably the secrets from beyond the curtain which Jesus is said to have taught (e.g. Clement Misc.6.7; 7,17; Origen Cels. 3.37: ‘Jesus beheld these weighty secrets and made them known to a few’: Origen on Mat.7.2 ‘...the mystery established before the ages’). Thus Psalm 110 is telling us that the divine son was ‘born’ in eternity. When Enoch’s second parable says that the Son of Man was named before the Lord of Spirits, before the sun and signs were created, it indicates a naming ritual in the holy of holies, most likely when the human figure was given the Sacred Name (1 En.48.2-3)[18]. After this he was enthroned and for his people he was Immanuel, God With Us. The reference in Philippians 2 shows that the sequence of the ritual was still known at the end of the first temple period, and used to set the death of Jesus in one particular context. The Servant is exalted and given the Name because he has died. He nevertheless reigns in heaven and receives homage whilst enthroned. In other words, the one who bears the Name is resurrected, just as David had claimed in his ‘last words’, and just as the writer to the Hebrews claimed for Melchizedek. There is a similar pattern in Daniel 7, where the human figure goes with clouds - the clouds of incense with which the human figure entered the holy of holies - and is offered before the Ancient of Days (Dan.7.13)[19]. He is then enthroned and given the kingdom of eternity. A similar sequence appears in the second parable of Enoch, where the Man figure goes to the Head of Days and the blood of the Righteous One is offered (1 En.47.1)[20].

The Lord was enthroned on the kapporeth over the ark, the place of atonement. The ascent of the human figure was associated with the offering of blood, but the only blood offering made in the holy of holies itself was the offering on the Day of Atonement. What, then, happened on the Day of Atonement? This was one of the issues on which Israel had gone astray, according to the Damascus Document. It used to be said that the ritual prescribed in Leviticus 16 was a relatively late addition to the lore of the temple, but scholars are now moving towards the view that this was one of the most ancient practices[21]. Few details are given in Leviticus, although the shape of the ritual is clear enough. The high priest took blood into the holy of holies and as he emerged, he sprinkled certain parts of the temple ‘to cleanse it and hallow it from all the uncleannesses (tum’ot) of the people of Israel’ (Lev.16.19). He entered the holy place in great fear, because the Lord would appear to him over the kapporet (Lev.16.2). Since the temple was a microcosm of the whole creation, atonement was a ritual to cleanse and renew the creation at the beginning of the year. The Mishnah gives more detail of where the blood was sprinkled, and adds that what was left was poured out at the base of the altar (m Yoma 5.4-6). The high priest also prayed when he was in the temple, but what he said is not recorded. Only the words used outside the temple appear in the Mishnah.

Robertson Smith, in his Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (delivered in 1888-89 and first published in 1894) observed: ‘The worship of the second temple was an antiquarian resuscitation of forms which had lost their intimate connection with the national life and therefore had lost the greater part of their original significance’,[22] but according to the Jewish Encyclopaedia, atonement was ‘the keystone of the sacrificial system of post exilic Israel’. In other words, the extent of our ignorance about the Day of Atonement is the extent of our ignorance about Israel’s earlier religion, and what we read in the post exilic texts may not be the best source of information about the original rite. There is, for example, no certain reference to Aaron or his priests in any pre-exilic text. Even Ezekiel, who was a priest in the first temple, does not mention him. The Elephantine texts, which give a glimpse of Jewish life in Egypt in the sixth and fifth centuries, often mention priests but never Aaron, nor Levi nor the Levites[23]. Any rites and duties associated with Aaron probably came from the older royal priesthood of Melchizedek. Since there have already been other indications that Basil’s unwritten traditions, including the epiklesis, had their ultimate origin in the cult of the first temple, it is likely that any misconception about the Day of Atonement will have had serious consequences for understanding the roots of the Christian liturgy.

What was the high priest doing when he made atonement? According to Numbers 25.6ff, the family of Aaron was given the ‘covenant of eternal priesthood’ because Phineas had been zealous to preserve the covenant. Atonement was acting to protect the covenant of peace, elsewhere described as ‘the eternal covenant’ or ‘the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature’ (Gen.9.16). Isaiah described how the pollution of human sin caused the covenant to collapse (Isa.24.4-6) with heaven and earth withering away. Atonement renewed it. Aaron protected the people from the consequences of breaking the covenant by burning incense: ‘Take your censer... and make atonement for them... for wrath has gone forth from the Lord (Num.17.46 English numbering). More commonly, atonement was effected by blood: ‘I have given blood for you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls...(Lev.17.11). Blood renewed the eternal covenant which had been destroyed by human sin. Since the temple was the microcosm of the creation, the temple ritual to renew the covenant also renewed the creation. Hence the famous words attributed to the high priest Simeon the Just: ‘By three things is the world sustained: by the Law, by the temple service and by deeds of loving kindness’ (m. Aboth 1.2). On the Day of Atonement the eternal covenant was renewed, and blood was sprinkled to remove the effects of sin. The blood was brought out from the holy of holies; in temple symbolism, this was new life brought from heaven to renew the earth.

But whose life? Two goats were necessary for the Day of Atonement, and the customary rendering of Leviticus 16.8 is that one goat was ‘for the Lord’ and the other goat ‘for Azazel’. This way of reading the text has caused many problems, not least why any offering was being sent to Azazel. One line in Origen’s Contra Celsum may provide vital evidence here. He says that the goat sent into the desert represented Azazel. If this was correct, then the sacrificed goat must have represented the Lord. The le meant ‘as the Lord’ not ‘for the Lord’, and Israel did not, after all, make an offering to Azazel. The blood which renewed the creation was new life from the Lord. Since the high priest himself represented the Lord, wearing the Sacred Name on his forehead, we have here a ritual in which the Lord was both the high priest and the victim in the act of atonement. The argument in the Letter to the Hebrews implies that the older practice of substitution had been superseded and that the annual rite was no longer necessary: ‘When Christ appeared as a high priest... he entered once for all in to the holy place, taking not the blood of goats and calves, but his own blood thus securing an eternal redemption...’ (Heb.9.11-12). The high priest had entered heaven with the blood of the great atonement, and the origin of the Parousia expectation was that the high priest would return to complete the atonement and renewal of the creation. Hence Peter’s speech in Solomon’s portico: ‘Repent, therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the time for establishing all that God spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets...’ (Acts 3.12-23).

The story of the Last Supper depicts Jesus renewing the Eternal Covenant. As the great high priest it was his own blood that would renew the covenant and put away sins. None of the other covenants described in the Hebrew Scriptures concerns putting away sin. Hence when the ‘Last Supper’ was repeated in early worship, they prayed for the return of the high priest to complete the great atonement: ‘Maranatha’. As time passed and the Parousia hope faded, the significance of the original epiklesis changed, and what had begun as a temple ritual fulfilled in history, returned to being a ritual. The roots of the Christian Eucharistic Liturgy lie mainly in the Day of Atonement, understood as the renewal of the creation, and this, as we shall see, passed into the words of the Liturgies.

Another root of the Eucharistic Liturgies is found in the temple ritual for the Sabbath, the ‘Shewbread’[24]. Twelve loaves made from fine flour were set out in the temple every Sabbath on a table of gold, and incense was set with them[25]. It was described as a most holy portion for the high priests (Aaron and his sons Lev.24.9), to be eaten in a holy place on the Sabbath. As with the other temple furnishings and rituals, nothing is said about meaning; we have to guess.

First, the bread was placed on a table in the temple, the only cereal offering to be taken inside. The Mishnah records that there were two tables in the porch outside the temple; ‘On the table of marble they laid the Shewbread when it was brought in, and on the table of gold they laid it when it was brought out, since what is holy must be raised and not brought down’ (m. Menahoth 11.7). In other words, the bread acquired holiness whilst it was in the temple, and, since it was classed as ‘most holy’ (Lev.24.9), it would have imparted holiness to the men who consumed it[26]. Others who even came near the holiest things were in danger of death (Num.4.19). The priests who ate the goat of the sin offering, most holy food, were thereby enabled to bear the iniquity of the congregation and thus make atonement for them (Lev.10.17). Something similar was said of Aaron when he wore the Name of the Lord on his forehead; he was empowered to bear the ‘guilt’ of the offerings[2] (Exod.28.38). Those who ate the Shewbread must have acquired some power.

All the cereal offerings had a special significance, although the details are now lost. They are ranked with the sin offering hatta’th and the guilt offering `asam, and mentioned first in the list, (Num.18.9; Ezek 44.29); they had to be stored and eaten in the holy chambers within the temple court (Ezek.42.13). The Shewbread, like the other cereal offerings, was described as an `azkarah, memorial offering, although how exactly this was understood is not clear. The text of Leviticus 24.7 implies that the incense on the table was the ‘memorial offering’, but the Targums[27] here describe the Shewbread as the ‘Bread of Memorial before the Lord’, suggesting that this is how it may have been understood at the end of the second temple period. The extreme holiness of the Shewbread is confirmed by the fact that when the desert tabernacle was moved, the ark and the table of Shewbread were the only items to have three covers (Num.4.5-8). The lamp, the incense altar and the other sanctuary vessels were wrapped in a blue cloth and a leather cover, but in addition to these, the ark was first covered by the veil, and the table by a scarlet covering. The bread in the temple was an eternal covenant. The regulations in Leviticus are brief and enigmatic; the bread has to be set in place each Sabbath ‘an eternal covenant’ (Lev.24.8). The Sabbath itself was described as an eternal covenant, marking the completion of the creation (Exod 31.16). The rainbow was another sign of the eternal covenant: ‘and when the bow is in the clouds, I will look upon it and remember the eternal covenant between God and every living creature’ (Gen.9.16). Might this have been the significance of the bread set before the Lord each Sabbath, a memorial of the eternal covenant?

The rainbow came to be seen as a sign of the divine presence; Ezekiel had described the Glory as a rainbow (Ezek.1.28) and stories were told of a rainbow appearing as the great rabbis were teaching (e.g. b.Hagigah 14b). In the later Merkavah texts, the Servant who bore the Sacred Name was wrapped in a rainbow[28], as had been the high priest Simeon when he emerged from the sanctuary on the Day of Atonement (b. Sira 50.7). The heavenly throne in Revelation was wreathed in a rainbow (Rev.4.3) as was the Great Angel in John’s vision of the Parousia, who returned from heaven wrapped in a cloud and a rainbow, with his face shining like the sun (Rev.10.1)[29].

If the Shewbread was similarly a sign of the eternal covenant, the term lehem panim, bread of face/presence could mean rather more than just ‘bread put out before the Lord’? There are several places in the Hebrew Scriptures where panim was used as a circumlocution for the Lord himself, as can be seen from the LXX. Thus ‘My presence will go with you’ (Exod.33.14) was translated ‘I myself will go...autos’ and Moses’ response ‘ If your presence will not go with me...’ became ‘ If you yourself do not go with me... autos. ‘He brought you out of Egypt with his own presence (Deut 4.37) became ‘He himself led you out autos’. ‘The Angel of his presence saved them’ (Isa.63.9) became ‘Not an ambassador nor an angel, but he himself saved them’.[30] This latter is emphatic; the angel of the Presence was the Lord himself. Perhaps this is how ‘Bread of Presence’ should be understood; it would certainly explain the great holiness of the Shewbread and the special status of the table on which it rested[31].

So much information about the temple has disappeared and has to be reconstructed from allusions elsewhere. There were, for example, libation vessels kept on the Shewbread table (Exod.25.29 cf 1 Kgs 7.50), but there is no record of how these were used in the temple[32]. There had been meals in the temple; the elders who saw the God of Israel on Sinai and ate and drank in safety before him is an encoded reference to this (Exod.24.11). So too, perhaps, Psalm 23: the table set before the anointed one, who would dwell in the house of the Lord forever, and the belief that the ruler in Israel would come forth from the House of bread, beth lehem (Mic.5.2). For the rest, we look in the shadows and and listen for echoes. In the Midrash Rabbah we find: ‘Melchizedek instructed Abraham in the laws of the priesthood, the bread alluding to the Shewbread and the wine to libations’(R.Gen XLIII.6). ‘The House of Wisdom is the tabernacle, and Wisdom’s table is Shewbread and wine (R.Lev.XI.9). ‘In this world you offer before me Shewbread and sacrifices, but in the world to come I shall prepare for you a great table’ (followed by a reference to Ps 23, R.Num.XXI.21). Another mystery is the investiture described in the Testament of Levi. Levi saw seven angels giving him the insignia of high priesthood and he described the ritual: he was anointed, washed with water and then fed ‘bread and wine, ‘the most holy things[33]’, before eventually receiving the incense (T.Levi 8.1-10). These rituals bear some resemblance to those in Leviticus 8: washing, vesting, crowning and anointing, but there is nothing in T.Levi about smearing blood and eating the boiled flesh of the offerings. Did the Testament of Levi recall the older ritual, the Melchizedek ritual which involved the bread and wine? And if so, who had preserved this knowledge since the destruction of the first temple?[34]

Wisdom and her house is a another recurring theme with the Shewbread This suggests it was an element in the cult of the first temple, where Melchizedek was high priest, and Wisdom was the Queen of Heaven, the patroness of the city. The importance of the Shewbread in that cult may account for the later silence in ‘official texts’ and the consistent echoes elsewhere. The offerings to the Queen had been ‘cakes’, libations and incense (Jer.44.18-19), and the refugees in Egypt after 586BCE, reminded Jeremiah that this cult had been abandoned with disastrous consequences for Jerusalem. Wisdom was remembered for her table. The poem in Proverbs 9 is much interpolated, but it is still clear that Wisdom offers the bread and wine of her table to those who seek the way of insight (Prov.9.5-6). Ben Sira promises the man who has Wisdom that she will meet him like a mother and welcome him like a wife, feeding him with the bread of understanding and the water of wisdom (Ben Sira 15.2-3). Wisdom herself promises that those who eat of her will long for more (Ben Sira 50.21), and we know from elsewhere that the gift of Wisdom brought eternal life (e.g. Wisdom 8.13).

Recall for a moment the Damascus Document, that a remnant had kept the true ways when Israel had gone astray over the Sabbath and the Day of Atonement. The temple ritual for the Sabbath was the renewal of the Shewbread, a high priestly ritual, and the Day of Atonement was the major high priestly ritual. There is a conspicuous silence about both of them, but such fragments as can be recovered correspond to elements in Christian ritual; to liturgies and related writings, and even, at a later period, to church architecture. This may have been a conscious imitation of the temple at a later stage, rather than an unbroken tradition from earliest times, but even this most sceptical position implies an expert knowledge not only of the temple, but of the older traditions which had been th cause of such controversy. It is more likely that the tradition came through from the time when these were still living issues, and gave rise to the original claim that Jesus was the Melchizedek high priest.

Now for a few comparisons. First, with the Shewbread, the memorial offering, associated with Wisdom and her invitation: ‘Those who eat me will hunger for more’, (b.Sira 24.21), and with Melchizedek the resurrected high priest. It was eaten by the the high priests who wore the Sacred Name, and was their most holy food. Eusebius wrote: ‘Our Saviour Jesus, the Christ of God, even now today performs through his ministers sacrifices after the manner of Melchizedek (Proof 5.3). In the Didache they gave thanks over the bread for ‘life and knowledge’, and after partaking, gave thanks for the Sacred Name dwelling in their hearts, knowledge, faith and immortality (Didache 9-10). Bishop Sarapion prayed: ‘Make us wise by the participation of the body and the blood’. The prothesis prayer of the Coptic Jacobites preserves the Shewbread tradition: ‘Lord Jesus Christ... the living bread which came down from heaven... make thy face shine upon this bread and upon this cup which we have set upon thy priestly table. To this day the lectionary of the eastern churches prescribes Proverbs 9, Wisdom’s invitation to her feast of bread and wine, as the reading for MaundyThrusday. Perhaps the words which Luke and Paul (Luke 22.19; 1 Cor.11.24) attributed to Jesus: ‘Do this in remembrance of me’ were originally ‘Do this as my memorial offering, my `azkarah’, and the bread was the new Shewbread[35]

Second, the Day of Atonement, when the high priest, who was the Lord, entered ‘heaven’ carrying blood which represented the life of the Lord. It was sprinkled on the ‘throne’, and then brought out into the visible world to renew the eternal covenant and restore the creation. The ritual represented and anticipated the Day of the Lord, when he would judge those on earth, banish evil and establish his kingdom. A key text was Deuteronomy 32.43: the Lord emerging from heaven to judge his enemies and atone the land[36]. The Day of Atonement is the only possible source of the ‘both high priest and victim’ belief associated with the Eucharist. Thus Narsai (Hom XVIIA): ‘The priest... celebrating this sacrifice, bears in himself the image of our Lord in that hour...’ Origen interpreted the Eucharist as the Day of Atonement offering: ‘Christ the true high priest who made atonement for you... hear him saying to you: “This is my blood which is poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins”’ (On Leviticus 9). As early as the Letter of Barnabas, the Day of the Lord was linked to the goat offered on the Day ofAtonement (Barn.7) and Justin knew that the sacrificed goat prefigured the Second Coming (Trypho 40), Cyril of Alexandria wrote: ‘We must perceive the Immanuel in the slaughtered goat... the two goats illustrate the mystery (Letter 41). Bishop Sarapion’s Eucharist was the Day of Atonement; he prayed for ‘the medicine of life... and not condemnation.’ He prayed for angels to come and destroy the evil one and establish the Church, in other words, for the banishing of Azazel and the establishing of the Kingdom. The Liturgies of Addai and Mari, of John Chrysostom and of James all have similar themes: remission of sins, enlightenment, access to the Lord, life in the Kingdom.

A recurring theme is fear and awe, the fear which the high priest felt as he entered the holy of holies on the Day of Atonement. Thus Narsai (Hom XVIIA, late fifth century): ‘The dread mysteries... let everyone be in fear and dread as they are performed.. the hour of trembling and great fear.’ Cyril of Jerusalem speaks of ‘the most awful hour’ and ‘the most awful sacrifice’ (Mystagogical Lectures 5.4,9). The Nestorian Liturgy speaks of ‘the great fearful holy life giving divine mystery’, and the priest prays in the words of Isaiah: ‘Woe is me. . for mine eyes have seen the Lord of Hosts’ and. like Moses before the ark he says ‘I have seen the Lord face to face’. Throughout the liturgies, the imagery is of the holy of holies and the angel hosts. Just as the ancient kings had been ‘born’ in the glory of the holy ones, and were thus ‘raised up’, so too the bread and wine was raised up at the moment of consecration. Thus Narsai (Hom XVIIA), having described the awe and stillness in the sanctuary at the moment of consecration, continued: ‘The Spirit which raised him from the dead comes down now and celebrates the mysteries of the resurrection of his body’. The consecration was the resurrection: the power of the Godhead comes upon the oblation, ‘ and completes the mystery of our Lord’s resurrection from the dead’ 9 Narsai Hom XVIIA). Thus the Lord emerging from the holy of holies on the Day of Atonement, accompnaied by the angel hosts, became the procession when the bread and wine from the sanctuary. Narsai again: ‘Thousands of Watchers and ministers of fire and spirit go forth’ with the resurrected Lord, and the people rejoice ‘when they see the Body setting forth from the midst of the altar.’

Finally, the setting of the Liturgy. The Altar in a traditional Christian church, is set apart, in an orthodox church literally beyond the veil. It must have derived from the kapporeth, the place of atonement in the temple, where the Lord was enthroned. In the eastern churches, the altar is known as the throne, and in some of their traditions[37], drawing a curtain across the holy place is still part of the liturgy[38]. Early sources speak of the cherubim of the altar[39] and in Ethioppian churches, there is an ark in the sanctuary. Finally, there is the preparation the bread of the Eucharist in the Orthodox tradition. The priest ‘sacrifices’ the loaf and then removes the central portion to mix with the wine in the chalice. An exactly similar procedure was used from the Day of Atonement sin offering according to the Letter of Barnabas .

A Testimony to Christianity as Transfiguration: The Macarian Homilies and Orthodox Spirituality
Given at the Conference on Orthodox and Wesleyan Spirituality, St. Vladimir's Seminary,
January, 1999, and published in Orthodox and Wesleyan Spirituality, ed. S. T. Kimbrough
(Crestwood NY:2002) 129-156.
It is an honor and pleasure for me to be here today at a conference which features the names of so many scholars who are either acquaintances of some years' standing, or else whose works I have long admired without the benefit of personal encounter. I must also confess a certain sense of inadequacy. I am not at all familiar with one half of our theme, that of Methodist spirituality, and am consequently obliged to take refuge in the hope that the nature of my subject will at least serve to provide some material for further thought and discussion. Kallistos Ware, for instance, begins his "Preface" to the recent, Paulist Press edition of The Fifty Spiritual Homilies with a quotation from John Wesley, "I have read Macarius and my heart sang", while Ernst Benz and Herman Doerries wrote some years ago on Macarian influences in, respectively, Anglo-Saxon Protestant thought and continental Pietism [1]. So it is at least clear that others have felt that my author does supply a number of points of contact between the Christian East and the later, post-Reformation West.
Given my limitations, I am obliged to focus on "Macarius" himself, with an eye perhaps toward pointing on occasion to his relationship with and influence on certain central themes, or, to borrow an expression from Jaroslav Pelikan, "melodies" within the harmonies and, once in a while, disharmonies of the theological and ascetico-mystical tradition in the Orthodox East [2] -- thus, for example, the "transfiguration" of this paper's title. I could as easily have said "transformation" or "deification", or else, particularly given the two traditions meeting here this week, "holiness" or "sanctification", since I take the transfiguration of my title as inclusive for "Macarius" of all of these. To touch briefly on some of the points to follow, he understands Christianity as the renewal of the human being. God in Christ has entered into our world and, in baptism, into the Christian's body and soul. The latter is thus, in potential, the royal throne of Christ (a note I shall come back to in detail below), and to work toward the conscious fulfillment of that potential, that is, to a loving awareness and even perhaps vision of the indwelling glory of Christ in the Spirit, is the whole aim of Christian life on this side of the eschaton. Hope and longing for that encounter engage one in a total effort of moral and psychological reform, an effort which, once committed to, reveals in its turn the limitations of any purely human effort, and so the necessity of grace to overcome the force of sin rooted in the soul. Humility, thus, and constant prayer provide the necessary ground for that stress on the visitation of grace for which the Macariana are primarily known: the light-filled experience (peira) of the divine presence "perceptibly and with complete assurance" (en pasei aisthesei kai plerophoriai) [3]. This program was not without controversy, but by way of arriving at that discussion perhaps we should have a look first at "Macarius" himself, at least as much as can be known about him, together with a few more details of his thought.
The Macarian Homilies were written in Greek at the end of the fourth century, but we do not have any exemplars in that language earlier than four medieval Byzantine collections, of which three (including the best known Fifty Spiritual Homilies) exist in critical editions [4]. We do not know, moreover, who the author of the Macarian Homilies was. He was certainly not Macarius the Great of Egypt, though it was under the latter's name that his writings were eventually to find a safe haven [5]. In this respect, our anonymous author has much in common with another late fourth century, monastic writer, Evagrius of Pontus (+399), several of whose works were also handed down under the protection of someone else's name [6]. In each case the pseudonymity was a posthumous device, and likely a necessary one, since both writers were controversial and even judged (if not always accurately or fairly, particularly in our writer's case) to have been heretical. In spite of those condemnations, Evagrius and Macarius -- to give our author the name he has gone by for centuries -- can fairly be called the most influential of the fourth century monastic writers. So influential, in fact, that it is no exaggeration to say that together they gave to the spirituality of the Christian East the shape which it has held to the present day. "Evagrius", in the words of a contemporary scholar who reflects the modern academic consensus, "established the categories; Macarius ...provided the affective content".
While I am myself not entirely happy with casting Evagrius as the mystic of the head and Macarius as the avatar of mystical Gefuehl, I will admit that there is considerable justice to seeing the works of the two men as "mutually corrective and complementary" [7]. Evagrius is the theoretician, often (though not always) cool and even remote in tone, whose preferred diction features the brief, dense and highly allusive sentences which he adapted from the style of biblical wisdom literature and contemporary, Cynic discourse, and which he intended his disciples and other readers to ponder slowly in the solitude of their desert hermitages [8]. Macarius, though he is also clearly a monastic geron or staretz, a charismatic and inspired elder charged with the guidance of souls, is much more the preacher intent on encouraging, exhorting, warning, and persuading [9]. His language in consequence is open and immediately accessible, flooded with imagery borrowed from the scriptures, contemporary society, and the natural world. He is also, unlike Evagrius in the latter's retreat in Egypt's empty wastes, fully immersed in the life of his own and related communities in the heavily populated regions of upper Mesopotamia (or southern Asia Minor), laying down a rule for his spiritual children, engaging in question and answer sessions with his own and other monks, sometimes fighting with the local hierarchy, defending himself and his followers, arguing for his understanding of the faith, and correcting other ascetics whose thinking and behavior he believes has strayed from the ways of Christian life and into demonic delusions [10]. Macarius is, in addition, clearly a man in whom several different Christian (and even pre-Christian) currents of tradition converge. He shares with Evagrius in his debts to the Christian Platonism of Alexandria through Clement and especially Origen, and -- as appears increasingly clear -- in personal ties with the Cappadocian Fathers, but he combines with these connections the different, Syrian Christian currents represented by Aphrahat and Ephrem, by the likewise anonymous and ascetic work called the Book of Steps or Liber Graduum, and by the encratism of the Thomas tradition and of the wandering Manichaean ascetics, together with elements from Jewish and Jewish-Christian apocalyptic and related literature [11]. Yet Evagrius may himself also, less the specifically Syrian element, have been aware of and responding to lines of biblical exegesis related to apocalyptic and rabbinical thought [12]. All in all, the differences in style, personality, and background are real enough, but do not point necessarily to the head versus heart distinction so favored by modern scholarship ever since Irenee Hausherr's famous article sixty years ago delineating the purported "schools" of Eastern Christian spirituality, according to which schema Evagrius represented the "school of intellect" and Macarius that of "feeling"; a taxonomy which is not a little -- and, to my mind, suspiciously -- reminiscent of the "intellective" and "affective" labels long applied to such Western Medieval writers as, say, Eckhardt and other Dominican Rhinelanders, on the one hand, and Bernard, together perhaps with the Franciscans, on the other [13].
One area where we can speak of a certain real difference in the doctrines which the two men teach concerns the ultimate role and eschatological destiny of the body. Put simply, for Evagrius the body has no role in the world to come while for Macarius it does. Both men teach an assimilation to the presence and activity of the living God, and both teach the vision of God as light, but Evagrius has no place for the transformation or transfiguration of the body [14]. The latter, together with the lower faculties of the soul, are for him providential and necessary, but, rather like booster rockets in a space-shuttle launch, are to be jettisoned once their purpose has been performed. They propel the initial phase of the ascent -- or return -- to God [15]. Macarius, though certainly also a Platonist and devoted to the allegorizing exegesis of Christian Alexandria, remains too firmly rooted in biblical realism to dispense with the body's share in the Kingdom of Heaven. Rather than an ultimately disembodied spirit (or nous), as in Evagrius, he sees the transfigured human being at the eschaton as one in whom the illumined and glorified soul shares its splendor and light with the risen body. The Gospel account of Christ's Transfiguration on Mt. Thabor serves as the image and promise both of the visio dei accorded the soul in this life, and of the eschatological transformation of soul and body: "Just as when the Lord had ascended the mountain He 'was transfigured' into His divine glory, so are there souls which even in the present time are illumined and glorified with Him, while on the last day their bodies as well will be glorified and flashing with light" (I.18.7.3). What is visible to the eyes of the illumined soul now and within, that is, the abiding and glory of Christ and the Spirit in the "inner man", will then become visible outside, in the very limbs of the transformed body [16].
Macarius' thought turns constantly around this duality or tension of "inner" and "outer", and it is always the former to which he accords priority. He uses a number of different words for it: heart, soul, nous or intellect, and, after the usage of St. Paul (and of Origen!), "inner man". Very occasionally he distinguishes among them, as for example when he speaks of the nous as the "eye" of the heart or soul, but more often he appears to employ them interchangeably as rough equivalents. The characterization of his thought as a mysticism of "the heart", at least in so far as heart is understood as denoting a primarily emotive or affective emphasis, strikes me therefore as misleading, or at least as one sided [17]. What he is concerned with first and foremost is the inner life where emotions, appetites, thought, and will all have their place, and perhaps most especially the will, the autexousion or capacity for self-determination [18]. It is the inner life of the human being, after all, which for him is first and most radically affected by the original Fall. It is there, within the soul, that Satan and his angels have set up their dwellings and palaces amid the cloud or, to use Macarius' own favored phrase, the "veil" of disordered drives and appetites which he covers with the term, "passions". The veil of the passions brought about by Adam's Fall and the devil's inhabitation prevent communion and conversation with God [19]. They block the vision of and share in divine glory that was Adam's original inheritance, his royal "robe" and "crown".
The robe and crown of divine glory are ancient themes in Jewish and Syrian Christian literature [20]. So is the language of the warfare between God and devil, light and dark, and of the"two ways" which Macarius also draws on in order to describe the post-lapsarian, human condition [21]. Stripped of participation in divine glory and life, naked in its own inadequacy, humanity is in a state of constant conflict in a disordered and perishing world. Though the power of self-determination, the capacity to choose the right and refuse the evil, never departs us (Macarius is the heir of such as Ephrem Syrus as much as of Origen in his refusal to accept fatalism of any kind), the cure for our condition is beyond our powers. We can of our own volition neither remove the veil that the evil one has wrapped around us, nor heal what Macarius calls the "incurable passions" (ta aniata pathe), nor dry up the "bubbling spring" of evil impulses which lies in the deeps of the heart or soul [22]. More powerfully and realistically, I think, than Evagrius, our Syrian Christian ascetic is aware of the power of evil. He is, though, marginally more optimistic than an Augustine. He believes that the human being can refuse to do what is sinful. The acts of the body are largely within our control. What we cannot do, in his view, is rid ourselves of sin within the soul, of the condition that renders us opaque to the vision and indwelling of God. In regard to the healing of the inner life, all that the human being can do is cry out for divine help [23].
So it is for God to act on our behalf in order to cure and to restore. Macarius' Christology is entirely orthodox and traditionally Eastern -- if I may speak so broadly -- in its emphasis on the ontological effects of the Word of God's incarnation, death, and resurrection. Theosis, deification, is quite as much the point of Christ's saving action for Macarius as it is for Athanasius, for Basil the Great, or for Ephrem Syrus [24]. Perhaps, though, we find somewhat more emphasis in his writings on Christ as precisely healer or physician, iatros, of the soul than we do in other Greek writers. The Lord as osyo, healer, is a very ancient and popular Syrian Christian theme, though certainly not absent in other early Christian writers [25]. In any case, it is only in and through Christ dwelling within the soul in the power of the Holy Spirit that the wellsprings of evil can be dried up, the veil removed, that we may be transfigured "from glory to glory" through looking on the "light of the face of Christ within the heart".
The allusion just now to St. Paul, specifically to I Corinthians 3:7-4:6, is deliberate. I might even venture to suggest that the whole Macarian corpus comprises a kind of extended meditation on this scriptural passage. Macarius seems to understand it as encapsulating virtually all the essentials of what he has to say to his monks [26]. It includes the contrasts between the Old and New Covenants, between veiled and unveiled, between outward and inward, between body and soul, and between Moses as type of the salvation to come and Christ and the Spirit as its fulfillment. Even more, it speaks of the change, alteration, or transfiguration -- metabole, alloiosis, metamorphosis -- which occurs in the Christian soul through the indwelling Spirit, and of the glory (doxa) of God in which the soul and ultimately the body are called to share. Finally, there is the overlap, I might say, between Christ and the Holy Spirit which is also a feature of the Homilies. All of these notes occur repeatedly in the Homilies. The obedience enjoined by the Law was an outward thing whereas, Macarius observes, in Christianity "everything is within (endon)" [27]. The whole of Israel's sacred history, of God's relations with His chosen people, becomes thus for the Christian the story of the soul's relation with Christ [28].
The echo of Alexandrian spiritual exegesis from Philo through Origen, mediated in Macarius' case perhaps especially through Gregory of Nyssa, is surely unmistakeable. I should like, though, to underline what I take to be the Homilies' particular emphasis on the Old Testamental motifs of the promised land and holy city, Jerusalem, and of the tabernacle and temple as the place of God's abiding. Christ is the reality of these images. He is the heavenly fatherland and the celestial city, the place of God's presence and -- to borrow an expression from the Targumim, since I think the traditions the latter represent are close to Macarius' own heart -- the "glory of the Shekinah" which dwells there and fills all with light [29]. This presence or abiding, the literal sense of Shekinah, which comes to the Christian through baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit, renders the soul in its turn the city and temple of God, at least in potential [30]. Here we arrive at once at the place of the ascetical life for Macarius, and at the question of the Church's sacraments and their relation to his thought. I will begin with the first: ascesis as the action of the body and soul, cooperating with divine grace, in order to ascend the inner Sinai and arrive at the conscious perception, and even the vision, of the Presence Who, even now, awaits the believer within the latter's heart of hearts, in its innermost recesses, at the sanctuary and altar of the soul.
Cooperation, synergia, is certainly a key term for Macarius, as it is for the Eastern Christian tradition generally [31]. If true healing and ultimate transformation come about only through the power of God, the human will is still required to contribute its part. Testing and trials are of the essence of being a Christian. We are called patiently to endure sufferings, and thereby to imitate the passion and death of Christ. Macarius returns again and again to this theme in his answers and sermons to his monks. Never, he insists, is the Christian -- a term which he uses, in the fashion of Basil the Great, as more or less synonymous with, and even preferable to, "monk" or "solitary" (monazon) -- going to be without trials in this life [32]. There is no security here below. All is struggle, though by God's mercy the glory and splendor of heaven may occcasionally be glimpsed. Furthermore, as one of his homilies puts it:
The warfare is...double for Christians...For after someone [i.e., a monk] has withdrawn from parents, spouse, possessions, comfort, fatherland, and customs....then, when he has gathered himself together and is concentrating
on the Lord, and after he has so to speak pried open the inside of his soul, he
faces another war, a great battle against opposing powers, against invisible
enemies and the activities of darkness, against which he is obliged to take up
heavenly armor in order to be able to emerge victorious...[33]
This battle, he continues, is "inside, in the soul, in the thoughts" [34]. The inner and deeper warfare requires divine assistance, precisely the "heavenly armor" mentioned above and borrowed from Ephesians 6:14-17. Heavenly aid begins and ends with love, the yearning desire for Christ which is at once the expression of the soul's own deepest longings and, simultaneously, the Lord's gift and presence. Like Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, Macarius uses eros and agape effectively as synonyms [35]. They express at bottom the dynamism of both the Creator-Redeemer, and of the created human being in process of redemption and, for Gregory and Macarius together in conscious opposition to Origen, in the everlasting growth of beatitude [36]. If love is the alpha and omega of the virtues, in between come the others: faith, repentance, hope, endurance, patience, long-suffering, meekness, humility, dispassion (apatheia), and, beginning as willed activity and ending as divine gift, perseverance in prayer [37].
The emphasis on prayer will surely remind us of Evagrius, as must Macarius' insistence on the mutually supporting chain of the virtues, his emphasis on the battle with the "thoughts", logismoi, and the value he accords dispassion. There are, just as clearly, important differences. First, there is next to none of Evagrius' careful effort to systematize these elements, most of them held in common virtually throughout the more learned monastic literature of the day, and arrange them into a precisely articulated pedagogy of the soul [38]. Again, we find here the contrast between the theoretician and the preacher. Second, certain of Macarius' emphases are typical of the specifically Syrian asceticism of his day and long afterwards. At this point we arrive at the matter of his alleged "heresy": the monastic movement or, perhaps better, bundle of ascetical beliefs and tendencies which the church hierarchy of Syria and Asia Minor condemned in a series of councils at the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth centuries under the label of "messalianism". The word comes from the Syriac "to pray" (tslo, hence the participle, metsalyane, the "praying ones"), and it was the bishops' contention that these monks' emphasis on prayer and dispassion had led them into error. For our purposes here, we may single out the accusations that the monks claimed that human beings are entirely subjected to the devil, that the latter's presence within the soul could not be eradicated by Baptism, but only by prayer and by the subsequent indwelling of the Spirit which, once given, assured a permanent state of dispassion and freedom from sin. Together with these charges, we also find the assertion that these ascetics claimed a vision of the Holy Spirit, indeed, even of the Trinity, with their bodily eyes [39]. Now, it is beyond doubt that certain of these propositions were culled from the Macarian Homilies, in particular the co-indwelling of the sin and grace even after Baptism, insistence on the importance of prayer, and -- though only in a falsified way where the texts were clearly taken out of context -- in the possibility and experience of divine light [40].
While there may doubtless have been individuals and even groups who espoused the extremes these condemnations describe, it is also the case that Macarius himself was, on the one hand, struggling against certain of these ideas -- at least in their cruder form --among his monks, and, on the other hand, that both he and they were heirs of long-standing elements in Syrian, particularly Syriac-speaking Christianity. Here I have especially in mind the twin emphases on asceticism and pneumatology, together with a frankly visionary element, so prominent in, for example, the Acts of Thomas, which are as well to the fore in such later and more "orthodox" fourth century writers as Aphrahat and (a little more controversially) the Liber Graduum, and which at the same time draw on ancient currents dating from Second Temple Judaism, notably the literature of apocalyptic [41]. As one recent scholar remarked, with perhaps a little exaggeration: "Messalianism is originally no more and no less than an obvious irruption of Syrian Christianity, and it could have been taken as heterodox only from the narrow perspective of an imperial orthodoxy" [42]. Somewhat less fiercely, Columba Stewart has convincingly demonstrated that much of the Messalian controversy derived from what amounted to a kind of culture clash: Greek-speaking bishops confronted with, and reacting without either much sympathy or comprehension to a phenomenon and vocabulary whose origins lay in the Semitic earth of Syria-Palestine [43]. Macarius, we might say, was caught in the middle and branded quite undiscrimatingly with the same stigma that was attached with a trifle more justice to some of his more extreme countrymen. We have to thank those early generations of monks, wiser in at least this regard than their bishops, who sheltered the Homilies under the protective cover of a famous and uncontroversial name for the fact that these invaluable texts survived at all -- and, indeed, more than survived, since they have continued to nourish and influence both Eastern and, later on, Western Christians to the present day.
To speak of Macarius as a man in the middle is apt in a couple of ways. He is, as I have noted, someone who stands at the confluence of several different currents of Christian thought and tradition, though to what degree he is doing so consciously I will leave for others to determine. He is also, however, on occasion and very consciously facing in two directions at once: toward his monks, whom he is trying to guide and whose enthusiasms he is often seeking to temper and direct, and toward the bishops and other church authorities whose concerns for the sacramental and doctrinal integrity of the Church he is seeking to satisfy while at the same time defending as vigorously as he can, and often rather sharply, those elements of faith and practice which the heresiologists have fingered as doctrinal error, most notably the certainty which he shares with his monks that it is possible to experience and even -- if only momentarily -- to see God while still in this present life [44]. Regarding, for example, the debate around the Trinity which so preoccupied the fourth century, he is careful to include a confession of faith at the beginning of his Great Letter, otherwise devoted to setting out a community rule for his monks, which both precisely reflects the trinitarian settlement following the Council of Constantinople in AD 381 and insists on his faith in the "one baptism" of the Church [45]. Elsewhere in his works we can pick out strains of anti-Eunomian polemic that recall the controversial works of Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa [46]. In the space remaining to me, however I would like to focus on what Macarius has to say both about the visio dei, and about the relation which the Church's sacraments and, more generally, the liturgical assembly have with the life of the "inner man". What he wrote with respect to both would have great influence in subsequent Eastern Christian tradition. Let me begin with the first, the matter of vision.
There is no questions that visions of heavenly things were much on the mind of Macarius' monks. Consider, for example, the following exchange:
Question: What should one do who is led astray by Satan through, for example, an
appearance of blessedness, or else by what seems to be a revelation of grace in light?
Answer: One needs a great deal of discernment for this in order to recognize and understand
the exact difference between good and evil...So, too, should you receive even heavenly beings
with careful testing, knowledge, and discernment...[47]
Even angels are to be asked for their credentials and not accepted until after a careful perusal. On the other hand, it is evident that both Macarius and his interlocutor took for granted the possibility of such visitations. The chief criterion for distinguishing the true from the false light is the effect it has on the recipient. The reply thus continues:
...even if, wishing to deceive the soul, he [Satan] were to create fantasies by transforming
himself into brilliant visions...he is unable to effect love in you for either God or for the
brethren without immediately causing conceit and arrogance. Nor can he bring humility,
nor joy, nor peace, nor quieting of the thoughts, nor hatred of the world, nor rest in God, nor
desire for the good things of heaven...All these things are the results of grace...It is therefore
from its activity within you that you are to know whether the intelligible light that has shone
in your soul is of God or of Satan. [48]
Moreover, he concludes, the experienced soul should be able to differentiate between "the gifts of the Spirit and the phantasms of Satan" by virtue of its "spiritual perception" [aisthesis], just as "the throat knows the difference" between wine and vinegar. They look alike, but their taste distinguishes them immediately [49].
I should like to underline three things about this passage. There is , first, the insistence that the virtues, in particular love of God and neighbor, necessarily accompany any true visitation, and, as a kind of corollary, the implication that these virtues are not necessarily accompanied by vision. They stand, therefore, as in a sense primary, which is to say that the Christian experience of grace is not necessarily visionary, a matter of extraordinary experiences [50]. Second, the "spiritual perception" of which Macarius speaks recalls the "spiritual senses" of Origen and, again, it is this perception, broader than simply vision and itself the fruit of the experience of grace, together with its accompanying discernment, which he appears to hold out to his interlocutor as of more lasting importance for the spiritual life than vision per se [51]. Third, however, he is convinced that an experience of God in the form of a vision of light within the soul is not only possible, but -- and here I add to the passage cited above -- a foretaste of the eschatological transformation to come. This conviction doubtless derives in great part from his own experience. In the best known of the several Macarian collections, Collection II or the Fifty Spiritual Homilies, the eighth homily lists in the third person a series of visions, including a "cross of light" plunging itself "deep into the inner man", a "splendid robe...not made by human hands" like the clothes of Christ on the mount of the Transfiguration, and finally, citing from George Maloney's recent translation:
Sometimes indeed the very light itself, shining in theheart, opened up interiorly and in a
profound way a hidden light, so that the whole person was completely drowned with that
sweet contemplation...[52]
Later on in the same homiliy, in an exceptionally rare instance of the autobiographical in Greek patristic literature, he makes it clear that he was himself the subject of these experiences: "After I received the sign of the cross...grace quiets all my parts and my heart" [53]. Elsewhere he is emphatic that this light of grace is not a human or created thing [54]. In the following citation from Collection I, for example, he takes issue with what appear to be critics of visionary experience. Against their claim that any experience of light is to be understood as metaphorical, or perhaps as intellectual, that is, as a kind of mental illumination or flash of insight that may come as from studying the scriptures, Macarius opposes scriptural acccounts of a visio luminae, including Paul's conversion on the Damascus Road, the vision of Stephen at the latter's martyrdom, and his favorite text, I Corinthians 3:18, in order to conclude:
We ourselves acknowledge that revelation does take place by the Spirit through interpretation
as well, but let them admit in their turn that it may also be a divine light, shining essentially
and substantially [en ousiai kai hypostasei] in the hearts of the faithful...[the] divine and essential
[ousiodes] light which is that which appears and shines in souls more than the light of the sun. [55]
The relevance of this citation, and like passages in the Homilies, to the fourteenth century Hesychast debate over the "light of Tabor", and particularly to Gregory Palamas, must be clear, further evidence of what one scholar refers to as "an astonishing continuity in Church history" [56].
In still another homily from the same Collection he presents a longer catena of proof texts, moving from 2 Cor. 3:18 to 4:6 (the "glory" of Christ within the heart), Pss. 118:18 and 42:3 (on light), Acts 9 and 22 (the light at St. Paul's conversion), I Cor. 15:49 ("the image of the heavenly man"), Phil. 3:21 (the "body of Christ's glory"), I Cor. 2:9-10 ("What eye has not seen..."), and R 8:11 (the indwelling Spirit) [57]. In yet other places, he will appeal to Moses' shining face in Exodus 34, to Ezekiel's vision of the chariot throne of God's Glory, to the Synoptic Transfiguration narratives, as well as to the Johannine passages, particularly John 14:21-23 and 17:22-24, which promise an indwelling manifestation and participation in divine glory, and to Rev 22 on the celestial city and the glory which shines within it [58]. Glory, doxa, is a key term for Macarius. There are some scholars, most recently Hans Veit Beyer, who see in this preoccupation with the vision of glory and light a fundamental surrender to Neoplatonism [59]. I beg to differ. Macarius certainly owes much to the Platonic tradition, though not specifically to the Neoplatonist writers (I do not find any echoes of Plotinus or the later Platonists in him -- perhaps through Gregory of Nyssa?), and I must also add that I cannot think of any single, important patristic writer who does not owe a fair bit to Plato. Given the background of Greco-Roman culture, the Platonism of the Homilies is an inevitable feature of their general emphasis on interiority. What is surely more significant about Macarius' use of doxa is that term's long-standing use in Greek-speaking Jewish and Christian traditions as the translation of the Hebrew kevod YHWH, such as, for example, in such texts of the Septuagint as Ex. 24 and 33-34, Nu 12:8 (where doxa translates the divine form, temunah, in the context of the visio dei), I K 11, Is 6 and 40 (the eschatological manifestation, "all flesh shall see..."), Ezk 1, 8-11, and 43, and -- not mentioned specifically, but implied -- in the shining of the righteous in Dan 12 [60]. The texts cited at the head of this paragraph give some idea of the term's importance for the New Testament, a feature of earliest Christian thought that is only very lately beginning to come into the prominence it deserves. Kavod and its Greek equivalent are, put simply, the biblical terms of choice for theophany.
What is at work in Macarius' use of doxa is therefore a persistent and conscious interiorization of the biblical glory tradition, of theophany. He is scarcely alone in this among monastic writers of the late fourth century. Evagrius, too, is engaged in exactly the same enterprise, and he is not the only such parallel [61]. I myself think that this common endeavor owes not a little to the sea-change in Christian thought entailed by the Nicene homoousion, whose confirmation at Constantinople we have already seen Macarius endorsing. The spirituality required by the doctrine of divine consubstantiality did not allow for the sort of crudely materialistic or frankly anthropomorphite cast to the visio dei suggested by the episcopal heresiologists' accusation, noted above, that the Messalians taught a vision of the Trinity accessible to the physical eye. We can find similar concerns and debate operative in the anthropomorphite controversy among Egyptian monks at the close of the fourth century, in Augustine's Confessions (recall his delight at discovering the Platonists!), as well as in his De Trinitate and Epistles 147-148, or in Cyril of Alexandria's correspondence with Palestinian monks in the 430's [62]. To sum up an argument I have made at length elsewhere, there was widespread controversy in the late fourth and early fifth centuries about the nature of the vision of God, and, further, this controversy was particularly associated with the monks [63]. Ancient traditions among Christian ascetics were in process of being re-shaped, and monastic leaders like Macarius and Evagrius were at the forefront of this reconfiguration.
The nature and provenance of these ancient traditions, together with an instructive glimpse into Macarius' program, are perhaps most stunningly displayed in the first homily of the better known Collection II. The latter begins by summarizing Ezekiel's vision on the banks of the Chebar (Ezk 1:1ff), and then goes on to add the following interpretation:
The prophet truly and assuredly saw what he saw, but [his vision] also suggested something else.
It depicted beforehand something secret and divine, a mystery truly hidden from eternity and,
after generations, made manifest in the last days with the appearance [lit. epiphany] of Christ.
For Ezekiel beheld the mystery of the soul that is going to receive its Lord and become His throne
[thronos] of glory, since the soul which has been made worthy of fellowship with the Spirit of His [Christ's] light, and which has been illumined by the beauty of His ineffable glory after having prepared itself for Him as a throne [kathedra] and dwelling place [katoiketerion], becomes all
light and all face and all eye. [64]
There are a number of things worth pointing out in this passage. First, there is the emphatic statement that Ezekiel's was a true vision. He really did see the glory of God. One might contrast this with Augustine's systematic reduction of the Old Testament theophanies to angelophanies, or to mere symbols. I do not think, though, that Macarius is primarily concerned here with countering such an interpretation, but that he wants rather to make it clear that he is in agreement with the interest of his monastic audience in, first of all, according this text its full, literal value. Second, I would suggest that they were so interested because they hoped to enjoy the sort of vision for which Ezekiel's was the likely prototype, by which I mean the sight of the enthroned glory of God in the heavenly sanctuary that we find so often to the fore in apocalyptic literature and, later on and perhaps simultaneously with writers like Macarius and Evagrius, in the merkabah (chariot) lore of the talmudic-era hekhalot texts [65]. This is not to say that Macarius' monks were reading rabbinic literature. They did not need to, since they -- or, certainly, other Christian ascetics -- were busy at the time and thereafter translating and copying the earlier apocalyptic and other pseudepigraphical materials for themselves [66]. Recall, for example, Athanasius' 39th Festal Epistle of 367, where the modern scriptural canon of the Christian churches (less the deutercanonical books) appears for the first time, and note that the great archbishop provides a list of authoritative books exactly in order to exclude apocalyptic texts like the Enochic books and the Ascension of Isaiah, about which he tells us certain overly enthusiastic ascetics, "the wretched Meletians" in this case, "have been boasting" [67]. We might also bear in mind the fact that Athanasius was markedly unsuccessful. Old Testament pseudepigrapha and related literature did not disappear immediately even in Egypt, let alone in other regions, such as, in our case, Syria-Mesopotamia. Jacob of Serug's long homily, On the Chariot that Ezekiel the Prophet Saw, provides significant testimony that, a century after Macarius, some Syrian monks were still interested -- unhealthily so, in Jacob's view -- in what I take to be an apocalyptic or hekhalot type of mystical ascent to see the human form, Christ, of the glory enthroned. I might add that I think similar concerns were at work in Jacob's anonymous (though more famous) contemporary, the unknown Syrian Christian who wrote under the name of Dionysius Areopagites, though no one else seems to have picked up on this element in "Dionysius" [68].
Macarius in any case does not oppose this tradition head-on. Instead, he affirms Ezekiel's vision, and only then adds his qualifying "but": "but [this] also suggests something else". The "something else" in question is my third point: Macarius engages in nothing less than a recasting of the ancient literatue of ascent and vision to which his monks were so attached. As Gershom Scholem put it, in an offhand remark at the close of the chapter on "Merkabah Mysticism" in his epocal study , Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, Macarius is engaged in "a mystical reinterpretation" of the Merkabah tradition [69]. There is no need to go "up" to heaven to see God on His glorious throne, since, "with Christ, everything is within", and therefore the chariot-throne of divinity, the place of divine abiding and heavenly palace or temple (hekhal, naos), has, through Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit, become the Christian soul itself. Just as Evagrius, in the words of Nicholas Sed, provides us with "the first interiorization" of Moses' ascent at Sinai "of which we have a written attestation", such that the true mount of revelation is relocated to the intellect, so does Macarius rework the motifs of tabernacle, temple, and of the ascent to heaven for initiation into its mysteries [70]. The "all face and all eye" in the passage cited just above, for example, deliberately recalls the four faces and many eyes of the angelic bearers of Ezekiel's chariot throne, the "living creatures" or hayyot which feature so prominently in both apocalyptic throne visions and in the angelogical speculations of the later hekhalot texts [71]. Macarius thus continues:
The four living creatures which carry the chariot were also carrying a type of the four
governing faculties [lit., "thoughts", logismoi] of the soul...I mean the will, the conscience,
the intellect [nous], and the power to love [agapetike dynamis], for through them the
chariot of the soul is steered, and upon them God takes up His rest [epanapauetai]. [72]
The One Who rides and directs these steeds, the charioteer, Macarius stresses a few lines later, is the Same Who rode upon Ezekiel's cherubim, "Who holds the reigns and guides with His Spirit". While this passage obviously owes a great deal to Plato's Phaedrus, it is surely also Platonism with a difference. For the pagan philolosopher, it is the rational faculty, the logistikon, which holds the reigns and directs the soul, but, for our Christian ascetic, the intellect has been bumped out of the driver's seat and buckled into harness together with the other faculties in order to make room for the true Charioteer, Christ God, Who guides the soul with the Holy Spirit [73]. Visionary traditions and enthusiasms are not denied in this reworking, for theophany is still held out as possible and desirable, but they are tempered, redirected into channels more conducive to ascetical sobriety, toward, in fact, that inner warfare we noted earlier and the divine help needed to wage it. Attaining to vision within must and will only come as the result and gift of the soul's entire restoration and transfiguration, and then again, as Macarius frequently puts it elsewhere, only -- and fleetingly -- as an anticipation of the Day of Resurrection when the divine fire now hidden within the soul will, as it were, emerge and shine forth openly from a transformed and risen body [74].
My fourth observation about the chariot passage provides us with our entry into the second area of concern I promised to discuss, the matter of Macarius' relation to the sacraments and liturgical assembly which, as we have seen, was at issue in the Messalian controversy. In the passage on the chariot we find two Greek words used for "throne", thronos and kathedra. The second term has an obviously ecclesiastical ring to it, recalling the place of the bishop's teaching and presidency at the Church's liturgy. I think that this association is quite deliberate on Macarius' part. While he does not pursue the echo of church liturgy and even architecture in this particular homily, he certainly does so elsewhere, frequently, and, on one occasion at least, at some length. Throughout, perhaps his key scriptural texts are 1 Cor 3:16 and 6:19-20, especially the latter's equation of the individual Christian's body and the temple of the Spirit [75]. This is clearly the basis for the following passage, which joins the imagery of sancturary and, very popular among Syrian Christians, of nuptial union:
The body of the human being is a temple of God...and the human heart is an altar of the
Holy Spirit...With the temple of the Lord let us also sanctify the altar, that He may light
our lamps and that we may enter into His bridal chamber. [76]
The Jerusalem Temple was, of course, the place par excellence of divine abiding in Israel, the object of the Psalmist's frequent desire to look upon God's glory. Thus, just as with Ezekiel's Merkabah (itself written in part as a response to the imminent loss of the Solomon's temple), Macarius also picks up and interiorizes this motif: the holy of holies, the debir of the Shekhinah's abiding, is now the Christian soul. Likewise, the priesthood of the sons of Aaron celebrating within the holy place, and the ministry of the angels in the heavenly sanctuary, a frequent theme in intertestamental literature, is now also fulfilled and active within the soul once the latter has acquired -- and been given -- freedom from the passions: "For it is in such a heart that God and all the Church of heaven take their rest" [77]; and also, with the related imagery of the heavenly Jerusalem, the following: "[Christ] Himself ministers [diakonei] to her [the soul] in the city of her body, and she in turn ministers to Him in the heavenly city" [78].
The body as temple is the sphere thus of Christ's unique priesthood: "The true priest of the future good things...has entered into the tabernacle of their [the believer's] bodies, and he ministers to and heals the pasions" [79]. That which He effects within is, earlier in the same homily, specifically likened to the sacramental change, metobole, of the eucharistic elements, and in such a way as also to recall the Eastern (and especially Syrian) Christian tradition of the consecratory invocation of the Holy Spirit, the epiklesis:
For our Lord came for this reason, that He might change [allaxai] and transform [metabalein]
and renew and recreate the soul which had been overturned by the passions...mingling with it
His own Spirit of divinity...to make new men, anointing them with His own light of knowledge,
that He might put in them the new wine which is His Spirit. [80]
Another term Macarius uses with this same kind of echo is the word, synaxis. It means gathering or assembling, or a gathering or assembly, and is of course familiar to liturgists as an ancient expression for the liturgical assembly of the Church. In several passages, Macarius employs it simply, or with at least apparent simplicity, for the soul's "gathering" of its scattered thoughts, logismoi, in order, as he puts it in one such passage, that Christ may "gather her unto Himself and make her thoughts divine, and teach her true prayer" [82]. I say apparent simplicity because it becomes evident elsewhere that he does mean it to carry a specifically ecclesiastical and liturgical resonance, as in the following:
"Church" is therefore said with regard both to the many and to the single soul. For that soul
which gathers [synagei] all its thoughts is also the Church of God...and this term [thus] applies
in the case both of many [Christians] and of one. [83]
This citation is an obvious and open appeal to the principle of microcosm and macrocosm, the soul as a microcosm of the Church's macrocosm. Put another way, and borrowing an expression from Macarius' equally anonymous contemporary, the author of the Liber Graduum, the Christian, and particularly the Christian heart or soul, is a "little church" [84]. Mention of the Liber leads me to point out that, in all that we have touched on so far regarding Macarius' use of the language of temple and church, he is drawing on a manner of speaking which has many precedents, some of them very old indeed. The notion of the Christian as ecclesiastical microcosm -- and, indeed, microcosm as well of the Paradise Mountain and of the Sinai of theophany -- is at the least adumbrated in Ephrem Syrus' Paradise Hymns, while the body as "temple" goes back, as noted, to St. Paul [85]. We might also look to the Acts of Thomas in the earlier Syrian milieu where the bodies of the ascetics are hailed as temples, places of Christ's indwelling, and where the "holy ones" are in consequence even accorded sacerdotal powers, "empowered to forgive sins" [86]. Aphrahat speaks similarly of the Christian's priestly office of prayer [87]. The Alexandrian writers from Philo to Origen draw conscious comparisons between the worship of the community and liturgy of the soul [88], while Macarius' placing of the ascetic's body and soul in parallel with the eucharistic elements may also draw on Ignatius of Antioch's and Polycarp of Smyrna's second century characterization of the martyr's body as locus of theophany and sacramentally transformed, as well as their obvious deployement of eucharistic language in order to depict that transformation, and we should note that they in their turn were the heirs of still older, Jewish traditions of the martyr as a holy and reconciling sacrifice [89]. It is, by the way, a truism that the fourth century monastic movement drew on the imagery of martyrdom. What is perhaps less appreciated is the real possibility that the same imagery, and for likely just as long, had been applied to the ascetics. Christianity in Persian Mesopotamia seems to bear this out. There it was martyrdom that was the more recent, fourth century experience. When it thus came time to write the martyrologies, the language the authors used was that which previously their communities had employed for their ascetics -- precisely the reverse of the sequence in the Roman world [90].
Traditional, yes, and even ancient, but it is equally evident that many bishops at the end of the fourth century felt that this language threatened proper regard for the sacraments and, to be sure, that thereby their own authority was placed in question. With respect to the second concern, I would say that they were probably in part justified, though I would add that the real authority of the charismatic saint, almost inevitably an ascetic or monastic, has been a constant thorn in the Eastern hierarchy's side from the Messalian controversy and before to the present day, and that there is no sign that it will ever be removed short of the eschaton -- for which God be praised [91]. Regarding the bishops' concern over proper evaluation of the sacraments, however, there was surely misunderstanding, at least so far Macarius was concerned. The latter not only wrote of baptism and eucharist in such a way as to make it clear he accepted and indeed embraced the Church's doctrine, but in one of his homilies he also sought to reply both to the bishops and, on the other side of his typically two-way dialogue, surely as well to some of his monks who were raising questions, by elaborating on the notion of the ecclesiastical microcosm in such a way as to exercise profound influence on subsequent Eastern Christian thought, practice, piety, and even, I think, church architecture. I shall touch first and briefly on his affirmations of the traditional teaching before turning to his contribution.
Baptism and eucharist are real for Macarius. His understanding of the former was most usefully discussed by Dom Vincent Desprez in an article published ten years ago [92]. While acknowledging that Macarius shared with his Syrian Christian background in a certain neglect respecting the Pauline theme of baptism as a sharing in Christ's death (R 6), Dom Vincent points out his equally Syrian emphasis on the sacrament as the "earnest", arrabon, of the gift of the Holy Spirit [93]. This eschatological emphasis is the fore, of course, throughout all of his writings. In the case of baptism, the use of the imagery of the "earnest" and "talent" given the believer in the sacrament looks ever toward eschatological fulfillment, and opens thus onto the dynamic of growth into a conscious and perfected Christian life. Macarius is always interested in process. He thus criticizes in one homily what he takes to be his critics' static and in effect magical view of sacramental efficacy, insisting instead that, though participation in the Spirit through baptism is real indeed, that participation is an invitation to progress, to an increase in love and virtue and awareness "according to the measure" of each believer's faith, kat'analogian tes pisteos [94]. On the other hand, if baptismal grace is left uncultivated, the "earth of the heart" can indeed revert to weeds and thorns, that is, suffer again the inhabitation of evil. To be sure, later ascetic writers such as Mark the Monk and Diadochus of Photiki in the following century would, in view of the episcopal condemnations, develop and refine the Macarian teaching, laying more stress on baptism's ties with the Cross, stressing the plenitude of the gifts received, and moderating his language concerning the post-baptismal indwelling of evil, but in substance their modifications have much more in common with Macarius than they differ from him [95].
As for the eucharist, Macarius admittedly speaks relatively little of it, at least when he is not in a polemical mode replying to his critics. Yet this is scarcely untypical of monastic writers, and, when he does write of it, his language is fully traditional, as in the following citation with its typical emphasis on the Spirit:
Those who have truly partaken of the bread of the eucharist are made worthy of becoming
partakers of the Holy Spirit, and thus holy souls are enabled to live everlastingly. Just as he
who drinks wine possesses the latter mingled with all his members...so, too, with him who
drinks the blood of Christ, for the Spirit of divinity which is drunk is mingled with the perfect
soul and the latter is mingled with the Spirit and, thus sanctified, becomes worthy of the Lord. [96]
Then there is also the passage where, interpreting I Cor 2:9, "what eye hath seen", he holds out the sacraments as that which the prophets did not not see, though they foretold Messiah's coming:
...neither did it come to their understanding that there would be a baptism of fire and the Holy
Spirit, and that bread and wine would be offered in the Church as an antitype of the Lord'sbody
and blood, and that those who partake of the visible bread spiritually eat His flesh, and that the Apostles
and Christians would receive the Comforter and be clothed with power from on high and filled with
divinity, and that souls would be mingled with the Holy Spirit. None of this did the prophets know. [97]
I would also add the texts which I cited above in connection with the believer as microcosm. Macarius would surely not be using a word like metabole, with its echo of eucharistic consecration, for the inner transformation of the soul unless both he and his audience understood and accepted the term's original reference to the mysterious change of the sacramental elements. The allusion and implied analogy would otherwise lose their intended force, that is, as the elements are truly changed through the action of the Spirit at the Church's altar, so must it be with the "inner man" at the altar of the heart.
In sum, throughout the Macarian corpus the eucharist is understood as at once the real anticipation and the illustration of the Christian's eschatological transformation. The latter element, the illustrative character, or perhaps we might better say, the iconic aspect of the eucharistic assembly is what draws Macarius' particular attention in Homily 52 of Collection I, where I would see him as, typically, addressing both his episcopal critics and certain among his own monks, or monastic correspondents, who had raised questions about the importance of the liturgy [98]. Here, too, is where he makes another signal contribution to the thought of Greek-speaking Christianity: the visible church as the divinely given icon here below of the transfigured inner man called to participate in the heavenly liturgy. This is the note on which he begins his homily:
The whole visible arrangement of the Church of God came to pass for the sake of the living
and intelligent substance [noera ousia] of the rational soul which was made according to the
image of God, and which is the living and true Church of God...For the Church of Christ and
temple of God and true altar and living sacrifice is the man of God. [99]
He criticizes his critics for their superficiality: "They have complete confidence in the temporary arrangement and only trust in statutes of the flesh". Neglecting "the seeking according to the inner man and the renewal of the soul... they slander us out of ignorance". This does not mean that Macarius denies the reality of the present dispensation of altar and sacraments: "God gave His Holy Spirit to the holy and catholic Church, and arranged that He be present at the holy altar and in the water of holy baptism", so that, through this presence and divine action, "faithful hearts...might be renewed and refashioned by the power of grace" [100]. The Spirit was present in the Ark of Covenant of the Old Dispensation, so how much more then is this not the case for the Christian altar? But visible realities, as we have seen, are for Macarius always subordinate to the invisible, to the unseen and secret work within, thus:
Because visible things are the type and shadow of the hidden ones, and the visible temple
[a type] of the temple of the heart, and the priest [a type] of the grace of Christ, and all the
rest of the sequence of the visible arrangement [a type] of the rational and hidden matters
according to the inner man, we receive the manifest arrangement and administration of the
Church as an illustration [hypodeigma] of what is at work in the soul by grace. [101]
In the concluding section of the homily he develops this statement by taking up the sequence, akolouthia, of the eucharistic liturgy and the physical arrangement, oikonomia, of the assembled believers, by which he means, respectively, the two halves of the service, the liturgies of the word (synaxis) and of the eucharist proper (anaphora), and the progression from the catechumens in the church porch to the baptized believers in the nave to the presbyters on either side of the bishop's throne in the sanctuary apse. The first he presents as an image of the relationship of ascetic efforts to the grace of the Spirit. Just as the consecration of the gifts and holy communion crown and complete the reading and meditation on the scriptures in the service's first part, so does the "mystical activity of the Spirit" crown and complete the efforts of "vigil, prayer, ascesis, and every virtue". Neither one is sufficient without the other; both are required. The anaphora must have the synaxis to precede it, while the latter is obviously incomplete without the consecration and communion. Similarly, there is no point to ascetic labors without the visitation of the Spirit, but He will not rest upon us unless we labor in our turn. The physical ordering of the assembly likewise mirrors the ascent of the believer to God and participation in the heavenly liturgy. Just as "those who do not sin and make progress...come eventually to the priesthood, and are transferred from some outer place [presumably referring to the church porch] up to the altar so that they may become God's ministers and assistants [leitourgoi kai paredroi]" -- the sequence of promotion in the church's hierarchy, with the last phrase likely referring to the deacons and presbyters at the bishop's throne -- so the soul,
If...it does not embitter grace...but rather pleasingly follows the dominical statutes...and with all its
faculty of choice cleaves at all times to the Lord and welcomes grace, then indeed... it progresses and
is made worthy...of promotion and spiritual rank, and...will be inscribed in the Kingdom among the
perfect workers and with the blameless ministers and assistants [leitourgoi kai paredroi] of Christ. [102]
In its temporal sequence and spatial ordering, the order (kosmos) of the Church's liturgy therefore reflects both the order of the Spirit's activity within and cooperation with the soul, and the latter's rise to share in the ministry of the angels in the heavenly temple, that is, with those who serve (leitourgoi) and who stand beside (paredroi) the throne of Christ.
The notion of the Church's prayer as a participation in and reflection of the liturgy of heaven is very old, indeed, arguably with roots in the New Testament and, even before, in Second Temple Judaism [103], while the idea of the human soul as microcosm of the Church is, as I noted above, likewise very old. What Macarius brings to these themes is a more precise development and coordination. He argues systematically in this homily that what we see when we participate in the liturgy is a divinely established image or -- in the fully sacramental sense that the term would later acquire -- icon both of heaven, and of ourselves and our calling as Christians. Now, some might feel -- and have felt -- that this is an unfortunate allegorization of the liturgy and thereby a surrender, again, to Platonism [104]. We certainly do have a kind of allegorization here, and, equally, it owes not a little to Plato, but I do not agree that it is so regrettable. Let us first recall that Macarius is writing to his monks, and that, secondly, he does so at least as much to persuade them of the importance of the visible Church's worship as to engage his critics among the bishops. It is in this effort to reconcile his ascetics to the liturgy by demonstrating its relevance and application to their own intense focus on the inner life that we discover the lasting importance of what he has to say. He insists that the communal and objective character of public worship is both true, being grounded in divine revelation, and that it at once aids and reflects the Christian's own subjective appropriation of the unique sacrament, mysterion, of Christ. I would insist that the key here is the "both, and", and the reconciliation or harmony that it seeks to effect between the sacramental and the mystical, objective and subjective, public and private, institutional and charismatic, or -- in Macarius' own terms -- altar and heart. As the revealed icon of heaven and of the heart, the Church's altar becomes the necessary, middle term between the two, at once communicating heaven to us and leading us to its manifestation within us. Its role is a temporary one, since "the whole arrangement and ministry of the heavenly mysteries of the Church will pass away at the conclusion of the age", then, when heaven and glorified humanity will merge and become one, but, for now, in the present time of attendance and anticipation, it mediates the eschaton to us in image and in truth.
I cannot then regard Macarius' efforts here as in any sense a surrender or betrayl, for it seems to me that what he accomplished served in a very fundamental way to preserve the unity of the Church of the bishops, sacramentally based and necessarily structured, with the enthusiasm, charismaticism and generally inward thrust of the monastic movement. He helped establish the two in a union which, while it has had its tensions, has never since been broken. He was not alone in this endeavor. To be sure, Athanasius and Basil had also contributed significantly to this project, though not with respect to the specific matter of the "inner church" [105]. I have, however, already mentioned Ephrem Syrus' adumbrations of this reconciliation in his Paradise Hymns, and can point as well to the exact same ideas as Macarius, and probably for the exact same reasons, in the twelfth mimro of the Liber Graduum [106]. But both of the latter two works were written in Syriac, and neither one to my knowledge was ever translated into Greek, certainly not the Liber. So it is chiefly at Macarius' door that I would it place the later works of Dionysius Areopagites, especially on the hierarchies, and Maximus Confessor's Mystagogy, together with pervasive strains in, for example, the writings of Symeon New Theologian, Gregory of Sinai, and Nicholas Cabasilas [107]. These writers reflect over a thousand years of Greek-speaking Christianity. They also represent much of the best that the Eastern Christian world has to offer.
Macarius fully deserved the efforts his immediate successors must have expended to preserve his writings from the oblivion that befell too many others who ran afoul of hasty condemnations. He wrote about what he knew, both from scripture and tradition, and from his own experience, and he did so in such a way as to weave together into a single compelling tapestry threads from many, not always harmonious earlier Christian and pre-Christian groups and traditions. His was a genuine ministry of synthesis and reconciliation whose power to speak to subsequent generations sprang from the quality of its living and lived witness to the transfiguration promised by the Gospels and Apostles, to that change, effected by the Spirit of the risen Christ, which is at work in Christians even now, provided only they pledge their trust and longing.
Some years ago, after having been invited to sit in on a session of the Orthodox-Lutheran dialogue, I remember asking a prominent Lutheran theologian of my acquaintance how he pictured a Lutheran saint. He was at a loss for words for a moment, and then graciously admitted that he had never really given the matter any thought. For me, on the other hand, it still seems a very important question, even fundamental. What is the ideal we have of the Christian life in this world? Can it be lived? Whom may we look to for examples in our own and recent times, and throughout the history of the Church? Some this perspective strikes me as having been shared by the Wesleys. Thus when, at the sessions of their Holy Club, John and Charles Wesley picked up and read Macarius, and loved him in spite of the gulf of time and space, and equally of the centuries-old divisions of culture and in the Church which separated fourth century Mesopotamia from eighteenth century England, I would like to think that they were responding to the same Spirit Who inspired him [108]. If, moreover, that Spirit is the one and unique river of life which flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb, then might we not find in the welcoming response of two saintly Englishmen to this Syrian holy man, who so deeply impressed the thought and practice of Eastern Christianity, a kind of proof that those ages of difference and division can in fact be transcended and -- who knows? -- perhaps even the hope that they can be reconciled? Surely, if we look first to our saints for the truth of Christ's promises, for the presence in this age of the age to come, for the signs of the Spirit in short, will we not find a more certain, or at least a more promising ground for ecumenical encounter than merely the mutual exchange of confessional statements? We Orthodox are fond of saying that Orthodoxy is most fundamentally neither a system of doctrine nor an institution, important as both those are, but first and last a way of life, as in Bishop Kallistos' little book, The Orthodox Way. We do not very often live up to that claim, but we can and do point to those whom we believe have done so, to our saints, as the proof of things unseen and embodying the substance of things hoped for. I have the impression that that is part of the purpose of our meetings here this week. If so, it is a worthy project, and I hope that this paper has made some small contribution to it. Thank you.
Hieromonk Alexander (Golitzin)
Theophany, 1999
Marquette University
NOTES
1. K.T. Ware, "Preface", in Pseudo-Macarius: The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, tr. G. Maloney (NY:1992) xi. See also E. Benz, Die protestantische Thebais. Zur Nachwirkung Makarios des Aegypters im Protestantismus des 17 und Jahrhunderts im Europa und Amerika (Goettingen: 1963), and H. Doerries, Die Theologie des Makarios-Symeons (Goettingen:1978) 16 ff. I am indebted for the reference to Benz' book to R. Staats, "Messalianerforschung und Ostkirchenkunde", in Makarios-Symposium ueber das Boese, ed. Werner Strothmann (Goettingen: 1983) 60, n.39.
2. I take the phrase from J. Pelikan's The Mind of Eastern Christianity, vol. II of The Catholic Tradition
3. The expression, "perceptibly and with complete assurance", is one of the signature phrases of the Macarian Homilies. For an analysis of the phrase, together with the related term, peira (experience), see esp. C. Stewart, "Working the Earth of the Heart": The Messalian Controversy in History, Texts, and Language to A.D. 431 (Oxford/NY: 1991) 96-168. For peira alone, see P. Miquel, Le vocabulaire de l'experience spirituelle dans la tradition grecque du IVe au XIVe siecle (Beauchesne: 1991).
4. Collection I appears in Makarios/Symeon. Reden und Briefen: Die Sammlung I des Vaticanus Graecus 694 (B), ed. H. Berthold (Berlin:1973); Collection II in Die 50 geistlichen Homilien des Makarios, ed. H. Doerries, E. Klostermann, and M. Kroeger (Berlin:1964); and Collection III in Neue Homilien des Makarios/Symeon. Aus Typus III, ed. E. Klostermann and H. Berthold (Berlin:1961). The last has also been more recently edited and supplied with a French translation by V. Desprez, OSB: Pseudo-Macaire, Oeuvres spirituelles. Vol. I: Homelies propres a la Collection III, in Sources chretiennes 275 (Paris:1980). When referring to or quoting from Macarius below, I shall be using my own translations unless otherwise stated, and referring to the original language texts above. Citations in the notes below will begin with uppercase Roman numerals for the Collections, followed by arabic numerals for the specific homiliy and its subsections.
The first item in the MSS of Collection I, Macarius' Great Letter, is not included in Berthold's edition as it was edited previously by W. Jaeger, Two Rediscovered Works of Ancient Christian Literature: Gregory of Nyssa and Macarius (Leiden:1965). It was Jaeger's thesis that Macarius had based this treatise on Gregory's shorter work, On Christian Perfection (also included in Rediscovered Works). A second edition of the Letter, however, together with the close analysis of its editor, R. Staats, in the latter's Makarios-Symeon: Epistola Magna (Goettingen:1980), demonstrated convincingly that the relationship was in fact the reverse, i.e., that Gregory edited Macarius. In that Macarius elsewhere appears often to have availed himself of ideas characteristic of Gregory (as well of as Basil the Great, see below, n.11), the evidence has been building for "an environment of mutual exchange" between the author of the Homilies and the great Cappadocians, to quote from Mr. S. Burns' paper, "'Sober Intoxication' as a metaphor for divine ecstasy in Gregory of Nyssa and Ps-Macarius", given at the North American Patristics Society Conference at Loyola, Chicago, in June 1998. I look forward to the eventual publication of Mr. Burns' thesis on this subject as it promises to be the most thorough study on Macarius' Syrian and Greek background available in English.
5. The name, Symeon of Mesopotamia, is often attached (particularly by German scholars) to "Macarius", owing to the appearance of that name, a leader in the Messalian movement, in a few of the ancient MSS. H. Doerries was the first to raise the possibility of Symeon in Symeon von Mesopotamien. Die Ueberlieferung des messalianischen Makarios-Schriften (Leipzig:1941), and was followed by many thereafter. For a brief consideration of the question of Macarius' identity, see V. Desprez, "Macaire", in Dictionnaire de spiritualite X:27, and at greater length in his "Introduction" to the SC edition of Collection III, pp.32-37.
6. Evagrius was preserved, partially, in Greek under the name of Nilus of Sinai, but the Kephalaia Gnostica, his main doctrinal work, survives only in two Syriac translations, tr. and ed. by A. Guillaumont, Patrologia Orientalis XXVIII. His Origenism was the source of his later condemnation in 553, and the best study of his thought in that regard is still Guillaumont's Les "Kephalaia Gnostica" d'Evagre le pontique (Paris:1962). More recent studies by, especially, G. Bunge have served to place Evagrius more securely in the setting of Egyptian eremeticism, and somewhat to ameliorate the charge of heresy. Thus, in chronological order, see the latter's "Evagre le Pontique et les deux Macaires", Irenikon 56 (1983) 215-227 and 323-360; "On the Trinitarian Mysticism of Evagrius of Pontus", Studia Monastica 17 (1986) 191-208; "Origenismus-Gnostizismus: zum geistesgeschichtlichen Standort des Evagrios Pontikos", Vigiliae Christianae 40 (1986) 24-54; Geistliche Vaterschaft: Christliche Gnosis bei Evagrios Pontikos (Regensburg:1988); and perhaps especially "Henade ou Monade? Au sujet des deux notions centrales de la terminologie evagrienne", Le Museon 102 (1989) 69-91.
7. Desprez, "Macaire", DSp. 39.
8. For the background in Wisdom literature and Cynic diatribe to the literary form Evagrius largely invents for Eastern monastic literature, the "chapters" or short sayings, see W.R. Schoedel, "Jewish Wisdom and the Formation of the Christian Ascetic", in R. Wilken, ed., Aspects of Wisdom in Judaism and Early Christianity (Notre Dame:1975) 169-199; and also, specifically in Evagrius, J. Driscoll, OSB, The "Ad Monachos" of Evagrius Ponticus: Its Structure and a Select Commentary (Roma:1991) 307-384. On meditation in the Egyptian hermitages, see D. Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism (Oxford/NY:1993) 76-177.
9. For Macarius as himself the recipient of revelations, see II.8, cited below, esp. II.8.6. On the necessity of an inspired guide, see I.4.12; II.14.4; 15.20 (saints as theodidaktoi); 18.5-6; III.7.3-4 (vs. false guides); 14.1; and 16.3; but against false claims to perfection, impossible in this life, see II.8.5; 15.36 (we are always free to fall); 17.5-6; 38.4-5; I.31.6; 39 and 64 (the need for meekness vs. conceit); III.22.1-2 (vs. pretenders to knowledge through intellectual effort alone); and for comment, Doerries, Theologie des Makarios/Symeon, 336-366. On the phenomenon of the enlightened elders in the fourth century (and afterwards) and their claims to authority, often in tension with the official hierarchy, see, e.g., P. Rousseau, Ascetics, Authority, and the Church (Oxford:1978) 18-67; P. Brown, Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (Berkeley:1982) 103-195; and A. Golitzin, St. Symeon the New Theologian on the Mystical Life, vol. III, Life, Times, Theology (NY:1997) 19-21 and 38-53.
10. On the social and ecclesiastical setting of monasticism in Asia Minor and upper Mesopotamia, see J. Gribomont, "Le monachisme au sein de l'eglise en Syrie et en Cappadoce", Studia Monastica 7 (1965) 7-24; I. Pena et. alii, Les reclus syriens: recherches sur les anciennes formes de vie solitaire en Syrie (Milano:1980) esp. 93-162 on the life and continual contacts of Syrian hermits with larger groups; and S.H. Griffith, "Asceticism in the Church of Syria: The Hermeneutics of Early Syrian Monasticism", in V.L. Wimbush and R. Valentasis, ed.s, Asceticism (Oxford/NY:1995) 220-245. On Macarius' Great Letter as a "rule" for his community ascetics, see Staats, "Messalianerforschungen" 56-57, and in detail, Epistola Magna 63-72.
11. Doerries' annotations in his edition of Die 50 geistliche Homilien are especially good on noting links to apocryphal materials, as well as other echoes of earlier Christian writers. See also G. Quispel, Makarius, das Thomasevangelium, and das Leid von der Perle (Leiden:1967) on the echoes of the earlier Syriac literature of the Thomas tradition; together with A. Baker, "Syriac and the Scriptural Quotations of Pseudo-Macarius", Journal of Theological Studies 20 (1969) 133-149; and Stewart, "Working the Earth" 84-95, 188-203, and 211-233 for parallels in later, fourth century Syriac literature. I know of no studies devoted to the influence of Clement and Origen, but see Desprez, "Introduction", SC 275, 55-56; and for the Cappadocians, esp. R.Staats, Epistola Magna, and, ibidem, Gregor von Nyssa und die Messalianer (Berlin:1968), as well as the forthcoming work by S. Burns, n.4 above. I shall touch on some possible parallels with Jewish thought on specific issues below.
12. See above, n.6, and especially N. Sed, "La shekinta et ses amis arameens", in Cahiers d'Orientalisme XX (1988) 233-242 for Evagrius' links with Jewish exegesis on the visio dei.
13. I. Hausherr, "Les grands courants de la spiritualite", Orientalia Christiana Periodica 1 (1935) 114-138, esp. 121-124 and 126-128. See my remarks on this influential article in "Temple and Throne of God: Pseudo-Macarius and Purity of Heart", in Purity of Heart: Essays in Memory of Juana Raasch, OSB, ed. H. Luckman (Liturgical Press, forthcoming).
14. On the vision of light in Evagrius, see again Sed, op.cit., together with A.Guillaumont, "Un philosophe au desert: Evagre le Pontique", Revue de l'histoire des religions 181 (1972) 29-56; ibidem, "La vision de le l'intellect par lui-meme dans la mystique evagrienne", Melanges de l'Universite Saint Joseph 50 (Beirut:1984) 255-262, and, critical of both Evagrius and Macarius (together with the later Byzantine Hesychasts) as in thrall to the light mysticism of Neoplatonism, H. V. Beyer, "Die Lichtlehre der Moenche des vierzehnten und des vierten Jahrhunderts", in XVI Internationaler Byzantinistenkongress, Akten I:2, Jahrbuch des oesterreichischen Byzantinistik 31,1 (1981) 473-512.
15. See my discussion of Evagrius in Et introibo ad altare dei: The Mystagogy of Dionysius Areopagita (Thessalonica:1994) 322-340; and, in greater detail, M. O'Laughlin, Origenism in the Desert: Anthropology and Integration in Evagrius Ponticus, MS Phd. (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor:1988) esp. 88-188. The sketch of Evagrius' thought in David Evans' Leontius of Byzantium: An Origenist Christology (Wash.DC:1970) 89-111 may also be consulted with profit.
16. The citation is from I.18.7.3. For other references to the Transfiguration, see I.10.3.1; II.4.13; 8.3; 15.38. For more examples of the contrast between the "now" (nyn) of the light within, and the "then" (tote) of the body's visible glorification, see I.18.6; 24; 28.1; 58.3; II.2.5; 5.7-12; 11.1; 15.38; 34.2; and III.2.1. On the place of the Transfiguration in particularly Eastern Christian thought, see J. A. McGuckin, The Transfiguration of Christ in Scripture and Tradition (Lewiston/Queensland:1986) 99-128, esp. 117-128 on the Gospel episode taken as an illustration of the deification of the flesh, and as an epiphany of the age to come.
17. Macarius certainly makes use of "heart" as equivalent to "inner man", thus see I.3.2; 4.30; 27.2; 39; 54.2-3; II.4.4; 5.4; 8.3; 10.1; 11.9-13; 13.1; 15.8,20,28,33-34; 19.7; 24.2; 26.21-22; 32.3; 43.3 and 7; III.3.2; 20.2; 28.4; Great Letter 6, 22, 34, 40, and 42. Elsewhere, however, he will freely use "inner man", soul, or even intellect (nous) instead of "heart", as in, for example, virtually all his references to the inner temple (naos), church (ekklesia), house (oikos) or dwelling-place (oiketerion) or palace (palation) or throne (thronos) or city (polis) or altar (thysiasterion) or tabernacle (skene) of God: I.3.3; 4.7 (soul); 5.3 (intellect); 7.18 (soul and inner man); 25.1 (soul); 29.2 (soul); 40.1 (soul); II.1.2 (soul); 6.5 (intellect); 12.15 (soul); 27.19 (soul and intellect); 28.1 (soul); 32.5-6 (soul); 33.2 (soul); 37.8-9 (soul); 45.5 (soul); 47.14 (soul); III.6.2 (soul); 19.2 (soul); 21.3 (soul); 25.4 (soul); and 27.6 (soul). Relatedly on the importance of the soul or "inner man", see I.5.2; 18.7 ("inner man" as the image of God); 23.2; 24 (soul as key to the spiritual reading of Scripture); 25.1 (soul as locus of interior warfare); 40.1; 54.2-3; 62 (intellect called to rule over passions); 64; II.28.1; 30; 37.1; 43.7 (the intellect as the "eye of the heart", and cf. II.6.8 for the intellect as "eye of the soul"); 47.2-14; III.18.2; 26.4 and 7 (soul as the image); and 28.2.
18. On the autexousion and its rooting in the image of God, see, e.g., I.41; 42; II.15.23 and 36; 19.1ff.; III.25.2 and 5; and 26.3; and, for comment, Doerries, Theologie 96-100.
19. For the "veil of the passions", II.2.2-3; together with I.2.2-3; 35 (Adam's loss of glory); 50.1 (the "mingling" of the soul with the passions); II.15.25; and III.26.5, together again with Doerries, Theologie 41-58, on this and related imagery.
20. See esp. S. P. Brock, "Clothing Metaphors as a Means of Theological Expression in Syriac Tradition", in M. Schmidt and C.F. Geyer, editors, Typus, Symbol, Allegorie bei den oestlichen Vaetern und ihren Paralleln in Mittelalter (Regensburg:1982) 11-38. For the donning of the luminous robes of the angelic priesthood as an image of transformation in apocalyptic literature, see M. Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (Oxford/NY:1993) 3-4 and 9-46, and C. R. A. Morray-Jones, "Transformational Mysticism in the Apocalyptic-Merkabah Tradition", Journal of Jewish Studies 43 (1992) 1-31, esp. 16-21.
21. For "two ways", "two spirits", "two kingdoms", etc. language in Macarius, see I.18.4; 27.2; 33.3; 34; III.4; and 31.1 and 3. For military language, see I.20.2; 60.2; II.5.5; 11.14; 15.28 and 33; 21; 27.20-23; III.9.4; 23.5 ("holy war"); and esp. I.50.4, with its appeal to Dt.20's call to "holy war", together with R. Murray, "An Exhortation to Candidates for Ascetical Vows at Baptism in the Ancient Syrian Church", New Testament Studies 21 (1974) 59-80 on the antiquity of this appeal, going back to the texts of Qumran.
22. For the "bubbling spring" and related imagery, see I.6.3 (the spring); 25.1 (invisible wounds of soul); 36 (serpent within); 50.1 (mingling of passions with soul); II.2.2-3 (inhabitation of evil); 15.48 (inner spring of evil); 20.4; III.25.11; 26.5 (veiling of soul); and for comment, Doerries, Theologie 63-75.
23. III.26.3; and see M. Canevet, "Macaire", DSp. X:32-33.
24. See, for example, Macarius on the traditional scriptural locus for deification, 2 Pet. 1:4 ("partakers of the divine nature"), in I.1.8; 14.23; 54.5.6; II.25.5; 34.2; 39; 49.9; III.8.2; 18.1; and Doerries, Theologie 316-348. For deification in Ephrem and a comparison with the Alexandrians and Cappadocians, see S.P. Brock, The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Ephrem the Syrian (rev.ed., Kalamazoo:1992) 145-154.
25. For Christ the healer of the soul's wounds and the "hidden passions", see I.2.10; 25.1; 63.3; and II.20.4 and 6. On the importance of Christ as physician in Syrian Christian thought, see R. Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom (Cambridge:1975) 199-203.
26. For a by no means exhaustive sampling of 2 Cor. 3:7-4:6 in Macarius, see I.10.3; 28.2; 48.2; II.5.5; 25.3; III.3.2 and 28.2.
27. III.8.1.
28. See I.2.3 (on Gen.3 as at once historical and psychological); 24 (Israel's history as that of the soul); II.25.7 (the Christian and the Exodus narrative); 28.1 (the soul as Jerusalem despoiled); 42.15 (Passover and Exodus as "mysteries of the soul"); 47.2-13 (again, the soul and Israel's history); III.20.1 (the soul and resurrection); and 24 (soul as tabernacle of David).
29. See esp. II.34.1-2 for Christ as house and tabernacle and city. On the development of the post-biblical term, shekhinah, in the Targumim and early rabbis, see A. M. Goldberg, Untersuchungen ueber die Vorstellung von der Shekhinah in der fruehen rabbinischen Literatur (Berlin:1969), esp. 439-530; and, particularly for the antiquity of the expression, "glory of the Shekhinah", D. Munoz-Leon, Gloria de la Shekina en los Targumim del Penteteuco (Madrid:1977), esp. his conclusions 487-494. The term, shekinto, turns up in Christian writers in Syriac, for example in Ephrem's Paradise Hymns 2.12; 3.1, 6, and 12-13; and 10.12 (identified with the Presence enthroned at the Tree of Life and visible atop Sinai, respectively), and, over a century later, in Jacob of Serug's "On the Chariot that Ezekiel the Prophet Saw", in Mar Jacobi Sarugensis: Homiliae Selectae, ed. P. Bedjan (Paris:1908), vol. IV, 569:19-29; 570:13; and 602:20; and for the related term, yikoro (glory), see 559:13; 571:17; 576:2; 592:5; and 593:13. In each case, Ephrem and Jacob, the terms in question seem primarily identified with Christ. Macarius, I think, stands within this tradition, thus see my remarks on light and glory below.
30. See n.17 above, and my discussion of baptism in Macarius below.
31. A glance at Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon, 1323-1324, should sufice for the widespread use of this term and its relatives in Greek Christian authors.
32. On the need for trials and struggles, see for example I.2.3.7-9; 20.1-2; 62; II.3.4; 5.5; 15.28; 19.1ff (need of "violence"); III.1; 4.3; 5; and 9.1.
33. I.50.4.4.
34. Ibid. 4.6.
35. For Macarius on the equivalence of eros and agape, see II.5.5; 10.4; 15.37; and Great Letter 23; in Gregory Nyssa, e.g., Vita Moysii II.231-232 (SC 1:106-107), and for comment, J. Danielou, Platonisme et theologie mystique (Paris:1944) 201 ff., and Origen's "Prologue"to his commentary on The Song of Songs (tr. Lawson, Ancient Christian Writers 26, pp. 30-38).
36. See thus Macarius on the insatiable (akorestos) yearning (eros), love (agape), or longing (pothos) in I.21; and II.10.1-2, together with the endless appropriation of grace in II.8.6 and continual "stretching" (epekteinesthai) in Great Letter 14. It is difficult not to see in this a reaction to the notion of "satiation" with divinity traditionally ascribed to Origen, and an echo of Gregory of Nyssa's notion of epektasis. For the latter, see P. Deseille, "Epectase", D.Sp. !V:1785-788.
37. For lists or chains of vices and virtues, see I.2.1; 39; II.40.1; and Great Letter 10 and 21.
38. On the Evagrian pedagogy, see Driscoll, The "Ad Monachos" 25-44 and 361-384, and on the sources of the vocabulary through fourth century usage in monastic circles, J. Raasch, "The Monastic Concept of Purity of Heart and its Sources", Studia Monastica 8.1-2 (1966) 7-33 and 183-213, 10.1 (1968) 7-55, 11.2 (1969) 269-314, and 12.1 (1970) 7-41.
39. For the "Messalian" dossier, see M. Kmosko, Liber Graduum, in Patrologia Syriaca III (Paris:1926) clxxii-ccxciii; and for discussion of the lists of errors and evolution of the controversy, Stewart, "Working the Earth" 12-69.
40. The modern literature on Macarius as "Messalian" begins with L. Villecourt, "La date et l'origine des 'Homelies spirituelles' attribuees a Macaire", Comptes rendus du l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (Paris:1920) 250-258, and reaches perhaps its most virulent expression in I. Hausherr's "L'erreur fontamentale et la logique du Messalianisme", OCP 1 (1935) 328-360, where Macarius emerges as a virtual compendium of heresies. For a more recent and balanced discussion, see V. Desprez, "Introduction", SC 275, pp.38-56.
41. On Jewish asceticism in the Second Temple era, see S.P. Fraade, "Ascetical Aspects of Ancient Judaism", in Jewish Spirituality, Vol. I: From the Bible to the Middle Ages, ed. A. Green (NY:1988) 253-288; and for the visionary element in temple worship and apocalyptic, see for example J. Levenson, "The Jerusalem Temple in Devotional and Visionary Experience", ibid. 32-64, and C.R. Rowland, The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (NY:1982), esp. 9-22 and 214-247. On motivations for earliest Christian asceticism, see G. Kretschmar, "Ein Beitrag zur Frage nach dem Ursprung fruehchristlicher Askese", Z.f.Theologie u.Kirche 64 (1961) 27-67, and P. Nagel, Die Motivierung der Askese in der alten Kirche und der Ursprung des Moenchtums (Berlin:1966), esp. 20-74 on eschatological anticipation and the ascetic as pneumatophor. On the Thomas tradition, see A.F.J. Klijn, "Das Thomasevangelium und das altsyrische Christentum", Vigiliae christianae 15 (1961) 146-159; G. Quispel, "The Study of Encratism: A Historical Survey", in La Tradizione dell'Enkrateia, ed. U. Bianchi (Rome:1985) 35-81; A. De Conick, Seek to See Him: Ascent and Vision Mysticism in the Gospel of Thomas (Leiden:1996); and H. Drijvers' "Introduction" to the Acts of Thomas, in New Testament Apocrypha, ed. W. Schneemelcher, tr. R. McL. Wilson (rev.ed., Louisville:1992), Vol. II:322-338, esp. 327-337. On the Liber, see A. Guillaumont, "Situation et signification du 'Liber Graduum' dans la spiritualite syriaque", Orientalia Christiana Analecta 192 (Rome:1974) 311-325. For Aphrahat, see again Murray, "Exhortation", and for early Syrian Christian literature generally and the Holy Spirit, S. P. Brock, Holy Spirit in the Syrian Baptismal Tradition (Poona, India:1979) 37-69, and ibidem, Spirituality in the Syrian Tradition (Kottayam, India:1989) 60-83.
42. Staats, "Messalianerforschungen" 53.
43. Stewart, "Working" 69 and 234-240.
44. For some echoes of this controversy in Macarius, see the citations below from I.17.3 and 52.1-2, together with my discussion. Macarius also clearly takes issue against the exaggerated claims of perfection and dispassion singled out by the bishops' complaints. See his insistence that no one in this life is either perfect or secure in I.39 (conceit is the enemy); 64; II.8.5; 15.8 and 20; 17.5-6; 38.4-5; and III.7-3-4 (vs. pretended spiritual guides). See also his occasional reminders that grace can work hiddenly, i.e., with out conscious perception, in the soul, as in, e.g., I.34 and III.14.2l.
45. Great Letter 1-3, and see Staats, Epistola Magna 23-26 and 63-66.
46. See esp. III.22.1-2.
47. I.1.10.1-2.
48. I.1.10.4-5.
49. I.1.10.5
50. I offer this particularly in response to I. Hausherr's assertions, in "L'erreur fondamentale" 337-338, that Macarius simply identifies grace with the conscious -- and necessarily spectacular -- perception of grace. This not true, as also in n.44 above.
51. For the spiritual senses in Origen, see esp. his Dialogue with Heracleides, in SC 67, pp.78-102, together with K. Rahner, "Le debut d'une doctrine des cinq sens spirituels chez Origene", Revue d'ascetique et de mystique 13 (1934) 113-145, and, for a wider survey of the theme in Greek Christian literature, B. Julien-Fraigneau, Les sens spirituels et la vision de Dieu chez saint Symeon le nouveau theologien (Paris:1985). On the use of aisthesis in Macarius, see Stewart, "Working" 116-138.
52. II.8.3, in Pseudo-Macarius: The Fifty Spiritual Homilies 82.
53. II.8.6, Ibid. 84.
54. See, for example, his insistence that the visitation is foreign, xenon, to our nature and, by implication and occasionally specifically, not a created thing in I.18.6.2 ("foreign" and "eternal light"); 50.1 (the "uncreated [aktiston] Spirit"]; 58.2 (not a product of the intellect, a noema, but phos hypostatikon); II.4.7-8; 6.5-7 ("uncreated crowns"); 24.5-6 ("foreign to our nature"), 26.19 (the same); III.2.1 (same); 22.2 ("divine power and fire"); 25.3 ("light of the Holy Spirit"); and the Great Letter 25-27 (the activity of the Holy Spirit is "supernatural", hyper physin).
55. I.17.1.3.
56. For example, the following from the Tomos of the Holy Mountain, the hesychast manifesto written by Palamas around 1339, "If anyone maintains that the light which shone about the disciples on Mount Tabor was an apparition and a symbol of the kind that now is and now is not, but has no real being..[he].contends against the doctrine of the saints...[who] call this light ineffable, uncreated, eternal, timeless...archtypal and unchanging beauty, the glory of God, the glory of Christ, the glory of the Spirit...", from the translation by K. T. Ware, et alii, The Philokalia (London:1995), Vol.IV:422. Macarius is, in fact, one of the saints Gregory invokes by name earlier on (Ibid. 421) I shall come back to the importance of the term, "glory", in my discussion and n.59 below.
57. I.58.1-2; cf. the shorter catenae in I.17.1; 21; and 29.2
58. For appeals to Moses' encounter with the divine glory on Sinai in Ex. 34 as a type of the Christian, see I.2.3.14; II.12.14; and 47.1; for Ezekiel's chariot, see I.29.1; II.1 ff. (discussed below); and 33.2; and, for a sampling of Macarius' use of the Johannine texts, I.4.7; 18.4; 22.2; 29.1; 35; II.15.38; III.16.4 and 28.2.
59. Beyer, "Lichtlehre" 498ff; and cf. Hausherr, "Les grands courants" 121-124. "Neoplatonist" is one of those words, beloved of some scholars, which is too often used without a great deal of precision and simply attached to phenomena which the writer does not like very much. With regard to most fourth century Christian writers, it really serves more as an epithet than as a useful designation. For "glory" in Macarius, see I.2.1; 10.3; 35; 58.1; II.4.13 (identified with the "unapproachable light" of I Tim. 6:16); 12.8-9 (Adam and Moses clothed with it); 15:38 (citing Jn 17:22-24); 20.2 ("vesture of glory"); 25.3 (to be "participants of divine glory"); 47.1; III.2.1; 3.3; 16.8 ("vesture of glory"); 28.4 (to become "pure temples" with "glory in heart").
60. For kavod in the Hebrew scriptures, see M. Weinfeld, "Kavod" in The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, ed. G.J. Botterwick et alii, tr. D.E. Green (Grand Rapids:1995), Vol.VII:23-38; and, at greater length, T.D.N. Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth: Studies in the Shem and Kabod Traditions (Lund:1982) 80-123. For doxa, G. Kittel, "Doxa", Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Kittel, tr. G.W. Bromily (Grand Rapids:1968), Vol. III:233-253; and for carrying on the trajectory into later Christian literature, P. Deseille, "Gloire de Dieu", D.Sp. VI:421-463. For the visionary importance of this term and these texts in Jewish and Christian thought, see the articles by Levenson and Morray-Jones cited above, n.20, as well as the articles and books by A. Segal, notably Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden:1977) 159-237, Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven:1990) esp. 9-11 and 58-64; C.C. Newman, Paul's Glory Christology (Leiden:1992); and J. Fossum, "Jewish-Christian Christology and Jewish Mysticism", VC 37 (1983) 260-287. This is merely to scrape the surface of a large and growing bibliography.
61. See N. Sed, "La Shekinta" (above, n.12) for Evagrius with regard to the glory theophany on Sinai in Ex. 24:10, and cf. the "Letter 13" of Ammonas, Patrologia Orientalis XI:612-613 for reference to Ezekiel, and "Letter 10", XI:594, citing the Ascension of Isaiah.
62. See John Cassian, Collationes X, in CSEL 13:288-308, for the Anthropomorphite debate in Egypt, together with G. Florovsky, "Theophilus of Alexandria and Apa Aphou of Pemdje", The Collected Works of Fr. Georges Florovsky (Belmont, MA:1975) IV:97-129; Augustine, De Trinitate, Books II-III (Latin in Oeuvres de S. Augustin 15 [Paris:1955] 183-321), and Epistles 147-148 (Obras de San Augustin 11 [Madrid:1972] 41-113); and, for Cyril, Cyril of Alexandria: Select Letters, ed. L.R. Wickham (Oxford:1983), esp. 140-149, 156-157, and 168-171.
63. A. Golitzin, "The Form of God and Vision of the Glory", extant at present only in Rumanian translation, as "Forma lui Dumnezeu si Vederea Slavei: Reflectii asupra Controversei Anthropomorfite din Anul 399 d. Hr.", in Hieromonah Alexander Golitzin, Mistagogia: Experienta lui Dumnezeu in Orthodoxie, tr. I. Ica (Sibiu:1998) 184-267, esp. 232-236.
64. II.1.2 (my translation).
65. On the rabbinical literature of ascent to the divine "palaces" (hekhalot), and its dating to the era of the Talmud, the pioneer of modern studies was Gershom Scholem. See esp. his Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (3rd rev. ed., Jerusalem:1973) 1-79, and Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (2nd.ed., NY:1965). I. Gruenwald traces the continuity from apocalyptic literature in Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism (Leiden:1980) and, although his and Scholem's views on continuity were subsequently challenged by P. Schaefer, "New Testament and Hekhalot Literature: The Journey into Heaven in Paul and Merkavah Mysticism", Journal of Jewish Studies 35 (1984) 19-35, and ibidem, The Hidden and Manifest God: Some Major Themes in Early Jewish Mysticism (NY:1992) which rejects "mysticism" altogether, xi-10, in which he is joined by D. Halperin's resolutely sceptical and literary approach in Faces of the Chariot:Early Jewish Responses to Ezekiel's Vision (Tuebingen:1988) esp. 1-114, Morray-Jones has recently published an impressive response, "Paradise Revisited (2 Cor. 12:1-12): The Jewish Mystical Background of Paul's Apostolate", in Harvard Theological Review 86 (1993) 177-217 and 265-292, seconded with some reservations by A. Goshen-Gottstein, "Four Entered Paradise Revisited", HTR 88 (1995) 69-133. P.J. Alexander's "Comparing Merkavah Mysticism and Gnosticism", JJR 35 (1984) 1-18, provided useful models for persuing the trajectory of apocalyptic ascent to heaven from the Second Temple era through Gnosticism, on the one hand, and simultaneous rabbinical developments leading to the hekhalot texts, on the other. For the texts themselves and critical comment, see Schaefer, Synopse zur Hekhalot Literatur (Tuebingen:1981). On their precedents in the literature of Qumran, see C. Newson, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition (Atlanta:1985), esp. 39-72, and more recently the articles by J. Baumgarten, "The Qumran Sabbath Shirot and the Rabbinic Merkabah Tradition", Revue de Qumran 13 (1988) 199-213, and D. Diamant and J. Strugnell, "The Merkabah Vision in Second Ezekiel (4Q 385 4)", RQ 14 (1990) 331-348, esp. 344-48 suggesting a wider interest in the "Chariot" than simply among the Qumran sectaries. Thus see also the studies by Rowland et alii cited above, nn.40 and 60. For striking echoes in Macarius of the imagery of the heavenly realm found often in apocalyptic and the hekhalot texts, see esp. I.33.3; II.14.4-5 (the "bright land" of divinity and "creatures of fire"); and III.13.2 where the "palaces" and "camps" of the angels in the heavens are held out as present possibilities within the soul.
66. We would have none of the OT Pseudepigrapha today were it not for Greek, Coptic, Syrian, Ethiopian, Armenian, and even Latin monks. On the continued interest in these materials, see most recently R.A. Kraft, "The Pseudepigra in Christianity", in J.C. Reeves, ed., Tracing the Threads: Studies in the Vitality of Jewish Pseudepigrapha (Atlanta:1994) 55-86. Reeves has himself written a valuable study on the impact of the visionary aspect of this literature on Mani and early Manichaeanism, Heralds of that Good Realm: Syro-Mesopotamian Gnosis and Jewish Traditions (Leiden:1996), esp. 5-30, a movement which we note was certainly active in the regions where Macarius lived and wrote.
67. From D. Brakke's translation of the Coptic version of the letter, in Brakke's Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism (Oxford:1995) 330-332.
68. See On the Chariot in Bedjan, Homiliae IV, esp. Jacob's emphatic warning that it is not for his listeners to ascend the chariot on high, "else you sin in your seeking!", in 605:16-606:6, and his insistence a little earlier that "there is no chariot either to ascend to or to seek out" (601:1), since, as he argues earlier, the merkabah is not God's secret home, but a condescension to the needs of the angels (569:16 - 572:8). For Christians, however, the Church's altar offers the same presence and a greater: they are to "hold Him fast in the hollows of their hands" Whom the cherubim carry on their backs with trembling (609:13-14). On Dionysius' focus on the altar and liturgy, see A. Golitzin, "Hierarchy vs. Anarchy? Dionysius Areopagita, Symeon New Theologian, Nicetas Stethatos and their Common Roots in Ascetical Tradition", St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 38 (1994) 131-179, esp. 142-152; and ibidem, Et Introibo 222-230.
69. Scholem, Major Trends 79.
70. Sed, "La Shekinta" 240-242, and for Macarius see above, nn.17 and 65.
71. See, for example, P.S. Alexander's translation of 3 Enoch 19-26, a later hekhalot text, in Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (NY:1985), Vol.II:275-281 for the hayyot and their "princes".
72. II.1.2.
73. For a like combination of Ezekiel and the Phaedrus, see II.2.3 and 9; and 33.2. For the Phaedrus taken straight, as it were, with the nous as charioteer, II.40.5. St. Symeon New Theologian will take up precisely this combination of Ezekiel and Plato, together with the related imagery of the Byzantine offertory hymn, the cherubikon, at the conclusion of his third Ethical Discourse. See St. Symeon the New Theologian, On the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses, tr. A. Golitzin (NY:1995) Vol.I:137-138 and 138, n.5.
74. See again II.8.6, and the now/then distinctions in n.16 above.
75. On the believer as "temple of God", see again n.17 above.
76. I.7.18.3. For the importance of the "bridechamber" and bridal imagery in early Syrian Christianity, see Murray, Symbols 131-142.
77. II.15.45.
78. II.44.3.
79. II.44.4
80. II.44.1 and also 2. For a like use of metaballo/metabole, see I.21.11; 26; 52.1; 63; III.18.2; 22.2; and 25.5. On the term's association with the eucharistic change from the time of Justin Martyr, see Lampe, Patristic Greek Lexicon 848 and 850.
81. See again Lampe 1302-1303.
82. I.4.7.1, and see also II.24.2; 31.1-2; and 33.1-2.
83. II.21.5; and cf. 37.8.9 and III.27.6.
84. Kmosko, PO III:285-304, ET in S. Brock, The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life (Kalamazoo:1987) 45-53, and 294 (ET:49) for the "three churches" of heaven, the visible assembly, and the heart. On this coordination of liturgy, heaven, and heart in Syrian Christian writers, see Murray, Symbols 262-276, on its presence in Macarius and the Liber; Stewart, "Working" 218-221; Golitzin, Et Introibo, 371-384; and on Macarius, Doerries, Theologie 367-434. Relatedly, see also S.P. Brock, "Fire from Heaven: From Abel's Sacrifice to the Eucharist. A Theme in Syrian Christianity", Studia Patristica XXV, 229-243 (esp.239ff.); ibidem, "Prayer of the Heart in the Syriac Tradition", Sobornost 4:2 (1982) 131-142; and ibidem, "The Priesthood of the Baptized: Some Syriac Perspectives", Sobornost/Eastern Churches Review 9 (1987) 14-22. See also V. Desprez, "Le bapteme chez le Pseudo-Macaire", Ecclesia Orans V (1988) 121-155, esp. 125-130.
85. On Ephrem's Paradise Hymns, see Brock's "Introduction" to his translation, Hymns on Paradise (NY:1990) 7-75, esp. 39-74 and the chart of parallels on p.53; and Golitzin, Et Introibo 368-371.
86. Acts of Thomas 92, ET in Schneemelcher, NT Apocrypha II:375.
87. For references in Aphrahat, see Brock, "Fire from Heaven" and "Prayer of the Heart".
88. See Philo, de somnis II:215, on the two temples of the universe and the inner man typified by the worship of the Jerusalem Temple; Clement, Stromateis VII.13.82.2-5, citing I Cor.6:19 on the "Christian gnostic" as temple paralleling the Church; and for Origen, see Comm.in Mt, PG 16:161BC, and Fragments on I Cor., cited by P. Brown, The Body and Society (Oxford/NY:1988) 175, respectively on the "true bishop" as the spiritual man and the virgin as "priest" within the temple of her heart.
89. See Ignatius, Romans 4 and 7; on Polycarp's martyrdom, the Letter of the Smyrneans 14-15, and for discussion, A. Golitzin, Et introibo 245-247. On the Jewish origins of the theology of martyrdom, W.H.C. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (Garden City, NJ:1967) 22-57.
90. See S.A. Harvey, "The Edessan Martyrs and Ascetic Tradition", V Symposium Syriacum, ed. R. Lavenant (Roma:1990) 195-206, esp. 196-201. Relatedly to this theme and n.89, the transfigured body, see also Harvey's remarkable article on Symeon Stylites, "The Sense of a Stylite: Perspectives on Symeon the Elder", VC 42 (1988) 376-394, esp. 381-386.
91. See K. Holl, Enthusiasmus und Bussgewalt beim griechischen Moenchtum: Eine Studie zum Symeon dem neuen Theologen (Leipzig:1898), which is largely devoted to this theme, together with the references in n.9 above.
92. Desprez, "Bapteme", esp. 131-154.
93. Ibid. 140-145; relatedly, see A. Guillaumont, "Les 'Arrhes de l'Esprit' dans le Livre des Degres", In Memorian Msgr. Gabriel Khouri-Sarkis (Louvain:1969) 107-113.
94. Ibid. 135-7 and145, citing Macarius, I.43, and noting parallel expressions in Gregory Nyssa, Basil the Great, and others.
95. Ibid. 153-154, and see also esp. K.T. Ware, "The Sacrament of Baptism and the Ascetic Life in the Teaching of Mark the Monk", Studia Patristica 10 (1970) 441-452.
96. I.22.1.7-8.
97. II.27.17.
98. See n.84 above for the scholarly discussion of this homiliy.
99. I.52.1.1.
100. I.52.1.3.
101. I.52.2.1.
102. I.52.2.2-8.
103. See, for example, Rev 4-5 and Heb. 12, and recall the Qumran Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice cited above, n.65. This is not, to be sure, an issue without debate. On the one hand, see P. Prigent, Apocalypse et liturgie (Neuchatel:1964) 14-68, and E. Petersen, The Angels and the Liturgy, tr. Walls (1964), and, on the other, E. Schuessler-Fiorenza, "Cultic Language in Qumran and in the New Testament", Catholic Biblical Quarterly 38 (1976) 159-177.
104. See the criticisms of Macarius in this regard summarized by Desprez, "Bapteme" 123-124, and, more generally and with application to Eastern Orthodox critics of "platonizing" the liturgy, the argument and the many references cited in P. Vassiliades, "Eucharisic and Therapeutic Spirituality", Greek Orthodox Theological Reveiw 42 (1997) 1-23.
105. On Athanasius, see again Brakke, Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism, and for Basil, Gribomont, "Monachisme au sein de l'Eglise", together with, more recently, P. Rousseau, Basil of Caesarea (Berkeley:1994), esp. 190-232.
106. See the references in n.84 above.
107. For a sketch of this trajectory, see Golitzin, Et introibo 402-413, and 219-230 for Dionysius in particular. On Maximus in this regard, see A. Louth, The Wisdom of the Byzantine Church: Evagrius of Pontus and Maximus the Confessor, ed. J. Raitt (U. of Missouri:1998) esp. 34-43; and R. Bornert, Les commentaires byzantins de la divine liturgie du VIIe au XVe siecle (Paris:1966) 83-104. For Symeon, see A. Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, Vol.III:156-173; and for Gregory of Sinai, M. Van Parys, "La liturgie du coeur chez S. Gregoire le Sinaite", Irenikon 51 (1978) 312-337 (though without reference to either Dionysius or to Symeon).
108. See A.C. Outler, "Preface", and F. Whaling, "Introduction", to the Paulist Press edition, John and Charles Wesley: Selected Writings (NY:1981) xiv-xvi and 12-13, respectively.
Andrei A. Orlov

Vested with Adam's Glory: Moses as the Luminous Counterpart of Adam in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Macarian Homilies
[forthcoming in: "Mémorial Annie Jaubert (1912—1980)" Xristianskij Vostok 4.10 (2002). This paper requires the fonts UT Greek Acient Bodoni and UT Hebrew Frankruhl]

Two Luminaries
In the group of the Dead Sea Scrolls fragments known under the title the Words of the Luminaries (4Q504),[1] the following passage about the glory of Adam in the Garden of Eden can be found:

... [ ... Adam,] our [fat]her, you fashioned in the image of [your] glory ([™ë] ©S<ë úSî©< ™úøöé) [...] [... the breath of life] you [b]lew into his nostril, and intelligence and knowledge [...] [... in the gard]en of Eden, which you had planted. You made [him] govern [...] [...] and so that he would walk in a glorious land... [...] [...] he kept. And you imposed on him not to tu[rn away...] [...] he is flesh, and to dust [...] ...[2]
Later in 4Q504, this tradition about Adam's former glory follows with a reference to the luminosity bestowed on another human body--the glorious face of Moses at his encounter with the Lord at Sinai:

... [...Re]member, please, that all of us are your people. You have lifted us wonderfully [upon the wings of] eagles and you have brought us to you. And like the eagle which watches its nest, circles [over its chicks,] stretches its wings, takes one and carries it upon [its pinions] [...] we remain aloof and one does not count us among the nations. And [...] [...] You are in our midst, in the column of fire and in the cloud [...] [...] your [hol]y [...] walks in front of us, and your glory is in [our] midst ([S]ëSú< ™ë©S<ëS) [...] [...] the face of Moses (™ùSî éô), [your] serv[ant]...[3]

Two details are intriguing in these descriptions. First, the author of 4Q504 appears to be familiar with the lore about the glorious garments of Adam, the tradition according to which first humans had luminous attires in Eden before their transgression.
Second, the author seems to draw parallels between the glory of Adam and the glory of Moses' face.[4] The luminous face of the prophet might represent in this text an alternative to the lost luminosity of Adam and serve as a new symbol of God's glory once again manifested in the human body. It appears, therefore, that in 4Q504, traditions about Adam's glory and Moses' glory are creatively juxtaposed with each other. Unfortunately, the fragmentary character of the Qumran document does not allow to grasp the full scope and intentions of the author(s) of 4Q504 in making such juxtapostion. To understand this juxtapostion better, research must proceed to other sources where the association between the glory of Adam and Moses was made more explicit. One of such sources includes the Macarian Homilies, where the author vividly accentuates this association. However, before our research proceeds to a detailed analysis of the Adam/Moses connection in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Macarian homilies, a short introduction to the Jewish, Samaritan, and Christian materials about the glorious garments of Adam and the glorious face of Moses is needed.

The Background: The Garments of Light

The Biblical passages found in Gen 1:26-27 and Gen 3:21 represent two pivotal starting points for the subsequent Jewish and Christian reflections on the glorious garments of Adam and Eve. Gen 1:26 describes the creation of human being(s) after the likeness (úSî©) of the image (íìö) of God. It is noteworthy that Gen 1:26-27 refers to the íìö (tselem) of Adam, the luminous image of God's glory according to which Adam was created.[5] The particular interest in Gen 1:26 is that Adam's tselem was created after God's own tselem (Sîìö<) (literally "in our tselem"), being a luminous "imitation" of the glorious tselem of God. Some scholars argue that the likeness that Adam and God shared was not physicality--in the usual sense of having a body--but rather luminescence.[6]
The Tarqums, the Aramaic renderings of the Hebrew Bible, also attest to the prelapsarian luminosity of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The Biblical background for such traditions includes the passage from Gen 3:21, where "the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skin and clothed them." The Targumic traditions, both Palestinian[7] and Babylonian,[8] read, instead of "garments of skin," "garments of glory." This Targumic interpretation is reinforced by Rabbinic sources. One of them can be found in Genesis Rabbah 20:12, which tells that the scroll of Rabbi Meir reads "garments of light" (øS? úSúë) instead of "garments of skin" (øS? úSúë): "In R. Meir's Torah it was found written, 'Garments of light: this refers to Adam's garments, which were like a torch [shedding radiance], broad at the bottom and narrow at the top.'"[9]
It is usually understood that Gen 3:21 refers to God's clothing Adam and Eve's nakedness after the Fall. S. Brock, however, argues that sufficient evidence exist to suggest that there also was another way of understanding the time reference of Gen 3:21. According to this alternative understanding the verbs are to be taken as pluperfects, referring to the status of Adam and Eve at their creation before the Fall.[10]
It is noteworthy that in the later Jewish and Samaritan sources, the story about Adam's luminous garments is often mentioned in conjunction with Moses' story. In these materials, Moses is often depicted as a luminous counterpart of Adam.
Jarl Fossum and April De Conick successfully demonstrated the importance of the Samaritan materials for understanding the connection between the "glories" of Adam and Moses. The Samaritan texts insist that when Moses ascended to Mount Sinai, he received the image of God which Adam cast off in the Garden of Eden.[11] According to Memar Marqa, Moses was endowed with the identical glorious body as Adam.[12] Memar Marqa 5.4 tells that:
He [Moses] was vested with the form which Adam cast off in the Garden of Eden; and his face shone up to the day of his death.[13]

The Adam/Moses connection also looms large in the Rabbinic sources. Alon Goshen Gottstein stresses that "the luminescent quality of the image (tselem) is the basis for comparison between Moses and Adam in several rabbinical materials."[14]
Deuteronomy Rabbah 11.3 offers important witness to the Adam/Moses conection. It includes the following passage in which two "luminaries" argue whose glory is the greatest:
Adam said to Moses: "I am greater than you because I have been created in the image of God." Whence this? For it is said, "and God created man in his own image" (Gen. 1,27). Moses replied to him: "I am far superior to you, for the honor which was given to you has been taken away from you, as it is said: but man (Adam) abideth not in honor, (Ps. XLIX, 13) but as for me, the radiant countenance which God gave me still remains with me." Whence? For it is said: "his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated" (Deut. 34,7).[15]

Goshen Gottstein draws attention to another significant midrashic passage from Midrash Tadshe 4, in which Moses poses Adam's luminous counterpart. The tradition tells that
...in the likeness of the creation of the world the Holy One blessed be he performed miracles for Israel when they came out of Egypt... In the beginning: "and God created man in his image," and in the desert: "and Moshe knew not that the skin of his face shone."[16]

It is also remarkable that later Rabbinic materials often speak of the luminosity of Adam's face,[17] the feature that might point to the influence of the Adam-Moses connection. Thus, as an example, in Leviticus Rabbah 20.2, the following passage can be found:
Resh Lakish, in the name of R. Simeon the son of Menasya, said: The apple of Adam's heel outshone the globe of the sun; how much more so the brightness of his face! Nor need you wonder. In the ordinary way if a person makes salvers, one for himself and one for his household, whose will he make more beautiful? Not his own? Similarly, Adam was created for the service of the Holy One, blessed be He, and the globe of the sun for the service of mankind.[18]

Genesis Rabbah 11 also focuses, not on Adam's luminous garments, but rather on his glorious face:
Adam's glory did not abide the night with him. What is the proof? But Adam passeth not the night in glory (Ps. XLIX, 13). The Rabbis maintain: His glory abode with him, but at the termination of the Sabbath He deprived him of his splendor and expelled him from the Garden of Eden, as it is written, Thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away (Job XIV, 20).[19]

Despite the importance of these late Rabbinic passages linking the luminosity of Adam's body and Moses' face, the chronological boundaries of these evidences are difficult to establish. Rabbinic attestations to the Adam/Moses connection are also very succinct and sometimes lack any systematic development.
Much more extensive expositions of the traditions about Moses as the heavenly counterpart of Adam can be found in the writings of the fourth century Christian author, the Syrian father, known to us as Pseudo-Macarius.

Adam and Moses in the Macarian Homilies
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of Adam/Moses "glory" typologies for the theological enterprise of the Macarian Homilies.[20] The symbolism of the divine light seems to stay at the center of the theological world of the Syrian father.[21] Adam's luminosity in the Garden and Christ's luminosity at Mount Tabor serve for Pseudo-Macarius as important landmarks of the eschatological Urzeit and Endzeit. In dealing with these stories of the fall and the restoration of the divine light in human nature, Macarian writings also employ another important traditional symbol of the manifestation of the divine glory in humans--Moses' luminous face. In his employment of the Adam/Moses connection, the author of the Macarian Homilies reveals profound knowledge of the Jewish and Christian esoteric traditions about the glorious manifestations of Adam and Moses.
The story of Adam serves for the homilist as the starting point of his theology of the divine light. Thus, from the homily II.12[22] the reader learns that "Adam, when he transgressed the commandment, lost two things. First, he lost the pure possession of his nature, so lovely, created according to the image and likeness of God (ê<ô? S?êüí< ê<? ?ìï?ù(éí ôï ?Sï ). Second, he lost the very image itself (<ô?í ô?í S?êüí<) in which was laid up for him, according to God's promise, the full heavenly inheritance"(II.12.1).[23] Further, another important passage in the same homily informs the reader that Adam and Eve before the Fall were clothed (dí™S™)ì?íïé) with God's glory in place of clothing (II.12.8).[24] The homily shows a certain continuity between Adam's "very image itself" and his glorious clothing. An important detail in the narrative is that the homilist makes a distinction between Adam's nature, created after the image and likeness of God, and Adam's "very image itself;" he speaks of them as of two separate entities which were lost during the Fall. This subtle theological distinction shows the author's familiarity with the Jewish aggadic traditions about the tselem of Adam--the luminous image of God's glory according to which the first human being was created. The Macarian association of Adam's garments and his creation after the luminous image of God points us again to the Qumran passage from 4Q504, where Adam is depicted as the one who was "fashioned" in the image of God's glory. It should be noted that besides this reference to "image," both texts entertain several other parallels that reveal similarities between the Adamic story in the Macarian Homilies and the Adamic traditions at Qumran.
First, the Qumran Adamic account in 4Q504 8 is distinctive in that it connects Adam's glorious state[25] with his ability to exercise dominion[26] over the rest of creation. 4Q504 8 reads:
... [ ... Adam,] our [fat]her, you fashioned in the image of [your] glory ...You made [him] govern [...] [...] and so that he would walk in a glorious land...[27]

Macarian writings also employ the same juxtaposition by linking Adam's glory with his capacity to exercise power over the created order by giving names to various things.[28] The Homily II.12.6 tells that:
...As long as the Word of God was with him, he [Adam] possessed everything. For the Word himself was his inheritance, his covering, and a glory that was his defense (Is 4:5). He was his teaching. For he taught him how to give names to all things: "Give this name of heaven, that the sun; this the moon; that earth; this a bird; that a beast; that a tree." As he was instructed, so he named them.[29]

A second important detail that connects the Adamic tradition at Qumran with Macarian writings is that the luminous image (tselem) of Adam in the Macarian Homilies is termed as "the full heavenly inheritance."[30] In II.12.1, it is also associated with a very valuable estate:
...he lost the very image itself in which was laid up for him, according to God's promise, the full heavenly inheritance (êëç>ïíïì?<). Take the example of a coin bearing the image of the king. If it were mixed with a false alloy and lost its gold content, the image also would lose its value. Such, indeed, happened to Adam. A very great richness and inheritance was prepared for him. It was as though there were a large estate and it possessed many sources of income. It had a fruitful vineyard; there were fertile fields, flocks, gold and silver. Such was the vessel of Adam before his disobedience like a very valuable estate.[31]

The terminology found in this Macarian passage seems allude to the Qumran Adamic materials, which also refer to Adam's "inheritance." Thus, the Qumran Pesher on Psalms (4Q171) contains a reference to the inheritance of Adam (í©? úìç) which the Israelites will have in the future:

...those who have returned from the wilderness, who will live for a thousand generations, in salva[tio]n; for them there is all the inheritance of Adam (í©? úìç), and for their descendants for ever...[32]

In previous studies, scholars[33] noted that this passage from 4Q171 seems to refer to an eschatological period characterized in part by a reversal of the Adamic curse and the restoration of the glory[34] of Adam.[35]
It is important to note that the Macarian passage links the inheritance with the large estate which includes a vineyard. The reference to the vineyard is intriguing since in 4Q171 the term, the "inheritance" of Adam, is closely associated with the Temple[36] and the Temple mountain.[37]
The foregoing analysis shows that the theme of Adam's heavenly garments plays an important role in the theological universe of the Macarian Homilies. The homilist, however, does not follow blindly these ancient traditions, but, incorporates them into the fabric of the Christian story. The Adamic narrative, therefore, represents an essential part of the Macarian "glory" Christology, where the lost luminous garment of the First Adam has to be restored by the glory of the Second Adam, Christ. The Second Adam thus must put on the body of the first Adam in order to restore the lost clothes of the divine light, which now has to be acquired by the believers at their resurrection.
However, in Macarian writings this "glory" Christology is not simply confined to the Adam-Christ dichotomy but includes a third important element, namely, the story of Moses, whose glorious face serves as the prototype for the future glory of Christ at the Transfiguration.[38] The radiance of the patriarch's face remains in the Macarian Homilies to be the mediator between the former glory of Adam lost in the Paradise and the future glory of Christ, which will eventually be manifested in the resurrected bodies of the saints. Thus, in the Homily II.5.10-11, Macarius tells about the Moses glorious face as the prototype of the future glory:
...For the blessed Moses provided us with a certain type (ôí ôýïí) through the glory of the Spirit which covered his countenance upon which no one could look with steadfast gaze. This type anticipates how in the resurrection of the just the body of the saints will be glorified with a glory which even now the souls of the saintly and faithful people are deemed worthy to possess within, in the indwelling of the inner man...[39]

In his presentation of the shining appearance of Moses, the homilist, however, makes a clear distinction between the glory of Moses at Sinai and the glory of Christ at the Transfiguration. Moses' glory is only a "prototype" of God's "true" glory. Macarius' understanding of Moses' glory as the prototype (ôýï?) or the figure of the "true glory" is observable, for example, in the Homily II.47.1:
...The glory of Moses which he received on his countenance was a figure of the true glory (ôýï? í ô?? ?ëçèéí?? ™üîç?). Just as the Jews were unable "to look steadfastly upon the face of Moses" (2 Cor 3:7), so now Christians receive that glory of light in their souls, and the darkness, not bearing the splendor of the light, is blinded and is put to fight.[40]

Another feature of Moses' glorification is that Moses' luminous face was only "covered" with God's glory in the same way as the luminous garments covered the body of the first humans. According to Macarius, Moses' luminosity was not able to penetrate human nature and remove the inner garments of darkness bestowed by the devil on the human heart.[41] In II.32.4, the Syrian father affirms that:
...Moses, having been clothed in the flesh, was unable to enter into the heart and take away the sordid garments of darkness.[42]

For Macarius, only the glory of Christ is able to remove the attire of darkness and "heal" the human heart. It is, therefore, observable that for the Syrian father the glory of Moses shows a greater typological affinity to the glory of Adam[43] then to the glory of Christ.
A decisive feature of the Macarian Homilies is that the homilist often emphasizes the connection between the luminosity of Adam's heavenly attire lost in the Paradise and the luminosity of Moses' face acquired on Mount Sinai. In the Macarian Homilies, the motif of Moses' glorious face seems to serve as a sign of the partial restoration of the former glory of Adam,[44] the glorious garment of light in which Adam and Eve were clothed in the Garden of Eden before their transgression. Moses’ glorious face is, therefore, viewed by the homilist as the counterpart of the glorious garment of Adam. The conflation of the two "glories," lost and acquired, is observable, for instance, in the Homily II.12. After the already mentioned Adamic narrative of Homily II.12, which tells how Adam lost his luminous status and "obeyed his darker side," Macarius sets before the reader the example of Moses as the one who "had a glory shining on his countenance."[45]

The Healing Motif
The employment of Adam/Moses connection in the Qumran materials does not seem to be confined solely to 4Q504. There is another important document which appears to entertain a similar connection. In the Qumran fragment 4Q374, also known as the Discourse on the Exodus/Conquest Tradition,[46] the portentous clause can be found which connects Moses' shining countenance[47] at the Sinai encounter[48] with the motif of healing. The passage unveils the following tradition: “[But] he (Moses) had pity with [...] and when he let his face shine for them for healing (?ôøîì), they strengthened [their] hearts again....”[49]
In this passage, as in 4Q504, God's glory is described to be manifested through Moses' shining face. It appears that the passage is related to the ongoing discussion about the luminosity of Moses and Adam. Here again, as in the case of 4Q504, the evidence found in the Macarian Homilies helps to clarify the possible connection.
The Homily II.20 describes Christ as the true physician of human nature who can heal the human soul and adorn it with the garments of his grace. It is evident that the theme of healing is interwoven in the homily with the motif of the luminous garments. In unfolding this theme, the homilist, first, retells the Gospel story about the woman who was cured of the blood flow by touching of the garment of the Lord, and connects the motif of healing with the theme of the garments:

... and again just as the woman afflicted with an issue of blood believed truly and touched the hem of the garment of the Lord and immediately received a healing and the flow of the unclean fountain of blood dried up...[50]

Following the story of the healed woman, Macarius proceeds to the examples of Adam and Moses. It is not a coincidence that in this homily, as in 4Q504, Moses' name is mentioned in connection with the theme of healing. From the homily II.20.6, we learn that “indeed, Moses came, but he was unable to bring a perfect healing (?ëë? ïê ?™)í?èç ?<(éí <íôSë? ™ï í<é).”[51] The conflation of Moses' figure with the healing motif in the Macarian Homilies is intriguing since it might indicate that the author of the Homilies draws on the traditions similar to those that can be found in 4Q374.[52]
The affinities between the healing motif found in the Macarian Homilies and in 4Q374 include another important feature. Both texts interpret healing to be the healing of the human heart. The Qumran material speaks that after the healing through Moses' shining countenance the hearts of the Israelites were “strengthened” again.[53]
The Homily II.20.7 also links the motif of healing with the theme of the curing (or cleansing) of the human heart. It tells that “man could be healed only by the help of this medicine and thus could attain life by a cleansing of his heart by the Holy Spirit.”[54]
It seems that in both excerpts (4Q374 and Macarian), the luminosity of Moses' face plays an important role. Although the Macarian passage does not directly refer to the shining face of Moses, the context of the passage, which deals with the garments of the Lord, indicates that in the Macarian Homilies the motif of "healing" is understood as the restoration of the former Adamic glory, the glorious garments with which the first humans were clothed in Eden before their transgression. The author of the Homilies seems to view Moses' shining face as an important step in the process of the recovery of the former divine glory once manifested in humans during their life in Paradise. According to the homilist, the glory would be restored in humanity only later, in the event of the incarnation of Christ, which brings "perfect healing" to the wretched human nature. In this context, Moses' shining face appears to be an important, even if not a "final," step in the process of healing of human nature.[55]
An additional detail that connects Moses with Adam is that the homilist understands Adam’s deprivation of the luminosity as the wound which requires healing.[56] In II.20.1 and 20. 4-5, Macarius links the loss of the external luminous attire by Adam with the internal wound. The homilist tells that the human being who...

...is naked and lacks the divine and heavenly garment...is covered with the great shame of evil affections... since ... the enemy, when Adam fell, used such cunning and diligence that he wounded and darkened the interior man... man was, therefore, so wounded that no one else could cure him...[57]

Despite the extensive "usage" of the Moses typology in the Macarian discussion of the Adamic "wound," the whole purpose of this empoyment remains Christological. Here again Macarius uses Mosaic traditions as the mediative tool for his glory Christology.
The Homily II.20 recounts that Moses' “healing” was incomplete in comparison with the healing of Christ, since it was "external" and unable to heal the inner wound inflicted by Satan at the Fall. In II.32.4, Macarius sums up the Mosaic argument by telling that:

...Moses, having been clothed in the flesh, was unable to enter into the heart and take away the sordid garments of darkness.[58]

Although Macarius tries to diminish the significance of Moses' shining face in the process of healing the human heart, he still seems to draw heavily on the Jewish traditions similar to 4Q374, where Moses is depicted as the healer of the darkened human nature.[59]

Conclusion
It should be noted in conclusion that the examination of the Adam-Moses connection in the Macarian Homilies and in the Qumran fragments might be mutually beneficial for a better understanding of both textual corpora.
First, the evidences to Adamic and Mosaic accounts found in the Macarian writings can extend the possible scope of the traditions which were preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls materials in a very fragmentary form. In the light of the Macarian evidence, which provided an additional context for such traditions, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the passage from 4Q374 might speak about the healing power of Moses’ glorious face as healing the “wound” of Adam in the weak human nature. Therefore, in 4Q374, as well as in 4Q504, one might encounter a very early tradition depicting Moses as the glorious counterpart of Adam, the theme that later became a famous leitmotif in numerous Jewish and Christian materials. Despite that the Qumran passage about the healing in 4Q374 lacks any reference to Adam or to his glorious garments, its close affinities with the later Macarian evidence, where such connections are explicitly made, seem to clarify the proper meaning of the Qumran reference.
Second, it is also evident that both 4Q504 and 4Q374 can provide further insights for the background of the Adamic and Mosaic traditions in the Macarian Homilies. Despite their fragmentary character, these Qumran evidences about Adam and Moses help one see that the Macarian employment of the Mosaic traditions has in fact a strong polemical nature. The Syrian father seems to try to diminish the significance of Moses' "glorification" in the process of "healing" human nature, depicting it as the external covering unable to heal the inner wound caused by the Adamic transgression. However, the testimony to the Mosaic tradition found in 4Q374 demonstrates that the emphasis on the internal character of the healing was already made at Qumran, where Moses' luminosity was depicted to be potent to heal the human heart.

 

[1] On the Words of Luminaries, see: M. Baillet, Un receuil liturgique de Qumrân, grotte 4; 'Les Paroles des Luminaries' // Revue biblique 67 (1961) 195-250; IDEM, Remarques sur l'édition des Paroles des Luminaires // RevQ 5 (1964) 23-42; IDEM, Qumran Grotte 4 III (4Q482-520) (DJD, 7; Oxford, 1982); E. Glickler Chazon, "Words of the Luminaries" (4QDibHam): A Liturgical Document from Qumran and Its Implications (Ph.D. dissertation, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1991); IDEM, 4QDibHam: Liturgy or Literature? // RevQ 15 (1991-2) 447-55; IDEM, 'Dibre Hammêorot'; Prayer for the Sixth Day (4Q504 1-2 v-vi) // Prayer from Alexander to Constantine: A Critical Anthology (eds. M. Kiley et al.; London, 1997) 23-27; C.A. Evans, Aspect of Exile and Restoration in the Proclamation of Jesus and the Gospels // Exile: Old Testament, Jewish and Christian Concepts (ed. J.M. Scott; Leiden, 1997) (JSJSup., 56) 308-09; D. Falk, Daily, Sabbath, and Festival Prayers in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden, 1988) (STDJ, 27) 59-94; F. García Martínez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (2 vols.; Leiden-New York-Köln, 1997) 2.1008-1019; K.G. Kuhn, Nachträge zur Konkordanz zu den Qumrantexten // RevQ 4 (1963) 163-234; B. Nitzan, Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry (Leiden, 1994) (STDJ, 12); D.T. Olson, Words of the Lights (4Q504-4Q506) // The Dead Sea Scrolls. Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translation. Vol. 4A: Pseudepigraphic and Non-Masoretic Psalms and Prayers (eds. J.H. Charlesworth and H.W.L. Rietz; Tübingen/Louisville, KY, 1997) 107-53; É. Puech, La Croyance des Esséniens en la Vie Future (2 vols.; Paris, 1993) 2.563-568.
[2] F. García Martínez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (2 vols.; Leiden; New York; Köln, 1997) 2.1008-1009.
[3] F. García Martínez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, 2.1008-1009.
[4] On Moses traditions, see: R. Bloch, Die Gestalt des Moses in der rabbinischen Tradition // Moses in Schrift und Überlieferung (Düsseldorf, 1963) 95-171; G.W. Coats, Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God (Sheffield, 1988) (JSOTSup., 57); Death, Ecstasy, and Other Worldly Journeys (eds. J.J. Collins, M. Fishbane; Albany, 1995); C. N. T. Fletcher-Louis, Luke-Acts: Angels, Christology and Soteriology (Tübingen, 1997); J. Fossum, The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord: Samaritan and Jewish Concepts of Intermediation and the Origin of Gnosticism (Tübingen, 1985) 90-94; IDEM, The Image of the Invisible God (Göttingen, 1995) (Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus, 30); S.J. Hafemann, Moses in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha: A Survey // Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 7 (1990) 79-104; P.W. van der Horst, Moses' Throne Vision in Ezekiel the Dramatist // Journal of Jewish Studies 34 (1983) 21-29; H. Jacobsen, The Exagoge of Ezekiel (Cambridge, 1983); W.A. Meeks, Moses as God and King // Religions in Antiquity: Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough (ed. Jacob Neusner; Leiden, 1968); IDEM, The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology (Leiden, 1967); A. Orlov, Ex 33 on God's Face: A Lesson from the Enochic Tradition // Seminar Papers 39, Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting 2000 (Atlanta, 2000) 130-147; A. Schalit, Untersuchungen zur Assumptio Mosis (Leiden, 1989); J.P. Schultz, Angelic Opposition to the Ascension of Moses and the Revelation of the Law // Jewish Quarterly Review 61 (1970-71) 282-307; J. Tromp, The Assumption of Moses: A Critical Edition with Commentary (Leiden, 1993).
[5] For discussions about the luminous garment/image/body of Adam, see: David H. Aaron, Shedding Light on God's Body in Rabbinic Midrashim: Reflections on the Theory of a Luminous Adam // Harvard Theological Review 90 (1997) 299-314; S. Brock, Clothing Metaphors as a Means of Theological Expression in Syriac Tradition // Typus, Symbol, Allegorie bei den östlichen Vätern und ihren Parallelen im Mittelalter (Regensburg, 1982) (Eichstätter Beiträge 4) 11-40; A.D. De Conick and J. Fossum, Stripped before God: A New Interpretation of Logion 37 in the Gospel of Thomas // VC 45 (1991) 141; A. D. De Conick, Seek to See Him: Ascent and Vision Mysticism in the Gospel of Thomas (Leiden, 1996) (SVC, 33); L. Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews (7 vols.: Philadelphia, 1955) 5.97; Alon Goshen Gottstein, The Body as Image of God in Rabbinic Literature // Harvard Theological Review 87 (1994) 171-95; B. Murmelstein, Adam, ein Beitrag zur Messiaslehre // Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 35 (1928) 255; W. Staerk, Die Erlösererwartung in den östlichen Religionen (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1938) 11.
[6] David Aaron, Shedding Light on God's Body, 303.
[7] In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Gen 3:21 the following tradition can be found: "And the Lord God made garments of glory for Adam and for his wife from the skin which the serpent had cast off (to be worn) on the skin of their (garments of) fingernails of which they had been stripped, and he clothed them." Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Genesis (tr. M. Maher, M.S.C.; Collegeville, 1992) (The Aramaic Bible, 1B) 29. Targum Neofiti on Gen 3:21 unveils the similar tradition: "And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of glory (ø÷S?© ïéùS<ì), for the skin of their flesh, and he clothed them." Targum Neofiti 1: Genesis (tr. M. McNamara, M.S.C.; Collegeville, 1992) (The Aramaic Bible: 1A) 62-63; A. Díez Macho, Neophiti 1: Targum Palestinense MS de la Biblioteca Vaticana (Madrid-Barcelona, 1968) 1.19. The Fragmentary Targum on Gen 3:21 also uses the imagery of the glorious garments: "And He made: And the memra of the Lord God created for Adam and his wife precious garments (ø÷é© ïéùS<ì) [for] the skin of their flesh, and He clothed them." M.I. Klein, The Fragment-Targums of the Pentateuch according to Their Extant Sources (2 vols.; Rome, 1980) (AB, 76) I.46; II.7.
[8]Targum Onqelos on Gen 3:21 reads: "And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of honor for the skin of their flesh (ïS™ø>< êùî ì? ø÷é© ïéùS<ì), and He clothed them." The Targum Onqelos to Genesis (tr. B. Grossfeld; Wilmington, 1988) (The Aramaic Bible, 6) 46; The Bible in Aramaic Based on Old Manuscripts and Printed Texts (ed. A. Sperber; Leiden, 1959) I.5.
[9] Cf. H. Freedman and M. Simon (tr.), Midrash Rabbah (10 vols.; London, 1939) 1. 171.
[10] S. Brock, Clothing Metaphors as a Means of Theological Expression in Syriac Tradition, 14.
[11]J. Fossum, The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord: Samaritan and Jewish Concepts of Intermediation and the Origin of Gnosticism (Tübingen, 1985) 93; A. D. De Conick, Seek to See Him: Ascent and Vision Mysticism in the Gospel of Thomas, 159.
[12] Fossum, The Name of God, 94.
[13] J. Macdonald, Memar Marqah. The Teaching of Marqah (Berlin, 1963) (BZAW, 83) 209.
[14] Alon Goshen Gottstein, The Body as Image of God in Rabbinic Literature, 182.
[15] H. Freedman and M. Simon (tr.), Midrash Rabbah (10 vols.; London, 1939) 7.173.
[16] Cf. Adolph Jellinek, Bet ha-Midrash (6 vols.; Jerusalem, 1967) 3. 168.
[17] According to Jewish sources, the image of God was reflected especially in the radiance of Adam's face. See: Fossum, The Name of God, 94; J. Jervell, Imago Dei (Göttingen, 1960) (FRLANT, 76) 45.
[18] H. Freedman and M. Simon (tr.), Midrash Rabbah (10 vols.; London, 1939) 4.252.
[19] H. Freedman and M. Simon (tr.), Midrash Rabbah (10 vols.; London, 1939) 1.81.
[20] This feature of the Macarian Homilies serves as additional proof of the close relationship between Pseudo-Macarius and the various Syriac developments in which the theme of Adam's garments plays an important theological role. S. Brock notes the extensive usage of the "clothing" metaphors in the Syriac tradition. He shows that this imagery is closely connected with Adam Christology: "...the first Adam loses the robe of glory at the Fall; the second Adam puts on the body of the first Adam in order to restore the robe of glory..." S. Brock, Clothing Metaphors as a Means of Theological Expression in Syriac Tradition, 16.
[21] The traditions about the glorious garments of Adam and Eve were widespread in the Syriac sources. [For a detailed discussion of this subject, see: A. D. De Conick, Seek to See Him: Ascent and Vision Mysticism in the Gospel of Thomas, 157-172; S. Brock, Clothing Metaphors as a Means of Theological Expression in Syriac Tradition, 11-38]. It is possible that the early Syrian authors gained access to such traditions through their familiarity with the Targums, the Aramaic renderings of the Hebrew Bible. The Macarian Homilies, which were connected with the Syrian milieu, demonstrate that their author was exposed to a great variety of the Jewish and Christian traditions about the luminous garments of the first humans.
[22] There are four Byzantine medieval collections of Macarian Homilies. Three of them appeared in critical editions. Collection I was published in Makarios/Simeon: Reden und Briefe. Die Sammlung I des Vaticanus Graecus 694 (B) (2 vols.; ed. H. Berthold, Berlin, 1973). Collection II appeared in H. Dörries, E. Klostermann, and M. Kroeger, Die 50 Geistlichen Homilien des Makarios (Berlin, 1964) (PTS, 4). Collection III appeared in Neue Homilien des Makarios/Simeon aus Typus III (eds. E. Klostermann and H. Berthold; Berlin, 1961) (TU, 72) and Pseudo-Macaire. Oeuvres spirituelles. Vol. I: Homelies propres a la Collection III (ed. V. Desprez; Paris, 1980) (SC, 275). In references to the Macarian homilies, the first uppercase Roman numeral will designate a Collection, and the following Arabic numerals will designate a specific homily and its subsections.
[23] Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter (tr. G.A. Maloney, S.J.; New York, 1992) 97. H. Dörries et al., Die 50 Geistlichen Homilien des Makarios (Berlin, 1964) (PTS, 4) 107-8.
[24] Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, 100.
[25] Cf. 2 Enoch 30:11-12 (the longer recension): "And on the earth I assigned him to be a second angel, honored and great and glorious. And I assigned him to be a king, to reign on the earth, and to have my wisdom." F. Andersen, 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse of) Enoch // The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; New York, 1985 [1983]) 1.152.
[26] E. Glickler Chazon, The Creation and Fall of Adam in the Dead Sea Scrolls // The Book of Genesis in Jewish and Oriental Christian Interpretation. A Collection of Essays (eds. J. Frishman and L. Van Rompay; Lovain, 1997) (Traditio Exegetica Graeca, 5) 15.
[27] F. García Martínez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (2 vols.; Leiden; New York; Köln, 1997) 2.1009.
[28] Cf. also Gen 1:26.
[29] Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, 99.
[30] Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, 97.
[31] Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, 97.
[32] 4Q171 3:1-2. F. García Martínez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, 1.345.
[33] M.O. Wise, 4QFlorilegium and the Temple of Adam // RevQ 15 (1991-92) 128.
[34] Cf. CD 3:20 "Those who remain steadfast in it will acquire eternal life, and all the glory of Adam (í©? ©S<ë ìëS) is for them." F. García Martínez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, 1.555.
[35] M. Wise observes that this description in 4Q171 "jibes completely with the concept of í©? ©S<ë in CD." M.O. Wise, 4QFlorilegium and the Temple of Adam // RevQ 15 (1991-92) 128.
[36] On the identification of Eden with the Sanctuary, see: G.J. Brooke, Miqdash Adam, Eden and the Qumran Community // Gemeinde ohne Tempel/Community without Temple. Zur Substituierung und Transformation des Jerusalemer Tempels und seines Kults im Alten Testament, antiken Judentum und frühen Christentum (Tübingen, 1999) 285-299
[37]4Q171 3:11 "...they will inherit the high mountain of Isra[el and] delight [in his] holy [mou]ntain." F. García Martínez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, 1.345.
[38] Here again Macarius draws on the established Christian tradition which can be traced to Pauline writings (esp. 2 Cor 3), where the glory of Moses and the glory of Christ are interconnected.
[39] Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, 74; Dörries, 62. The Homily II.5.11 repeats the same idea again: "In a double way, therefore, the blessed Moses shows us what glory true Christians will receive in the resurrection: namely, the glory of light and the spiritual delights of Spirit which even now they are deemed worthy to possess interiorly." Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, 74.
[40] Homily II.47.1. Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, 232; Dörries, 304.
[41] The Macarian motif of the garments of darkness bestowed by Satan on the first humans brings us to the connection between the Macarian Homilies and the Targumic traditions. It has been mentioned previously that the Syrian authors might have acquired their knowledge of the Jewish aggadic traditions about the luminosity of the garments of Adam and Eve via their familiarity with the Targumic texts. Some features of Adam's story found in the Macarian Homilies point in this direction. For example, the Homily II.1.7 tells that when "... Adam violated the command of God and obeyed the deceitful serpent he sold himself to the devil and that evil one put on Adam's soul as his garment - that most beautiful creature that God had fashioned according to his own image..." [Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, 41]. This motif of Adam being clothed with the evil one as his garment seems to allude to the Targumic tradition which attests to the fact that God made garments for Adam and Eve from the skin which the serpent had cast off. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Gen 3:21 tells that: "And the Lord God made garments of glory for Adam and for his wife from the skin which the serpent had cast off (to be worn) on the skin of their (garments of) fingernails of which they had been stripped, and he clothed them." [Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Genesis (tr. M. Maher, M.S.C.; Collegeville, 1992) (The Aramaic Bible, 1B) 29]. It seems, however, that the author of the Macarian Homilies substantially edits this Targumic tradition. In the Macarian Homilies, the garments of the devil become the attire of darkness in contrast to the Palestinian Targum, where they are depicted as the garments of light. On the garments of darkness, cf. also the Homily II.30.7: "In that day when Adam fell, God came walking in the garden. He wept, so to speak, seeing Adam and he said: 'After such good things, what evils you have chosen! After such glory, what shame you now bear! What darkness are you now! What ugly form you are! What corruption! From such light, what darkness has covered you!' When Adam fell and was dead in the eyes of God, the Creator wept over him. The angels, all the powers, the heavens, the earth and all creatures bewailed his death and fall. For they saw him, who had been given to them as their king, now become a servant of an opposing and evil power. Therefore, darkness became the garment of his soul, a bitter and evil darkness, for he was made a subject of the prince of darkness." Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, 192-93.
[42]Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, 198.
[43] Cf. the Homily I.2.3.14: "I think that the glorified face of Moses was a type (ôýï?) and teaching of the first Adam, formed by the hands of God, which death saw and was wounded by it, not being able to look on it, and fearing that its kingdom would be dissolved and destroyed--which, with the Lord, did in fact occur." Alexander Golitzin, The Macarian Homilies from Collection I, 3 (forthcoming); Makarios/Simeon: Reden und Briefe. Die Sammlung I des Vaticanus Graecus 694 (B) (2 vols.; ed. H. Berthold, Berlin, 1973) 1.9. I am thankful to Father Alexander Golitzin for letting me use here his forthcoming English translation of the Macarian Homilies from Collection I.
[44] Cf. the Homily I.2.3.14 "Now, I think that when the enemy saw the original glory of Adam on the face of Moses, he was wounded because [he understood that] his kingdom was going to be taken away." Alexander Golitzin, The Macarian Homilies from Collection I, 3 (forthcoming).
[45] "...Indeed, the Word of God was his food and he had a glory shining on his countenance. All this, which happened to him, was a figure of something else. For that glory now shines splendidly from within the hearts of Christians. At the resurrection their bodies, as they rise, will be covered ((êS?æSô<é) with another vesture, one that is divine, and they will be nourished with a heavenly food." (II.12.14).
Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, 102; Dörries, 114.
[46] On 4Q374, see: C. Fletcher-Louis, 4Q374: A Discourse on the Sinai Tradition: The Deification of Moses and Early Christianity // Dead Sea Discoveries 3 (1996) 236-252; C.A. Newsom, 4Q374: A Discourse on the Exodus/Conquest Tradition // The Dead Sea Scroll: Forty Years of Research (eds. D. Dimant, and U. Rappaport; Leiden, 1992) (STDJ, 10) 40-52. On Moses pseudepigrapha in the DSS, see: J. Strugnell, Moses-Pseudepigrapha at Qumran: 4Q375, 4Q376, and Similar Works // Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The New York University Conference in Memory of Yigael Yadin (ed. L.H. Schiffman, Sheffield, 1990) (JSPSS, 8) 221-256.
[47] On the luminosity of the Moses face, see: M. Haran, The Shining of Moses's Face: A Case Study in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Iconography [Ex 34:29-35; Ps 69:32; Hab 3:4] // In the Shelter of Elyon (JSOP, 31; Sheffield, 1984) 159-73; W. Propp, The Skin of Moses' Face - Transfigured or Disfigured? // Catholic Biblical Quarterly 49 (1987) 375-386.
[48] Crispin Fletcher-Louis rightly observes that there is ample evidence that the passage from 4Q374 was concerned with the revelation at Sinai. Cf. C. Fletcher-Louis, 4Q374: A Discourse on the Sinai Tradition: The Deification of Moses and Early Christianity, 238.
[49] F. García Martínez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, 2.740-741.
[50]Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, 151.
[51] Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, 151. Dörries, 190.
[52] Cf. also the Homily I.2.12.7-9: "...the devil, by means of a tree and serpent, used jealousy and trickery to deceive Adam and Eve, and arranged [for them] to be thrown out of Paradise, and brought them down from their purity and glory to bitter passions and death, and subsequently, having received from them the whole human race [to be] under his power, cased [it] to stray into every sin and defiling passion... by his inexpressible wisdom, God, making provisions for humanity, send forth Moses the healer to redeem the People through the wood of his staff....therefore half of piety was set aright through Moses, and half of the passions healed (??èç) ..." Alexander Golitzin, The Macarian Homilies from Collection I, 9 (forthcoming); Makarios/Simeon: Reden und Briefe. Die Sammlung I des Vaticanus Graecus 694 (B) (2 vols.; ed. H. Berthold, Berlin, 1973) 1.24.
[53] F. García Martínez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, 2.741.
[54] Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, 152.
[55] It is noteworthy that Macarius again follows here the established tradition which connects the glory of Moses and the glory of Christ. The beginning of such a tradition can be found in 2 Cor 3:7-4:6. See: J.A. Fitzmyer, S.J., Glory Reflected on the Face of Christ (2 Cor 3:7-4:6) and a Palestinian Jewish Motif // JTS 42 (1981) 630-644; A. Orlov and A. Golitzin, Many Lamps are Lightened from the One: Paradigms of the Transformation Vision in the Macarian Homilies // Vigiliae Christianae 55 (2002) forthcoming. The Synoptic accounts of Christ's transfiguration seem to be also influenced by the Moses typology. Several details in the accounts serve as important reminders of Mosaic tradition(s): the vision took place on a mountain, the presence of Moses, a bright cloud that enveloped the visionaries, a voice which came out of the cloud, and the shining face of Christ. On Moses typology in the Synoptic accounts of the Transfiguration, see: J.A. McGuckin, The Transfiguration of Christ in Scripture and Tradition (Lewiston, 1986) (Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity, 9) 1-19; J. Markus, The Way of the Lord (Louisville, 1992) 80-93; M.E. Thrall, Elijah and Moses in Mark's Account of the Transfiguration // NTS 16 (1969-70) 305-17.
[56] It should be noted that despite the fact that the motif of Adam’s luminous clothing is widespread in Aramaic and Syriac milieux, the conflation of this theme with the imagery of healing seem unique. See S. Brock, Clothing Metaphors as a Means of Theological Expression in Syriac Tradition, 11-40.
[57] Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, 151.
[58]Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter, 198.
[59] The Macarian Homilies, therefore, can be seen as the set of the intense polemics with the Jewish developments.
Metatron as God’s Shi(ur Qomah
[an excerpt from A. Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition (TSAJ, 107; Tuebingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2005), pp. xii+383. ISBN 3-16-148544-0.]
…. This study has already noted that in his transition to the position of God’s vice-regent and the lesser manifestation of the divine name Enoch-Metatron came to resemble or imitate the Deity when various divine attributes and features were transferred to this exalted angel. One of the important features of this divine dédoublement was Enoch-Metatron’s acquisition of a new celestial body which closely resembles the gigantic extent of the divine form. Although the crucial bulk of the traditions about Metatron’s stature and its correspondence with God’s anthropomorphic extent can be found in the texts associated with the Shi(ur Qomah literature,[1] these materials do not make any explicit connections between Metatron and Enoch.[2] The investigation of the imagery of the divine body therefore must begin with texts in which this association between Metatron and the seventh antediluvian patriarch is unambiguous. One such passage is Synopse §12 (3 Enoch 9), which portrays the metamorphosis of Enoch’s body into a gigantic extent matching the world in length and breath: “I was enlarged and increased in size till I matched the world in length and breath. He made to grow on me 72 wings, 36 on one side and 36 on the other, and each single wing covered the entire world….”[3]
Christopher Morray-Jones suggests that the sudden transformation of the human body of the patriarch into a gigantic extent encompassing the whole world cannot be properly understood without reference to another anthropomorphic corporeality known from the Priestly and Ezekelian traditions of the divine Kavod. Morray-Jones observes that “in his shi(ur qomah, we are told that Metatron’s body, like the Kabod, fills the entire world, though the writer is careful to maintain a distinction between Metatron and the Glory of God Himself.”[4]
It is true that some Enochic materials, including 2 Enoch, underline the difference between the Lord’s anthropomorphic extent and Enoch-Metatron’s transformed body, pointing to the fact that the second corporeality represents a mere “likeness” of the first.[5] This interdependence between the two bodies, already linked together in the Similitudes and 2 Enoch, indicates that the passage in Synopse §12 might represent a long-standing tradition which cannot be divorced from another significant testimony found in Synopse §19 (3 Enoch 15:1–2).[6] This testimony describes the dramatic metamorphosis of Enoch’s body re-created into the likeness of God’s own terrifying extent known as his luminous Face.
Although the two bodies (of Metatron and of the Lord) are linked through an elaborate common imagery, Morray-Jones is correct in emphasizing that the Merkabah writers are cautious about maintaining a careful distinction between the two entities. Martin Cohen observes that in the Shi(ur Qomah materials the comparisons between the two corporealities, the Deity and Metatron, are not particularly favorable for the latter: “whereas the sole of the foot or the pinky-finger of the Deity is said to be one universe-length long, Metatron himself is altogether only that height.”[7] These distinctions, however, should not be overestimated since they do not prevent the Shi(ur Qomah materials from unifying both corporealities through an identical terminology. In the Merkabah materials the divine corporeality is labeled the Stature/Measure of the Body (hmwq rw(y#).[8] The same terminology is often applied to Enoch-Metatron’s body. According to one of the Merkabah texts, “the stature (wtmwq) of this youth fills the world.”[9] As we will see a little bit later, the same terminological parallels are observable in Synopse §73 (3 Enoch 48C:5–6), which refers to Metatron’s stature as hmwq while the patriarch’s human body is designated as Pwg. The similarity in terminology, which stresses the proximity of the statures of the Deity and Metatron, also points to the angel’s role as the measurer/measure of the divine Body.
The association of Enoch-Metatron’s body with the divine Face also points to his duties as the Measure of the Lord and the possessor of the body, which serves as the lesser manifestation of the divine corporeality. They are closely connected with Metatron’s other roles since Metatron’s function as God’s Shi(ur Qomah cannot be separated from his mediation in the divine Presence and his activities as the servant of the divine Face, or one of the sar happanim.[10] This shows that Metatron’s connection with the tradition about the colossal divine extent is not an isolated construct foreign to the rest of the Enoch-Metatron story but represents the logical continuation of his other prominent offices and duties in close proximity to the divine Presence. In Synopse §73 the Shi(ur Qomah motif and the motif of Metatron’s face are brought together:
I increased his stature (wtmwq) by seventy thousand parasangs, above every height, among those who are tall of stature (twmwqh ymwr lkb). I magnified his throne from the majesty of my throne. I increased his honor from the glory of my honor. I turned his flesh to fiery torches and all the bones of his body (wpwg) to coals of light. I made the appearance of his eyes like the appearance of lightning, and the light of his eyes like “light unfailing.” I caused his face to shine like the brilliant light of the sun.[11]
Several words must be said about the fashion in which the Shi(ur Qomah tradition appears in 3 Enoch. It is noteworthy that Sefer Hekhalot preserves only one side of the story when it applies the traces of the Shi(ur Qomah tradition solely to Enoch-Metatron. The evidence found in 3 Enoch represents relatively short accounts that differ from the extended descriptions found in the materials associated with the Shi(ur Qomah tradition; there the reader is normally provided with elaborate depictions of God’s limbs and their mystical names. In contrast, Sefer Hekhalot does not say much about the divine body since the depiction of the body of the translated Enoch serves here as the focal point of the presentation. Although the narration refers to God’s hand, by which Enoch’s body appears to be transformed, and to his glorious Presence, according to which the patriarch was changed, Sefer Hekhalot does not supply any information about the dimensions of the limbs of the Deity as the materials associated with the Shi(ur Qomah tradition often do. Only through the depiction of the new Enoch-Metatron body does the reader get an impression of the possible dimensions of God’s Shi(ur Qomah.[12]
It is interesting that the tradition of Metatron’s body found in Sefer Hekhalot closely resembles the evidence from 2 Enoch 22 and 39, where the passages with a precise Shi(ur Qomah terminology are also introduced and unfolded through reference to the patriarch’s body.[13] Similarly to 3 Enoch the Slavonic apocalypse refers only to the divine Face/Presence, and to the hand of God.[14] Later I will demonstrate that already in 2 Enoch one can uncover the beginning of Enoch-Metatron’s role as God’s Shi(ur Qomah. It occurs in the account found in 2 Enoch 37, in which the patriarch describes his encounters with the divine extent, the fiery and terrifying Face of God…..
Alexander Golitzin
THE BODY OF CHRIST: SAINT SYMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN ON SPIRITUAL LIFE AND THE HIERARCHICAL CHURCH
Given at the International Conference on St. Symeon the New Theologian at Bose, September, 2002. Forthcoming in Italian translation in the Acts of the Conference, Qiqajon Press, Monastero di Bose
1. Introduction
For many of his critics, both ancient and modern, the relationship between the inner, spiritual life of the believer and the outward structures of the institutional church appears to have been tenuous at best in the writings of St. Symeon the New Theologian. One scholar, for example, who is very well disposed toward him still thinks that St. Symeon "can certainly be criticized in that he stressed the individual and subjective element of Christian life one-sidedly", while seeming "to forget the objective structure of the Church" [1]. One key to the problem, and a theme I shall be coming back to in what follows, seems to me to lie in the meaning of the phrase, "objective structure". For now, allow me to state that, while it is true that the great thrust of Symeon's thought lies on the charismatic and -- for want of a better word -- subjective side of Christian experience, the objectively constituted Church, both as eschatological reality and as historically existing in the institutional forms it received from the Apostles, is never far from his mind and heart, nor do I find any indication in his works that he ever dreamed of contesting it.
In what follows, I shall begin by summarizing St. Symeon on the Church, in particular in its relation to Christ, the Eucharist, and to the individual Christian's appropriation of Christ. Along the way, I intend to pay particular attention to the different, and yet related, notions of the phrase, "the body of Christ". Second, I will turn very briefly to St. Symeon's background in Scripture and Tradition, with an eye particularly to the notion, "objective structure", specifically the belief in a divinely revealed structure of worship, and to the importance which that particular datum of the faith was held to have for the spiritual life from very early on Christian history. Third, I will take up an unusual pairing, Symeon the New Theologian and Dionysius the Areopagite, in order to argue that the latter's idea of "hierarchy" is not in fact so very far away from the former's. Both the eleventh century "mystical anarchist" and the apparent advocate par excellence of clerical authority will emerge as speaking out of a common tradition, rooted in the revelation accorded Israel, summed up in Christ, and continuing especially in the literature of the monastic movement.
II. A Summary of St. Symeon on the Church, the Body of Christ, and our Deification
A. The Body of the Risen Jesus: the Flesh of Adam and First-Fruits of the New Creation
For Symeon, the Church is more than an objective structure. It is reality with an upper-case "R". It is more real or objective a truth than the phenomenal world, the universe embraced by the five senses and darkened by the Fall. Like the Platonism of late antiquity, he holds that the unseen, intelligible world is the more truly existing one. Unlike the pagan philosophers, however, and together with the Fathers, his view is also firmly rooted in the scriptures. The Resurrection of the Lord Jesus has ushered in a new condition of existence, that new and different mode of being which is "the body of Christ". The Lord's risen body, animated by the Holy Spirit, has become the first-fruits of a new creation: "for in Him dwells the fullness of the divinity bodily" (Col 2:9), and "from this fullness have we all received" (Jn 1:16) -- scriptural phrases that Symeon quotes, for example, at the conclusion of the second of his two long discourses on the Church which open the Ethical Discourses, and from which I shall be drawing primarily for my summary of his ecclesiology. Again in the second Discourse, he traces God's saving economy in terms of the "portion" God took from Adam to fashion Eve. The history of salvation is the story of this "portion": from Eve through Noah, to the election of Israel in Abraham and the Covenant with Moses on Sinai, to David the King, and finally to the Virgin Mother:
God took from the Virgin flesh endowed with a mind and soul...Having taken this
same from her, He gave it His own Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and enlarged it with
what it had not had before: life everlasting...in order for Him to re-create the
nature of Adam...so that the children who would be born of God might receive
regeneration through the Holy Spirit, and then that all who believe in Him might
become, in the Spirit, God's own kin and so comprise [with Him] one single body. [2]
Because Christ has become "our kinsman" in the flesh, He has also made "us co-participants in His divinity", and, since the latter "cannot be broken down into parts...all of us [therefore] who partake of it in truth must necessarily be one body with Christ in the one Spirit."[3]
The flesh of Christ establishes His abiding link with humanity. It is Adam's own flesh, taken from him to form the woman, Eve. But, beginning with our Lord's conception in the new Eve, Mary, this same flesh is filled with the glory of the Word: "For Your spotless and divine body flashes wholly with the fire of Your divinity, [with which] it is entwined and mingled ineffably" [4]. This is the glorified flesh mingled with divinity which is imparted to the Christian in Baptism and Eucharist through the action of the Spirit. "When we receive the Spirit of our Master and God", Symeon writes,
we become participants of His divinity and essence, and when we eat of His
all-pure flesh -- I mean in the [sacrament of] holy communion -- we become
` truly His kin, of one body with Him. [5]
This new condition, he exclaims, is
[the] beginning of a new portion and a new world...Up to this point all were
shadows and types...but this, this is the truth. This is both the renovation
and renewal of the whole world...He Who is Son of God does...not beget
children in a fleshly way, but He re-fashions us instead spiritually. [6]
At present the mystery of the new world remains largely hidden, but it continues on occasion to manifest itself "even to the present day" in the bodies of the saints, and Symeon points to the incorruption of the latters' relics as proof [7]. In another place, his fifteenth Hymn, he is shockingly insistent on the presence of Christ in his own body, even in those parts of it which are not usually associated with higher things [8], and repeats in Hymn 16 that his own face and members are "bearers of [divine] light", photophora [9]. Incorporated into Christ's body in Baptism, feeding on that same body in the Eucharist, the bodies of the saints become themselves light-filled, transfigured. They become, in short, particular expressions of the "body of Christ", the body of God. "They completely possess God, Who has taken on the form of man", as Symeon writes in Hymn 15 [10], to which I would add that, as a result of this possession, and in their turn, they may be said to take on "the form of God". The full manifestation of this miraculous formation awaits the general resurrection and world to come, when, as our author puts it in Ethical Discourse 1.5, "the whole earthly creation, this visible and perceptible world, will be changed and united with the heavenly." [11]
B. Personal and Ecclesial in Balance and Mutual Reflection
Implied in my summary so far, as it is explicit so often elsewhere in his writings, is St. Symeon's emphasis on the personal encounter with God incarnate, whether in terms of the vision of glory, the conscious perception of the Presence in the sacraments, the conversation of the soul alone with God alone, or, for that matter, in his related and stubborn resistance to the eccelsiastical authorities' demand that he conform to canonical "due process" in his veneration of the elder who had brought him to Christ. This personal emphasis emerges in, or perhaps better, underlies his use of nuptial imagery regarding the Church in Ethical Discourse I where, very typically (though with ample backing in the tradition), the "marriage" of Christ and the Church is mirrored in each of the saints. Mary Theotokos is the original and paradigm of this marriage, but, says our saint, "for each one of the faithful and sons of light this same marriage is performed in like and scarcely diverging manner." [12] Chapter ten of the Discourse is devoted in particular to the modalities of the marriage. Symeon is first of all careful to underline that the case of the Virgin is unique, "since it was once and for all that the Word of God became flesh [from her]...and was born, bodily...and since it is not possible that He should take flesh a second time."[13] The, as it were, objective conditions of personal communion with the Word are established once and once only, hence Mary Theotokos' altogether irreplaceable and exalted role. Hence, secondly, the objective nature of the Body of Christ, the Church, that Reality which is more true and real than the visible world, and which is communicated to the believer in the sacraments, as with Symeon's reference in the following to the Eucharist:
...the same undefiled flesh which He accepted from the pure loins of Mary...and
with which He was given birth in the body, He gives to us as food. And when
we eat of it...each one of us receives within himself the entirety of God made
flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ...present in the body bodilessly, mingled with our
essence and nature, and deifying us who share His body, who are become flesh of
His flesh and bone of His bone. [14]
It is this union which he calls "the second mode of birth" of God the Word, and it occurs "through the divine Spirit...which is ever working in our hearts the mystery of the renewal of human souls." [16] By communicating in the deified flesh of Christ, the saints are elevated "to the ranks of His mother...His brothers...and His kinsmen." Here, he concludes, "is the mystery of the marriages which the Father arranged for His only-begotten Son." [17]
In the New Theologian's account of the mystical marriage there is clearly an interweaving of the ecclesial and the mystical. Rather, indeed, there is a real identity. The Church is truly the "Temple of the King", but so equally is the Christian the "temple of the Holy Spirit" and "tabernacle" of Christ [18]. The Church is the new world re-created in the Word incarnate, the universe of the age to come, but so, as Symeon argues especially in Discourse VI, is "each one of us...created by God as a second world, a great world in this small and visible one", and all are commanded to possess "the sun of righteousness shining within us", and "to provide our neighbor with the example of the immaterial day, the new earth and new heaven."[19] This parallelism, or better, this identity runs throughout his thought. In Discourse III, for example, he concludes a meditation on the Eucharist, the sacrament of the Church, by drawing a parallel between the Cherubikon of the Byzantine offertory, with its echoes of the temple vision of Isaiah and, especially, of Ezekiel's cherubim throne, on the one hand, and, on the other, the individual Christian as divine throne, carrying the Presence as the seraphim and cherubim of the prophetic theophanies bear aloft the God of Israel [20]. At different points in his Hymns, he is awestruck while standing before the throne of the Church's altar when serving as priest "of the divine mysteries" [21], and trembles before the same mystery revealed in his heart [22]. The Church as God's body in Ethical Discourses I.6, is paralleled in Discourse VI by the "body of virtues" which is the mature man in Christ, with both passages (especially the second) turning around, interestingly enough, an exegesis of "the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" of Ephesians 4:13 [23]. In Discourse I, as we saw, it is the Church which is the world to come while, in Discourse X, the Day of the Lord shines in the hearts of the saints even while the latter are still in this present life [24]. Again in Discourse X, the two poles of ecclesial and mystical mirror one another and are specifically tied together in the Eucharist:
His holy flesh is not flesh alone, but flesh and Godhead inseparably yet without
confusion: visible in the flesh, i.e., in the bread for physical eyes, while invisible
in its divinity for those same eyes, yet seen by the eyes of the soul. [25]
Church and believer, altar and heart, confirm and reflect one another, and both turn around and partake of the one mystery, Christ. Each is, as it were, the icon or sacramental image of the other through which the presence of the Word enfleshed is communicated. Without that deifying and vivifying power, both are equally idols, mere flesh or naked institution, just as the Eucharist iself is, without the perception of the "eyes of the soul", merely bread, and the Lord Jesus not God, but a failed prophet [26]. It is faith which reveals the wandering preacher from Nazareth as true God in the form of a man, the Eucharist as the bread from heaven, and the Church and believer -- the great world and the small, or better, the one, unique great world -- as complementary expressions of the Eighth Day and age to come. All of this features in what I take to be St. Symeon's understanding of the biblical phrase, the "body of Christ", with which I chose to preface my assigned title. That body is, first, the actual flesh of the Lord Jesus, transmuted through the Resurrection in the Holy Spirit; into which flesh, second, we are incorporated as the Church, the "Israel of God", which is realized, made present, in the liturgical assembly; where, third, we receive again the same Body of Christ as Eucharist; in order thus, fourth, for each of us to become a particular manifestation of the body of God, or, put another and doubtless more recognizable way, the realization of the divine image and likeness. Regarding my fourth point, we surely also glimpse a basis for St. Symeon's understanding of the spiritual father, the "man of God", who embodies the divine presence -- specifically, the presence of Christ -- for his disciple. In what remains of this paper, it is especially the relation between the second and fourth of those meanings, the Church, particularly as the liturgical assembly, and the individual believer as the "form of God", or, as I put it above, the coordination between the ecclesial and the mystical, which shall occupy our attention.
III. Some Background to St. Symeon's Language: the "Pattern" of Heaven
A. Microcosm and Macrocosm
Before turning to what I take to be St. Symeon's definitive discussion of this mutual reflection or, indeed, of mutual formation, I should like to offer a brief word on its sources. In part, it is the ancient idea of the microcosm (man) reflecting the macrocosm (universe) which enjoys a long and distinguished history in the Greek philosophers. Plato deploys it in the Republic in order to portray the ideal state as the rational man writ large, and it is central to the Stoics, perhaps especially to their ethics, who saw the universe reflected in the individual [27]. Plotinus fuses Plato and the Stoa in order to produce the doctrine that each person is a kosmos no‘tos, spanning the chasm from matter to the One itself [28]. His successors, the later Neoplatonists, carry on to elaborate a vision of reality that is at once an analysis in detail of the "the great chain of being", and a dissection of the human psyche as reflecting both the structures of the sensory world and the intelligible universe of eternal forms [29]. Certain among these successors, in particular Iamblichus of Chalcis and Proclus Diadochus, add the caveat, against Plotinus' teaching of a potentially immediate access to the divine, that the soul of itself is incapable of making the ascent to divinity, but that it requires the assistance of sacred rites and the gods' gracious condescension in order to bridge the gap between its own world and the heavens [30]. Later Christian writers, notably the anonymous Syrian who wrote under the name of Dionysius Areopagites, would see in this last school of pagan philosophy and its theurgy a point of convergence with long-established, Christian teaching that bore on the relationship between public worship and the personal opening up to God's presence in the soul [31]. It is very unlikely, I think, that St. Symeon had much of any direct exposure to the philosophers, but I think it a certainty that he did know his Dionysius, as well, to be sure, as other Church Fathers who both preceded and succeeded the Corpus areopagiticum[32].
B. The Temple in Old and New Testaments, and in Early Christian Literature:
The Pattern of Heaven and "Place" of the Divine Presence
First, however, let me touch -- if very sketchily -- on the chain of development which leads to Dionysius, and thence to the New Theologian, and indeed beyond them both to the end of the Byzantine era, and on to the present day. We find its beginnings embedded in the foundational revelation accorded Israel. Following the definitive manifestation of God to Israel on Sinai and the subsequent gift of the covenant, Moses ascends the mountain again at the end of Exodus 24. What follows is arguably the climax of the Sinai theophany, the revelation of the tabernacle. "Have them make Me a sanctuary so that I may dwell among them", God tells Moses, and then adds: "In accordance with all that I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle and of its furniture, so you shall make it" (Ex 25:8-9). From long before Christ, this "pattern" revealed to the Lawgiver was assumed to be the heavenly original, God's own temple or palace on high. This is arguably the background of Isaiah's vision in the Jerusalem temple, or of Ezekiel's visionary restoration of city and temple in Ezk 40-48, and it is quite explicit by the time we arrive at the apocalyptic literature of the two centuries immediately before Christ [33]. The tabernacle, and then the Temple at Jerusalem, comprise the locus of God's dwelling among His people, the place of the Shekinah, to use the word favored by the rabbis for the divine presence. Even with the Second Temple's destruction in A.D. 70, it is still the temple and its accompanying cultus which in a sense govern the rabbis' reconstruction of Jewish life in the Mishnah and Talmud. Both popular and esoteric Jewish piety would continue to build on biblical precedents linking the Temple with creation, with visionary experience, and with the age to come [34].
The idea of the temple is quite as important for Christianity. With an eye both to my assigned topic, and to what we have seen Symeon say so far, I would venture to state that the idea of the temple is nothing less than central for New Testament christology, ecclesiology, and soteriology. The Lord Jesus replaces tabernacle and temple as the primary "place" of the divine presence. In the Fourth Gospel, He is Himself the Glory or Shekinah Who has "tabernacled among us". He is the Immanuel in Matthew, and His conception in Mary Theotokos, as described in Luke 1:35, deliberately echoes the overshadowing of the tabernacle by the divine Glory in the Septuagint wording of Exod 40:34. Again in the Gospel of John -- but also implied by the false witnesses' accusations against him in the Synoptic Gospels -- it is His body which is specifically identified with the temple building. Likewise, the assembly of the believers, the Church, is also temple, as in Eph. 2:20-22 and I Peter 2:4-9, the place of the Risen One's presence and, with Him, of the heavenly Zion, as in Heb. 12:18-24, where the faithful are invited to partake of the "bread from heaven", the food of the angels. Third, the believer him- or herself is called by the Apostle Paul "temple of God" and "temple of the Holy Spirit", is summoned by the same to transfiguration "from glory to glory", and, in the words of Christ in the Fourth Gospel, is spoken to as having already received the same glory as the Son received from the Father "before the world was". Elsewhere, in John 7:37-39, the reader is invited to become a fount of the living water of the Spirit for others. This image is taken directly from the lore of the Temple as the source of the eschatological river of life, first appearing in Ezk 47:1 ff. and repeated, inter alia, in the Revelation's portrait of the heavenly city [35]. I do not think it too much to say that the famous -- or infamous -- Eastern Christian soteriology of deification draws ultimately on these traditions of tabernacle and temple, and the scriptural loci I have cited in support of them are merely a selection.
It is beyond the scope of this paper to trace the continuities of this theme in subsequent Christian literature. Suffice it to say here that the notion of temple, whether in reference in Christ, to the Church, or to the believer, features prominently and arguably even centrally in the patristic witness. It is a key, for example, to the theology of the martyr as we find the latter in the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch, or in the account of St. Polycarp of Smyrna's martyrdom a couple of generations later [36]. Similarly, the sainted ascetic as "temple", as site of theophany, appears in a popular mode in the second and third-century, apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, and, in a more philosophically sophisticated vein, in the early Alexandrians, Clement and Origen [37]. The indwelling of the divine glory of Christ in the Spirit, the light of the world to come, are reflected in the faces and bodies of the saints, from the martyrdom of Stephen in Acts 6:15 to the purported account of Motovilov's conversation with Seraphim Sarovsky, and on to the present day.
When we come to the fourth century and the remarkable prominence of the ascetic holy man, we also find that ascetic circles in both Roman and Sassanid Mesopotamia are making a concerted and deliberate effort to clarify and coordinate these different senses of temple. Ephrem Syrus features this coordination, especially in his remarkable Hymns on Paradise, as do, in an atmosphere charged with a certain background of conflict and tension, the Syriac Liber Graduum and the anonymous, Greek collection of homilies attributed traditionally to Macarius the Great [38]. All three, the latter two quite emphatically in a couple of places each, insist on the worship of the Church, the liturgical assembly, as the necessary "pattern" -- hypodeigma in "Macarius'" words -- for "what is at work in the soul by grace" [39]. This is no more than a kind of restatement, as it were, of the "pattern" revealed to Moses on Sinai, though now, in the new dispensation, as the Liber Graduum expressly insists, this "pattern" includes a threefold association and mutual reflection: of the exalted Lord and the heavenly liturgy, of the visible Church, and of the soul.
IV. Dionysius and Symeon: "Our Hierarchy", Heaven, and the Soul
A. The Dionysian Hierarchy
These Syrian writers comprise the relatively immediate, Christian background of the mysterious author who wrote under the pseudonym of Dionysius Areopagites, and who was also the apparent inventor of one of the key words in my assigned title, "hierarchy". Far from comprising a straightforward advocacy of what we might call today the ecclesiastical "chain of command", or even, in modern Roman Catholic terms, the magisterium, Dionysius' notion of hierarchy includes at once our true world, the foretaste of the world to come, the reflection of the heavenly liturgy, the milieu of our encounter with Christ (or indeed -- as I shall have occasion to note below -- the body of Christ), and the shaping image or icon of the redeemed human being [40]. Allow me to elaborate just a little on these points through the citation and brief discussion of three texts from his treatise, The Celestial Hierarchy. We find his definition of hierarchy in Celestial Hierarchy 3.1:
Hierarchy is, in my opinion, a sacred order, knowledge, and activity which, so
far as possible, is in process of being likened to the form of God, [and] which
leads up in due proportion to illuminations given it by God for [the purpose of]
the imitation of God. [41]
There are a couple of things I should like to note here. The first is the notion of process. Hierarchy, for the inventor of the word, is not a finished thing, not static, but a movement, a becoming. Second, this movement has as its goal "the form of God", to theoeides, which answers in Dionysian vocabulary to the biblical phrase, "the image of God", just as "the imitation of God", to theomim‘ton, answers to the divine "likeness". The two terms, in short, are intended to recall the eikÇn and homoiÇsis of Genesis 1:26 [42]. As a whole or collective entity, hierarchy is thus the process of conformity to the image and likeness.
In the following paragraph, Dionysius moves to the divinely-intended effect of a hierarchy on each of its members:
The purpose [skopos] thus of a hierarchy is the likening to, and union with God,
[the] shaping...[and] perfecting of its members [lit., "celebrants"] as divine images
[lit., "statues", agalmata], as most transparent and unspotted mirrors, recipients of
the primordial light and divine ray who, once filled in sacred manner with the
radiance imparted [to them], reflect it in turn and without envy to those who come
after...[in order thus for each] to become, as the scriptures say, "a co-worker with
God" [theou synergon genesthai], and to show the divine activity shining forth in
himself so far as possible [deixai t‘n theian energeian en heautÇi kata to dynaton anaphainomen‘n]. [43]
Here I would like to underline five points. First, there is the formative effect of a hierarchy on its members. It "shapes" or "impresses" (apotypoÇ) and "perfects" them. Second, that shaping is itself related to the notion of the image. If hierarchy as a whole, as a collective, is a movement toward conformity with the "form of God", then its purpose is likewise to "impress" on each of its members the divine image, to make them all and each the perfected reflection of God's form and activity. Third, we note throughout this passage the language of light with which the divine form is obviously connected and, even, identified. This is the "primordial light", archiphÇs, and "thearchic ray", thearchik‘ aktis, which is to shine in the transformed members of a hierarchy, and thence, from them, to others. Hierarchy is in the form of God as light, and is itself a communication of light, a leaping of light from one light-filled being to another, a cascade of light.
My fourth point concerns the identity of this light and ray. From the very beginnings of his labors, which is to say from the first chapters and lines of the Celestial Hierarchy, which has been reckoned from antiquity -- and I think rightly -- to be the first in his sequence of treatises, Dionysius identifies the light which comes to us from "the Father of lights" with the Second Person of the Trinity, the "radiance of the Father", Christ [44]. It is Jesus, he tells us at a number of points, who is the origin (arch‘) and being (ousia) of both the angels' hierarchy and of our own [45]. That light which comes leaping down the serried ranks, the "form of God" to which a hierarchy's members are conformed, which they and their hierarchy are called individually and collectively to embody, is Christ. Put another way, that which Dionysius is seeking to express in his to us rather odd and difficult vocabulary, is the scriptural understanding of the Church as "the body of Christ".
This brings me to my fifth point: whether Dionysius has in mind the so-to-speak Church of the angels, the "heavenly hierarchy", or the Church on earth, which he calls "our hierarchy", he always means worship, the liturgy. In Celestial Hierarchy I.3, arguably the most important passage in his entire corpus in as much as it supplies the great frame for what is to follow, he explains how Christ provides us with "access" (prosagÇg‘) to the Father and fellowship with the heavenly liturgy of the angels:
It would not be possible for the human intellect to be ordered with that immaterial
imitation of the heavenly minds unless it were to use the material guide that is proper to it, reckoning the visible beauties as reflections of the invisible splendor,
the perceptible fragrances as impressions of the intelligible distributions, the
material lights an image of the immaterial gift of light, the sacred and extensive
teachings [of the scriptures] [as an image] of the intellect's intelligible fulfillment,
the exterior ranks [of clergy and laity] [as an image] of the harmonious and ordered state [hexis] [of the intellect] which is set in order for divine things, and
[our partaking] of the most divine Eucharist [an image] of participation in Jesus.[46]
The physical elements of the Church's worship -- here the beauty of the sanctuary, candles, lamps, incense, scripture readings, etc. -- all convey spiritual reality. The very ordering of clergy and laity in, presumably, the sanctuary and nave comprises a suggestion of the well-ordered, that is, virtuous soul. All is icon or symbol of a pervasive, unseen reality, the joining of heaven, earth and the soul, which is summed up at the end of the passage with the references to the Eucharist and to Christ.
Does the conjunction of Eucharist and "symbol" mean that Dionysius holds a doctrine of the eucharistic presence which reads the latter as less than "real"? The point has been debated by others, and one recent book has sharply contrasted Dionysius' language of symbol with St. Symeon's sacramental realism, but I am less convinced that the latter is so very different from the Areopagite [47]. To be sure, Symeon never calls the Eucharist a "symbol", but this is only to say that he is obedient to one of the results of the Iconoclast controversy, over two and half centuries after Dionysius, which was to forbid the application of the words "symbol" or "icon" to the consecrated gifts [48]. In substance, however, the two appear to me to be very similar. The bread for both is only "bread" unless its unseen reality is perceived, just as divinity is concealed in the Virgin's son. Likewise, in the coordination between the liturgy in heaven, on earth, and in the soul, Dionysius follows the lead at once of the late Neoplatonists, in that the human microcosm finds access to God only through the forms of traditional worship, and of those Syrian ascetics a century before him who had insisted on the necessary linkage between what one of them, the author of the Liber Graduum, called the "three churches". Half a millenium later, St. Symeon is part of the same trajectory.
B. Echoes of Dionysius in St. Symeon's Fourteenth Ethical Discourse
That he was a conscious part of this continuum, and moreover that he knew and admired the very passage from the Celestial Hierarchy which I just quoted at length, is clear from what I take to be his most important discussion of my assigned topic, his fourteenth Ethical Discourse, "On the Feasts and their Celebration". The setting he appears to have in mind is the solemn, liturgical celebration of one of the decisive moments in the history of salvation -- the Nativity, the Ascension, or the Descent of the Spirit at Pentecost, etc. -- or else, perhaps, the commemoration in vigil and liturgy of one of the great saints, or indeed his own instituted veneration of Symeon the Pious. His overall purpose is to remind his readers of the intent and meaning of liturgical worship. That purpose is nothing earthly. He begins by questioning ecclesiastical solemnities. "How", he asks, can the man who has "seen the Master" and who knows himself as "naked and poor"
...take pride in beauty, or exalt himself...or pay great attention to the multitude
of candles and lamps, or fragrances and perfumes, or an assembly of people, or
a rich...table, or boast in the...presence of men who are glorious upon the earth?[49]
These things are all earthly, "here today", he says, "and tomorrow gone." The one who is wise therefore looks to what is not visible, "the future [i.e., eschatological] events which are present in the rites being celebrated", and, doing so, such a person will celebrate the feast "in the Holy Spirit...with those who celebrate...in heaven." [50] No reckoning of feasts or splendor in decoration suffices if one does not realize that the latter do not comprise "the true feast, but are rather symbols of the feast". Without that realization, he concludes, there is neither "gain nor joy". [51]
St. Symeon certainly does not discourage liturgical solemnities: "God forbid!", he exclaims, and goes on to insist, "On the contrary, I indeed both advise and encourage you to do these things, and to do so lavishly!" He does, though, want to point how to celebrate properly, and to explain what the things done "in types and symbols really mean."[52] In the course of this explanation, he displays his debt to the Areopagite. The function, he says, of the lamps in the church is "to show you the intelligible gift of light" (recall Dionysius' "immaterial gift of light"), and of the fragrances or incense used to reveal "the intelligible myrrh", the anointing of the Spirit which "wells up from within", and "rises like sweet-smelling smoke" [53] (so Dionyius' "spiritual distributions"). In Symeon's further remarks here on the mingled perfumes and incense as reflecting the graced human being, "composed and combined", he says, "with the spiritual perfume...the gifts...of the Holy Spirit", we might call to mind Dionysius description of the myron in Ecclesiastical Hierarchy IV, where the perfumed oil signals Jesus, "the superessential fragrance", Who pervades our being by virtue of the Incarnation. [54]
Stressing that our celebrations here-below are only "a type and shadow and symbol" of the heavenly feast, to which latter we can neither add nor subtract [55], Symeon shows nonetheless how we may participate in the celestial liturgy. As we briefly noted above in reference to the fourth-century Syrians, and at length with reference to Dionysius on hierarchy, the New Theologian holds that each Christian is called to reflect the worship of heaven. Again, for him as for the others we discussed, the Church at worship is an icon at once of heaven and of the new man transfigured in Christ. His series of comparisons follows the sequence quoted above from Celestial Hierarchy I.3 fairly closely, and, like the latter, concludes with the Eucharist. The lamps signify "that light by which the whole world of the virtues is complete", the perfumes and incense "the intelligible perfume of the Holy Spirit", the crowds of laity "the ranks of the holy angels", friends and dignitaries "all the saints", and the groaning board of refreshments "the living bread alone -- not that which is perceptible and visible, but He Who comes to you in and through what is perceptible", and the wine "not...this visible wine, but that which appears as wine, yet is perceived by the intellect as the blood of God, light inexpressible." [56] The order is a little different from Dionysius, whose lights precede the perfumes, while Symeon's crowds and dignaries representing angels and saints do not quite match up to the orders of clergy signifying the inner order of the virtuous soul, but the New Theologian overall does seem clearly to be echoing the Areopagite. The thinking behind both is surely very close as well: the Church's liturgy connects us with the angels and with Christ while, at the same time, it reflects the soul in union with God. Recalling my remarks above on the "form" of "our hierarchy", in Dionysius' terms, it is also clear that the liturgy for Symeon, too, is more than simply a reflection. It enables union with God, accomplishes it. Properly understood, it shapes the soul. That proper understanding comes through "perception and knowledge", says Symeon, by means of the "intelligible eye of the soul" [57]. Likewise, for Dionysius in Ecclesiastical Hierarchy III and elsewhere, the spiritual senses are given through the sacraments. It is Baptism, he tells us, which formed him, and allowed him to discern rightly, just as the Eucharist is the "sacrament of sacraments", the gathering up -- synaxis -- of the collective and the individual into Christ [58]. Similarly, Symeon remarks at the end of his discourse that, if one allows oneself so to be formed, and thus celebrates the feast and partakes worthily
of the divine mysteries, all your life will be to you one single feast. And not a
feast, but the beginning of a feast and a single Passover [lit., pascha]: the passage
and emigration from what is seen to what is sensed by the intellect, to that place
where every shadow and type, and all the present symbols, come to an ` end...rejoicing eternally in the most pure sacrifice, in God the Father and the
co-essential Spirit, always seeing Christ and being seen by Him, ever being with
Christ...than Whom nothing is greater in the Kingdom of God...Amen. [59]
I cannot resist adding that the New Theologian here recalls Dionysius on at least a couple of other occasions. The first occurs in Divine Names I.4, where the sequence "now...then...now" punctuates a discussion of the relationship obtaining between the life of the Christian in this world and in the eschaton, a sequence that notes the contrast while affirming an essential communion between the two moments that is mediated by the liturgy, and the Areopagite goes on to assert that, even in the present life, one may be caught up into the reality of the world to come [60]. The second occasion is a passage in Epistle 9, seldom if ever noted in Dionysian scholarship, on the eschatological banquet of the saints, where, Dionysius says,
It is Jesus Himself Who gladdens them and leads them to the table, Who serves them, Who grants them everlasting rest, Who bestows and pours out on the them the fullness of beauty. [61]
Over a century before Dionysius, and long before Symeon, the Liber Graduum put the relationship perhaps most clearly of all. Christ gave us the visible order of the Church, writes the unknown author, so that
by starting from these visible things [i.e., the visible liturgy], and provided our
bodies become temples and our hearts altars, we might find ourselves in their
heavenly counterparts...migrating there and entering in while we are still in this
visible church...[62]
Note here the "migration", so like Symeon's "emigration" just above, and intimately related, I think, to the famous Dionysian "ecstasy", together with the emphasis all three writers place on this "passage" as both eschatological hope and -- if only momentarily -- present possibility.
V. Concluding Remarks: Tensions within a Shared Continuum
St. Symeon claimed throughout his active life that he was doing no more that re-affirming the Tradition, "the teachings of the Master and the Apostles that some have perverted." [63] With regard to the theme I was assigned for this conference, the relationship between the spiritual life and the hierarchical church, I think that his claim is just. On the theme of hierarchy, he is occasionally contrasted by modern scholars with that other writer who featured prominently in this paper, Dionysius Areopagites, though the same scholars are then very puzzled when obliged to confront the extraordinarily prominent Dionysian presence in Symeon's passionately devoted disciple, biographer, editor, and all-round champion, Nicetas Stethatos [64]. To be sure, we must allow that Nicetas was a thinker in his own right, but I believe -- and hope that I have shown, at least to some extent -- that the gap between the "mystical anarchist", Symeon, and Dionysius, "the unilateral theoretician of hierarchy", is more apparent than real [65]. For both the New Theologian and the inventor of the word, "hierarchy", the latter is first and foremost the revealed form of worship, whose literary history begins in the Torah of Israel and culminates in the Church's Gospel. To that revealed form, or "pattern", to borrow from the language of Exodus 25:9, both writers are utterly loyal. They both understand it, moreover, as itself revelatory and formative, and thus of immediate and inescapable relevance to the inner, spiritual life. The "pattern" of heaven is manifested in it, and so also is the form of the soul transformed. It is, for both, the Incarnate Word's communication of Himself. It is the expression of, and participation in, His risen body, the reality of the world to come. Both writers are also in this regard faithful witnesses to prior Tradition, in particular to the ascetical literature of the fourth century and even well before.
The one area where we do find a significant difference between Symeon and Dionysius lies in the latter's persistent -- if not perfectly consistent -- effort to assimilate the figure of the ascetical holy man to that of the bishop. The spiritual father, the geron of early and later monastic literature, is -- most of the time -- identified with the "hierarch" [66]. Symeon, of course, betrays no such ambivalence, nor, to the best of my knowledge, do any of his monastic predecessors and successors. St. Maximus the Confessor's Mystagogy simply ignores this attempted Dionysian equivalence, as do such later monastic admirers of Dionysius as Nicetas, Gregory Palamas, and Nicholas Cabasilas. The monks charitably and -- so far as I can tell -- uniformly ignore the Areopagite's obvious sin against truth here. In contrast, and beginning with Dionysius' earliest known commentator, the bishop John of Scythopolis, Eastern bishops have tended universally to applaud it, while simultaneously ignoring (as does John of Scythopolis himself) the inner reading of "hierarch" and "hierarchy", which is to say, the application -- also fully intended by Dionysius -- of these terms to the life of the soul [67]. This bifurcated reception of the Corpus dionysiacum in the East is an amusing if little-noted fact, just one more instance, if the reader will, of that long-standing tension between charismatic and intstitutional authority which I, following many others before me, read as an inescapable fact of the Church's life in statu via [68].
I therefore have to admit that I have not completely solved the dichotomy implied in my assigned title, but then I believe that no one has, or can -- at least, on this side of the eschaton. "Hierarchy" understood simply as "authority", the "chain of command", as I put it earlier, is indeed largely foreign to St. Symeon. But, if understood as "Church", as "liturgy", and if it includes the notion of the latter as essential, revealed, and a force which shapes the soul, then "hierarchy" has the New Theologian's definite seal of approval. It is in his blood and breath, part of the very fabric of that new reality in Christ to which his entire life was given in witness, and which he understood as summed up in the person of the transfigured saint.
Of course, it was precisely his emphasis on the charismatically endowed elder which led to the New Theologian's conflict with Stephen of Nicomedia and the patriarchal chancery, which is to say, with hierarchy in the modern, impoverished sense. Yet, in at least one passage, we find him speaking of the succession of holy elders in terms which recall, almost verbatim, Dionysius on hierarchy as a cascade of light:
The intelligible orders of the higher powers are illumined by God from the
first order to the second, and from there to all the others in the same way,
until the divine light passes through them all. The saints, too, are illumined
in the same way by the divine angels, and, as they are bound up and joined
together in the bond of the Spirit, they become their [the angels'] equals in
honor and emulate them. These saints themselves come after the saints who
preceded them, and from generation to generation they join [their predecessors]
through the practice of God's commandments. Like them, they are enlightened
and receive this grace of God by participation. They become just like a golden
chain, with each of them a link, bound to all the preceding saints in faith, love,
and good works...one single chain in one God...[69]
A few years ago Bishop Kallistos Ware cited these lines in order to illustrate the idea of a second kind of "apostolic succession", one which exists alongside the "visible succession" of the bishops, and which consists of the "spiritual fathers and mothers in each generation of the Church" [70]. The bishop's point is a very important one. In its acknowledgement of two successions, it directs us back at once to the broader sense of hierarchy which I have been trying to sketch, and to that tension which exists within it, of which tension we might further admit that SS. Symeon and Dionysius represent different poles. Still, and by way of a last word, I should like to underline a couple of points which I think do much to soften this apparent polarity. First, there is the commonality of expression which I think the New Theologian consciously shares with Dionysius. He at least, if not his students over the past century, understands that both he and the Areopagite are witnesses to, and in fact speaking out of, a common liturgical and ascetico-mystical tradition. Allow me to add just one more, little historical datum in support of this assertion. It is a fact that the description of a chain of divinely-inspired teaching, and therefore of successively graced individuals, in terms moreover which recall quite precisely both Dionysius a century later and Symeon much later still, shows up full-blown in Palladius of Heliopolis' letter to Lausus the chamberlain, prefacing the former's Lausiac History [71]. The latter work comprises, of course, a signally important testimony to the elders of early monasticism, and was written by no less than a disciple of arguably the most important theoretician of the spiritual life in the long tradition of the East, Evagrius Ponticus. Second, we have seen that this chain of saints, the succession of so-to-speak realized images of God in Christ, is not possible for St. Symeon without the other three senses of the phrase, "body of Christ"; and therefore that he requires, and assumes as a matter of course, the full and original sense of "hierarchy" as I have sought to outline the latter here.
The Transfiguration, Cosmic Symbolism, and the Transformation of Consciousness in the Gospel of Mark

by David Ulansey ©
(A paper presented at the 1996 meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature)

 

In a paper that I presented at this meeting several years ago, and that was subsequently published in the Journal of Biblical Literature (110:1 [Spring 1991] pp. 123-5), I showed that the author of the Gospel of Mark intentionally linked the image of the tearing of the heavens which occurs at the precise beginning of Jesus's career-- i.e., the baptism (1:10)-- with another image of tearing which occurs at the precise ending of Jesus's career: namely, the tearing of the "veil of the temple" immediately after his death (15:38). The evidence proving this consists in the fact that the temple veil to which Mark refers was in reality, according to Josephus, a gigantic tapestry, 80 feet high, on which was portrayed "a panorama of the entire heavens...." In other words, in Mark's gospel the heavens are torn not only at the baptism, but also at the crucifixion where the curtain that is torn is precisely an image of the starry heavens.

These two moments of baptism and death are also linked by the fact that the voice that speaks from the torn heavens at the baptism naming Jesus as "my son" is paralleled at the moment of the tearing of the heavenly veil at the death of Jesus, since immediately after the veil is torn a Roman centurion repeats the announcement that Jesus is "son of god." Further, the heavenly disturbance of the tearing of the heavens at the baptism is also mirrored by the heavenly disturbance of the "darkness over the whole land" at the crucifixion. Thus the moments of the baptism and death of Jesus are inextricably linked together by a complex of symbols.

However, this diptych of the baptism and death of Jesus in Mark cannot be fully understood without the recognition that they are actually part of a triptych, the third element of which is constituted by the event known as the "Transfiguration."

The Transfiguration in the Gospel of Mark, which occurs roughly at the middle of the gospel, focuses on a dramatic metamorphosis of the clothing that Jesus is wearing, in which "his garments became glistening, intensely white, as no fuller on earth could bleach them" (9:3). This event is accompanied by the appearance of a dark cloud in the sky overhead from which a voice says, "This is my beloved son...." This voice accompanying the heavenly apparition of the dark cloud, of course, leads us inescapably to the beginning of the gospel and the baptism of Jesus, where, again following a heavenly apparition-- Jesus sees "the heavens torn open"-- once again a voice exclaims "Thou art my beloved son..." (1:10-11). And just as inescapably, the cloud that darkens the scene at the transfiguration leads us to the moment of the death of Jesus, at which point there is suddenly "darkness over the whole land," and again a voice-- that of the centurion-- declares that Jesus is "son of god." Thus the transfiguration forms an obvious triptych with the baptism and death of Jesus.

As we have seen, the baptism and death of Jesus are explicitly linked in the Gospel of Mark by the presence of the motif of the "torn heavens" at both moments. Of course, the baptism and the crucifixion are both events of extreme metamorphosis and boundary-crossing: at the baptism Jesus is initiated into a radically new life, and at the crucifixion he passes from life to death. Thus the fact that the heavenly fabric is torn through at precisely these two moments suggests that this cosmic fabric is symbolic (consciously or unconconsciously) of the barrier or boundary that is being crossed at those points, and that it thus signifies as well (consciously or unconsciously) the transformative or initiatory nature of those moments.

It is therefore of great interest that the deities presiding over two of the most important initiatory cults of later antiquity-- Isis and Mithras-- are both pictured as being clothed in heavenly or cosmic garments made out of fabric that is covered with stars. In his Metamorphoses Apuleius describes Isis as follows:
What obsessed my gazing eyes by far the most was her pitch-black cloak that shone with a dark glow.... Upon the embroidered edges and over the whole surface sprinkled stars were burning; and in the center a mid-month moon breathed forth her floating beams. (Marvin Meyer, Ancient Mysteries, p. 178)

Mithras, for his part, is often depicted wearing a billowing cape whose inside surface is covered with stars. The starry fabric of the garments of Isis and Mithras reminds us, of course, of the veil of the temple in Mark's gospel on which was portrayed "a panorama of the entire heavens," and whose tearing at the death of Jesus is linked by Mark with the tearing of the heavens that occurs at Jesus's baptism.

There is thus an intriguing parallel between Mark's starry veil, which he introduces at the two decisive moments of initiatory passage in the life of Jesus, and the starry garments of Isis and Mithras, deities whose nature is to preside over sacred rites of initiatory passage. In addition, the association of this starry cloth with moments of transformation, initiation, and boundary-crossing suggests that in later antiquity the imagery of garments in general possessed as an inherent potentiality the ability to evoke hints of spiritual metamorphosis.

The initiatory or transformative implications of the symbol of the starry garment in later antiquity could also be transferred to other sorts of garments, as is made quite clear by Apuleius, who, after having described the starry robe of Isis the initiatrix, goes on to tell of the initiation of his hero Lucius into the mysteries of Isis. After his initiation, Lucius is clothed by the priests in extraordinary garments which, however, are not astral in their decoration (rather, they are covered with flower and animal images). Still, the astral implications of the moment are explicitly indicated, since Lucius holds a torch and wears a rayed crown which, Apuleius says, gives him the appearance of being "decorated like the sun" (Meyer, p. 189). The elaborate detail which Apuleius uses to describe the extraordinary garments of Lucius cannot fail to remind the reader of the elaborate detail used earlier by Apuleius in describing the spectacular starry robe of Isis: the robe of Isis and the garments of Lucius are clearly linked, and the transformative implications of Isis's starry robe are shared by Lucius's non-astral garments.

The cosmic character of garments that are not explicitly described as astral is also made clear in Jewish apocalpytic texts. For example, in Enoch's great vision in chap. 14 of I Enoch, he ascends into the heavens where he enters an extraordinary space described as a cosmic temple made of fire and crystal. There in the center of this sacred space Enoch sees "the Great Glory" who is wearing a "gown, which was shining more brightly than the sun, it was whiter than any snow." This description cannot help but call our attention back to the "transfiguration" of Jesus, where Mark says that Jesus's "garments became glistening, intensely white, as no fuller on earth could bleach them" (9:3). The heavenly context of Enoch's vision of the figure in the shining white garments suggests that a cosmic atmosphere may lie beneath the surface of Jesus's transfiguration, and we have in fact already noticed that the transfiguration is accompanied by an apparition in the sky and is symbolically linked with the "starry veil" of Jesus's baptism and crucifixion.

These sorts of symbolic connections can also be traced in the opposite direction. For Jesus's transfiguration is, as its name suggests, a moment of transformation. We could, therefore, at this point safely predict that there would occur in apocalyptic texts motifs of transformation linked with garments , and of course we would not be disappointed. For although the shining white garment of the Great Glory seen by Enoch in his heavenly journey is not explicitly connected with transformation (other than the fact that it appears at the moment of Enoch's initiation into knowledge of the heavenly secrets, and that it appears at the spatial boundary of the universe), Jewish apocalyptic texts are of course permeated with the symbolism of heavenly garments that mark or produce a transformation.

In the "Parables" of Enoch, for example, Enoch, having been carried off into the heavens, is instructed that on the day of judgment "the righteous and elect ones shall rise from the earth and shall cease being of downcast face. They shall wear the garments of glory. These garments of yours shall become the garments of life from the Lord of the Spirits. Neither shall your garments wear out, nor your glory come to an end before the Lord of the Spirits" (62:15-16). Here the apocalyptic transformation of the cosmos itself is associated with the reception of magical garments possessing glory, life, and imperishability.

Likewise in the Testament of Levi, Levi, having seen the heavens open, beholds "seven men in white clothing," who proceed to dress him in wondrous garments that mark his initiation into a celestial priesthood: "The second washed me with pure water... and put on me a holy and glorious vestment. The third put on me something made of linen.... The fourth placed... around me a girdle which was like purple" (8:5-8).

In the Apocalypse of Zephaniah, just before the heavens are opened Zephaniah is surrounded by angelic beings: "Thousands of thousands and myriads of myriads of angels gave praise before me. I, myself, put on an angelic garment" (8:1-4). Here the garment and the opening of the heavens are linked with what appears to be tantamount to the transformation of Zephaniah into an angelic being, since the garment that he puts on is described as "angelic." The basic structure of this event is identical with Levi's investment with the garments of a cosmic priesthood: it would thus seem that the core of these symbolic events is a transformative investiture, and it is of only secondary importance that in the Testament of Levi the garments are those of a priest while in the Apocalypse of Zephaniah they are the garments of the angels. It is important to re-emphasize here the significance of the fact that these investitures are associated with ascents to the heavens, for the heavens are of course the boundary of the cosmos, and passage through them is thus a tremendously powerful boundary-crossing, and thus an extremely significant image of transformation and initiation.

The profoundly transformative nature of these cosmic garments is made absolutely clear in II Enoch, where Enoch, having ascended to the heavens, hears God say to the angel Michael, "Take Enoch, and extract (him) from the earthly clothing. And anoint him with the delightful oil, and put (him) into the clothes of glory." Enoch's description continues: "And Michael extracted me from my clothes. He anointed me with the delightful oil; and the appearance of that oil is greater than the greatest light, its ointment is like sweet dew, and its fragrance like myrrh; and its shining is like the sun. And I gazed at all of myself, and I had become like one of the glorious ones, and there was no observable difference" (22:8-10). Here Enoch is explicitly described as being transformed into an angelic being by means of a change of garments. The transformative implications resonating throughout the other texts we have discussed are here brought resoundingly to the surface.

Perhaps the most remarkable and far-reaching invocation of the image of the garment to be found anywhere in the literature of later antiquity occurs in the Gnostic Hymn of the Pearl, one quarter of which is devoted to a description of a mysterious garment of initiation. The Hymn tells the story of a young prince who has been sent by his royal parents to go "down into Egypt" to retrieve a magical pearl guarded by a dragon. At the moment of his departure, the prince removes his royal garments: "And they took off from me the bright robe, which in their love they had wrought for me, and my purple toga, which was measured [and] woven to my stature" (Robert M. Grant, ed., Gnosticism, p. 117). He then descends to Egypt, where he eats the food and (interestingly) dons the clothing of the Egyptians, as a result of which he falls into a sleep and forgets who he is and why he has come to Egypt. But his parents above send him a letter which takes the form of a bird and then speaks to him, recalling him to knowledge of his true nature and destiny. He awakens from his sleep, takes the pearl from the dragon, and proceeds to return to his homeland. As he crosses the boundary from Egypt back to his native country, he discovers that his parents have sent ahead to him "my bright robe, which I had stripped off, and the toga where it was wrapped" (p. 120).

The prince's robe is thus the marker of the precise moments of departure and return, of the boundary-crossings from the homeland to the land of the unknown. Thus the robe performs the same role here that the "tearing of the heavenly fabric" performs in the Gospel of Mark: each motif appears at both the precise beginning and the precise end of the adventures of the texts' respective heroes. Here again, therefore, we discover the same suggestive parallel between the sort of heavenly fabric imagined by the author of the Gospel of Mark and the image of the garment which we noticed earlier in our discussion. And here again, also, we see the transformational, initiatory role of the garment brought into the foreground, since in the Hymn the garment functions as the marker of the crucial boundary-crossings embedded in the narrative. The prince removes his garments at the beginning as he crosses the boundary from his home to the unknown, just as in Mark the heavens, like a piece of cloth, are torn-- the cosmic boundary is ruptured-- at the moment that Jesus's adventure begins. Likewise, the prince regains his garments at the moment of his return as he again crosses the boundary from the unknown back to his homeland, just as in Mark the moment of Jesus's crossing the boundary from life to death is marked again by the rupture of the cosmic boundary symbolized by the tearing of the heavenly cloth of the temple veil.

The resonances that this array of images has with the other material we have discussed-- the transfiguration of Jesus, the clothing of Isis and Mithras, the initiation-garb of Lucius, the heavenly transformative garments of the apocalyptic seers, and so on-- are obvious and do not require further discussion. However, the Hymn of the Pearl posits a deeper significance to this garment imagery: a significance that may underlie the entire symbolic complex. Let us listen to the manner in which the Hymn describes the garments of the prince at the moment he regains them:
On a sudden, as I faced it,
The garment seemed to me like a mirror of myself.
I saw it all in my whole self,
Moreover I faced my whole self in [facing] it,
For we were two in distinction
And yet again one in one likeness....
My bright embroidered robe,
which was decorated with glorious colours;
With gold and with beryls,
And rubies and agates
And sardonyxes varied in colour,
It also was made ready in its home on high,
And with stones of adamant
All its seams were fastened;
And the image of the King of kings
Was depicted in full all over it,
And like the sapphire-stone alse
Were its manifold hues.
And again I saw that all over it
The motions of knowledge were stirring,
And as if to speak
I saw it also making itself ready....
And in its kingly motions
It was spreading itself out towards me,
And in the hands of its givers
It hastened that I might take it.
And me too my love urged on
That I should run to meet it and receive it,
And I stretched forth and received it,
With the beauty of its colours I adorned myself.
And my toga of brilliant colours
I cast around me, in its whole breadth.
I clothed myself therewith, and ascended
To the gate of salutation and homage...
(Grant, pp. 121-2)

The most important insight that this text affords us is that the religious imagination of later antiquity was able to project into the image of the garment a symbol for a radically transformative self-knowledge. The prince sees the robe as a mirror of himself. But it is not an ordinary self reflected here, for the robe is a spectacular object of crystals, brilliant colors, and the hauntingly mysterious "motions of knowledge" that stir all over it. What is this "self" that the prince sees reflected in the garment?

By attributing extraordinary beauty and power to the "self" relected in the mirror-garment, the Hymn is clearly suggesting that the "self" is something worth looking at. In other words, the Hymn functions as a call to introspection, a promise of tremendous gifts to be attained by looking within. But as we have seen, the robe in the Hymn is also a marker of transformation, initiation, and boundary-crossing. The Hymn is therefore identifying the process of initiation and transformation, represented by all of the garment-imagery we have examined, with the dynamics of introspection, the "motions of knowledge." The dazzling robes of the transfigured Jesus and of Enoch's "Great Glory," the cosmic cloak of Isis, the starry curtain of the Jerusalem temple, the heavenly angelic garments of the apocalyptic seers: all of these can be seen from the perspective revealed by the Hymn as a collective summons to an inwardness that results in radical transformation.

Thus the entire complex of late Hellenistic garment-imagery, of which Mark's transfiguration acccount is merely one example, may constitute a symbolically expressed collective intuition that the introjection of psychic energy can result in a decisive transformation of the self. Just as the alchemists at this time began to speculate about the positive transmutational potential of concentrating energy on the internal contents of a sealed vessel-- a potential represented by the fiery glow of pure gold-- so in a more diffuse way the imagination of the time also speculated on the positive transformational potential of the concentration of energy within the closed vessel of the psyche: a potential represented by the image of the dazzling garment of heavenly light.
Prof. Rachel Elior
Hebrew University
Angelic Liturgy -Why?
Angelic liturgy may be found in three different sources of literature dating from antiquity. The primary source is associated with the priest-prophet Ezekiel and his vision of the chariot as related in the Bible. Secondly, it is found in the Qumran literature and the related books of Enoch, Jubilees, and the Testament of Levi. And last, it is present in the corpus known as the Hekhalot Literature. I would like to argue that these three sources are related to priestly traditions which were generated by priests who could no longer officiate in the Jerusalem Temple after its destruction and defilement. This literature may be perceived as an attempt to preserve numinous memory of the temple in heavenly shrines. Ezekiel’s Vision of the Chariot was the transformation of the earthly temple into a heavenly shrine preserving major cultic elements within the heavenly sphere. The Chariot vision served as the foundation for heavenly holy place. The solar calendar, which was understood to be granted from the angels and kept by the priests, served as the foundation for holy time , and the heavenly liturgy of the angels served as holy ritual. Angelic liturgy reflects the inter-relationship between priests and angels as well as the worship which was performed in both the earthly and the heavenly temples. All the principle concepts and values of the priestly literature are concerned with angels; the angels are depicted as the heavenly source of authority for the priesthood and as eternal witnesses for the cosmic order. They serve as an archetype for priestly ritual and the priests viewed themselves as an earthly expression of the angelic entities. The sacred solar calendar was the foundation for all ritual whether performed on earth or in heaven and was preserved and enacted by priests and angels alike. The division of time into seven daily units marked by the holy seventh day is the foundation for the cosmic order. This order is found in the solar calendar and is kept by the angels who perform the seven-fold heavenly ritual known as the angelic liturgy as well as by the twenty-four priestly vigils who calculate and preserve the cycles of the Sabbath on an annual basis. The combination of the sacred cosmic calendar with the establishment of the heavenly chariot shrines as well as the sanctity of the angelic priesthood and its perpetual liturgical order achieved the unification of holy time, holy place, and holy ritual. These three elements, holy time, represented by the solar calendar; holy place, represented by the chariot and its seven shrines and holy ritual represented by the angelic liturgy of the Shabbat Songs are all infused with the sacred number seven and all its permutations. These three holy elements which were united in the temple worship, represent the eternal cosmic order and serve to preserve and sanctify this order on earth as well as in heaven.
MOTIVATION FOR COMMUNAL PRAYER
IN THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND EARLY JUDAISM
-rough draft, not complete paper-
Dr. Daniel Falk, University of Oregon
Note: Hebrew has not been formatted.
Although there are no regulations of prayer in the Hebrew Bible, the rabbis sought to derive a scriptural basis for prayer at fixed times*which is a given in the earliest rabbinic literature. The most prominent justification given was prayer as a replacement for sacrifice. For example, with reference to Hosea 14:3 R. Abahu could reason, *What shall replace the bullocks we formerly offered to thee? `Our lips,' in the prayer we pray to thee.*1 Thrice daily prayer was attributed to Mosaic ordinance,2 or the patriarchs.3
Such statements are of interest for exploring the rabbinic understanding of the significance of prayer, but they are of limited historical value for the origins of regularized prayer. For this, the Dead Sea Scrolls are probably our most valuable source, because they provide the first clear examples of regulated prayer. Not surprisingly, scholars have tended to focus on the idea of prayer as replacement for sacrifice as the key motivation for regulated prayer in the Qumran scrolls. Perhaps the rabbinic discussion has exerted undue influence on the historical interpretation of these texts.
This is not to ignore the many pieces of evidence in the scrolls that suggest a correlation between prayer and sacrifice, which is essentially of three kinds. (1) There are sharp criticisms of the temple cult (e.g., CD 6:11b-14a), and expressions of the community as fulfilling the role of atonement and cultic worship in its prayers and deeds (e.g., 4Q174 Flor 3:6-7). (2) Numerous passages speak of prayer as a sacrifice, or prayer instead of sacrifice (e.g., CD 11:20-21; 1QS 9:4-5, 26; 10:6; 1QH 9[=1]:28). (3) The fixed times for prayer*daily, sabbath, and on festivals*can be seen to correspond to times of sacrifice.4 Daily prayer at the interchange of day and night (cf. Exodus 30:7-8; Num 28:3-8, in the morning and *between the evenings* ... a daily burnt offering ordained at mount Sinai for a *pleasing odor* (ÿëç Éëçç), an expression applied to prayer in the scrolls). The descriptor for a collection of sabbath songs (Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice) is based on the sabbath offerings (ÆîÜ ÖüÜ üÖüÜà, Num 28:10).
Nevertheless, there are good reasons not to regard the idea of prayer as a replacement for sacrifice as a wholly satisfying historical explanation of the originating motivation for regulated prayer. Logically, one is caught in a chicken or egg dilemma: does the above evidence exist because Jews who could not or would not participate in the temple cult began to regulate prayers to fill this void, or because prayer had come to be associated with or function in a similar sphere as sacrifice? This is a theoretical distinction which becomes important in pursuing historical reconstruction of the origins of liturgical prayer. For example, Words of the Luminaries is our earliest example of petitionary prayers composed for daily, liturgical recitation. Assuming that these were used in the Ya2ad, it is plausible to suggest that these prayers may have served in the place of the Tamid sacrifice to God, even though concrete evidence for this is completely lacking. But is this necessarily the motivation for composing the prayers in the first place? As Chazon has convincingly argued, it is likely that Words of the Luminaries pre-dates the Ya2ad, being composed probably no later than about the middle of the second century BCE. In searching for the unknown composer(s) of these prayers, must we imagine a community without involvement in the temple cult? It is problematic to simply posit this.
1. Motivations for Regularized Prayer
The key innovation in the perspective of prayer that we are considering is the concept of prayer at fixed times ordained by God. Does this imply the theoretical conception of prayer as an alternative for sacrifice? First of all, we can note that in two texts probably of non-sectarian origin fixed times of prayer are linked with the offering of sacrifices. 4Q409 calls to praise and bless God (äîî àüÿè) in conjunction with what appear to be festival sacrices (mention of whole offering, lambs, burning incense, altar; Æûëì îÆàîä ... àïüÖëì ... üäùê]ÿ[ ... Æî Äåü]ç[). According to David's Compositions, songs are to be sung over the daily tamid sacrifice (ÆàîÜ äÜÄëâ), and at sabbath and festival offerings (ùàÿüÅ). Nitzan correctly recognized that *this refers to songs which accompany the offering of sacrifices, rather than to prayer which corresponds to it,* yet her interest was in the meaning of such prayer in a context without sacrifice.5
Secondly, if we consider the catalogues of times ordained for prayer in the sectarian texts (1QS 9:26-10:17; 1QM 14:12b-14a; 1QH 20:4-11), these are described as times ordained for praise, rather than praise being offered at times ordained for sacrifice, even if prayer is presented metaphorically as a sacrifice. This becomes clear in 1QS 9:26-10:17 which is punctuated with the metaphor of prayer as an offering (1QS 9:26; 10:6, 8, 14), and yet the list is not limited to occasions where sacrifice might have been brought*for example, times of affliction (1QS 9:26; 10:15-17) and grace before meals (1QS 10:15). Therefore, even in sectarian texts, prayer at fixed times and use of the metaphor of prayer as offering does not necessarily indicate that prayer was thought of as an alternative for sacrifice.
Daily prayer in the Dead Sea Scrolls is most commonly associated with imagery of creation*the divinely ordained cycle of heavenly lights*and angelic worship (e.g., 4Q408; Hymn to Creator 11QPsa 26:11-12; 4Q503; 4Q504 1-2 vii 6). Nitzan has emphasized that prayer at fixed times thus expresses harmony with the created order and union with heavenly worship. Can this conception itself be seen as originating from the need to develop a substitute for the sacrificial cult? It is possible, on the one hand, since according to some traditions (e.g., Jub. 3:27; 6:14; 49:19; cf. Num 28:3-8) the times for sacrifice were associated with sunrise and sunset. On the other hand, however, it clear from Jubilees that the idea of praise of God at fixed times (in this case, Sabbath) in union with the angels must have developed in a setting alongside sacrificial worship. The motifs of joint angelic and human praise of God as creator, God's holiness, and God's kingdom are linked with Sabbath as an appointed time.
And he gave us a great sign, the sabbath day, so that we might work six days and observe a sabbath from all work on the seventh day. And he told us*all of the angels of the presence and all of the angels of sanctification, these two great kings*that we might keep the sabbath with him in heaven and on earth. . . . And thus he created therein a sign by which they might keep the sabbath with us on the seventh day, to eat and drink and bless the one who created all things just as he blessed and sanctified for himself a people who appeared from all the nations so that they might keep the sabbath together with us. And he caused their desires to go up as pleasing fragrance, which is acceptable before him always. (Jubilees 2:17-22)6
and to bless the Lord your God who gave to you the day of festival and the holy day. And a day of the holy kingdom for all Israel is this day among their days always. (Jubilees 50:9-11)
But in addition to praising God with the angels on Sabbath the people are still to atone for sins by means of sacrifices in Jubilees
to rest in it from all work of the occupations of the children of men except to offer incense and to bring gifts and sacrifices before the Lord for the days and the sabbaths . . . so that they might atone for Israel (with) continual gift day by day for an acceptable memorial before the Lord. (Jubilees 50:11)
Thus there is no basis to argue that the idea of prayer at fixed times originated out of the need to produces an alternative for sacrifice, even though it was certainly influenced by the idea of cultic worship at divinely ordained times.
In the remainder of this paper, I will focus on one important type of prayer found at Qumran: communal penitential prayers at fixed times. A priori it might seem likely that because penitential prayer has an atoning function, its extension to fixed periodic use must have arisen as a substition for sacrifice. The goal then, is to test this. Admittedly, however, the evidence is incomplete and inconclusive. Furthermore, as Richard Sarason reinforced, it is necessary to make clear differentiations between different types of texts and different social settings. But such differentiation itself cannot yet be accomplished with confidence. I have set for myself a very modest goal. I will approach the question negatively and with little regard for the differentiation that is ultimately crucial. That is, I will directly ask, is there a case to be made that communal penitential prayer could have become institutionalized at fixed times apart from an ideology that it is an alternative for sacrifice?
I will focus here primarily on one possible source of evidence: the biblical inspiration. First I will outline strands in biblical traditions that could provide a theoretical framework for an institution of penitential prayer that is not essentially in conflict with or in substitution for sacrifice. I will then explore the use of these strands in the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is little question that the biblical traditions we will consider are prominent in the background of penitential prayer in the Dead Sea Scrolls, whether directly or indirectly. The question is what meaning these traditions carry in that context.
2. The Biblical Framework for Communal Prayers of Confession
The first strand can be traced through the Deuteronomistic tradition. Rodney Werline recently has described how the covenantal warnings of Deuteronomy provided the basis for the development of penitential prayer as a *religious institution.* One might quibble over his somewhat vague application of the latter phrase, but the overall argument is clear enough. According to Deut 4:29-30, after the curses of the covenant have come upon the people, they will: seek (üùÖ, âÿÖ) the Lord with all their heart and all their soul, return (Öàü) to the Lord, and obey (ÖÄÆ) him. Deut 30:1-10 states this in casuistic form: if they return (Öàü) and obey (ÖÄÆ) with all their heart and with all their soul (30:2), then God will return to them, gather their dispersed from the ends of the earth (30:3-4), circumcise their heart (30:6) so that they will love the Lord with all their heart and soul, and God will put the curses on their enemies (30:7). Then the people will turn, obey, and do all that God commanded (30:8) and God will prosper them. That is, in the sequence sin*exile*restoration, the key mechanism is described in Deuteronomy as turning (Öàü) and seeking (üùÖ, âÿÖ). Werline also points out that what it means to *seek* and *return* is not defined, but that these are used as general metaphors for repentance. The Deuteronomistic perspective represented by the prayer in 1 Kings 8 marks a key transition: it is repentance (Öàü) and prayer (äÜöîî, äÜçÉÅ) as the enactment of repentance (1 Kings 8:35, 47, 48). Thus, *seek* is apparently interpreted as supplication. Sacrifice plays no role in this restoration, which Werline concludes is because the context concerned is that of the exile. Werline continues to trace the development of this tradition through the exilic and post-exilic prophets and penitential prayers, including the interpretation of Öàü and âÿÖ as confession of sins and study (Neh 9, Dan 9, Sir 39:5, Jubilees, Qumran; ch 2 and passim), the appropriation into an eschatological context in sectarian groups (ch. 3), and modification to allow for the idea of the pious sufferer (ch. 4).
Werline's analysis of this strand is I think essentially sound and so it will be sufficient for now merely to have summarized his treatment. My major criticism is that he focuses almost exclusively on the D tradition, ignoring or slighting some very significant texts, and thus he surprisingly downplays the P tradition which provides a second strand. We will need to balance his treatment with a survey of the evidence for this second strand below. But first, let us take note of the implications of his study to our topic so far. The sin of idolatry leading to exile is atoned for by repentance and prayer (or penitential prayer and study). Although this theoretical basis for penitential prayer develops during the exile, there is no evidence of established practices based on this until beginning in the reconstruction period. He does not state the implication, but this suggests that although the loss of the temple provided the theory of penitential prayer as exile remedy, the development of practice towards a *religious institution* (to use his terminology) came when there was a temple, and in connection with the temple. We can state as a conjectural proposition that disillusionment with the return and the sense that exile continues led to a need for continual repentance. This is far from sure, given the incomplete nature of our evidence, but it does raise the possibility that it is not so much replacement for sacrifice that is the real motivating significance for the origin of regular communal penitential prayer. We need also raise at this point the question whether it is convincing that the absence of sacrifice in this strand is due to the exilic context as Werline suggests. I believe that this is not completely convincing because he did not take sufficient stock of pre-exilic material and priestly influence, to which we now turn.
The second strand belongs to the Priestly (and Holiness) tradition. I take as my starting point Jacob Milgrom's exposition of the 'asham offering. Curiously, Werline cites this study approvingly but does not pursue its implications.7 In Cult and Conscience, Milgrom notes that maal (ÄÆî) according to P is sin against God (Num 5:6) and falls into two categories: *trespass on Temple sancta* and *violation of the covenant oath.*8 Its penalty is destruction by God. Unintentional maal can be atoned by restitution + 1/5 and an asham sacrifice, but deliberate maal cannot be atoned by sacrifice. Nevertheless, there are three instances in Priestly sources where deliberate sins against God are expiated by sacrifice (Lev 5:20-26 [Eng. 6:1-7]//Num 5:6-8, re: false oath about sin; Lev 5:1 (see Milgrom); and Lev 16:21, re: scapegoat for removal of sins of community on the Day of Atonement). These are also the only three cases that *explicitly demand a confession from the sinner over and above his remorse.*9 According to Num 5:6-8, when a person feels guilt10 he confesses (äÜàâä) the sin (çêÇä), makes reparation (ÇÖì, to the person, kinsman, or priests), and a ram of expiation is offered on his behalf.11 Thus, Milgrom proposes that *confession is the legal device fashioned by the Priestly legislators to convert deliberate sins into inadvertencies, thereby qualifying them for sacrificial expiation.*12 Furthermore he notes a complete absence in P of Öàü in its covenantal meaning *repent,* but rather P distinctively uses ÇÖì, äÜàâä and ÉïÉÆ. He concludes from this that *P's sacrificial system of expiation must be of pre-exilic* origin.13
Of great importance for our topic, Lev 26:39-42 understands the violation of the covenant (v. 15) as a deliberate ÄÆî committed against God.14 It prescribes that the people (1) confess (äÜàâä) their sin and the sin of their fathers, (2) humble (ÉïÉÆ) their uncircumcised hearts, and (3) make reparation for their sin. Then God will remember the covenant with the patriarchs and will remember the land. That is, the priestly legal innovation just described is applied to the exile. There are here three of the four elements: contrition (here ÉïÉÆ, elsewhere most often ÇÖì), confession, and reparation. Sacrifice is missing. Milgrom reasons that this is because in the absence of the possibility to sacrifice*the envisaged context here is the people removed from the land*confession does double duty: to convert the sin to an inadvertence and to atone for it. Thus, Lev 26:39-42 provides a theoretical basis for confession of sin as the response to exile, but in a context where the normative procedure would include sacrifice as well as confession. The absence of sacrifice is an extraordinary feature due to the condition of exile. Furthermore, confession is not involved as an alternative to sacrifice, but as an essential element since sacrifice alone could not from the priestly perspective atone for this type of sin. Even with sacrifice, confession would be required to allow atonement. Without sacrifice, the role of confession is simply extended. We must also note the element of reparation, which corresponds to the priestly requirement of restitution plus one-fifth. What is it in the context of exile envisaged by Lev 26? This is clarified in verse 43: their removal from the land so that it can lie desolate is accepted as reparation.
Now we need to consider the development of these two strands. The prophets mostly reflect the language of the first strand, calling the people to repent (Öàü) and seek (âÿÖ, üùÖ). This pattern is already well established in pre-exilic prophets. Besides Hos 5:15-6:1 mentioned by Werline, *repent* and *seek* define the program for restoration in Hos 3:5; 7:10; 14:2; Isaiah 9:13; Jer 36:7.15
In 1 Kings 8, too, the Deuteronomic strand is prominent, as Werline has amply demonstrated. The prayer closely echoes the language of Deut 4 and 30 with regard to the relationship between God and the people, the curses of the covenant, and the prescription for restoration, especially to *return to their heart* and to return (Öàü) to God with all their heart and soul. Nevertheless, the Deuteronomic language is reformulated into conditional sentences, adopting the form of Priestly casuistic law.16 Furthermore, Werline had noted that 1 Kings 8 interprets the *seeking* (âÿÖ, üùÖ) of Deut in terms of prayer: the people are to repent and pray (äÜöîî, äÜçÉÅ). This is the key movement in the development from the covenantal warnings of Deuteronomy to the post-exilic penitential prayers, and it is almost certainly under the influence of the Priestly strand: even though the term äÜàâä is not used but rather äÜöîî and äÜçÉÅ, the content of the supplication is a three-fold confession of sin (çêÇÉà àäÆàëÉà ÿÖÆÉà; 1 Kings 8:47) related to the confession of sin in Lev 16:21 for the Day of Atonement (ÆàÉÜ, öÖÆëäì, çêÇÜì).
If this is so, we may already detect the influence of the Priestly strand in some of the early prophets. Most striking is Hosea.17 After describing the guilt of Israel*using the priestly term ÇÖì*and the deserved death (Hosea 14:1 [Eng. 13:16]), the prophet pleads:
Return (Öàüä), O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity (ÆàÅ). Take words (âüÿëì) with you and return (Öàü) to the Lord; say to him, *Take away all iniquity (ÆàÅ); accept that which is good, and we will offer the fruit (Heb bulls) of our lips* ... I will heal their disloyalty; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them.
Does this not play off the priestly expiation of deliberate sin against God (here Äÿä) by repentance and penitential prayer as sacrifice?
In any case, the influence of both strands is clear in the post-exilic penitential prayer tradition. The Deuteronomic strand has been highlighted by Werline so there is no need to repeat the evidence here. We can recognize influence of the Priestly strand by the following distinctive traits18: sin described as ÄÆî; contrition/repentance as ÇÖì and/or humbling (possibly also expressions of humility: fasting, weeping, torn garments); seeking as prayer of confession; a confession formula related to the Day of Atonement confession from Lev 16:21.19 Thus, the version of Solomon's prayer in Chronicles shows more clearly a combination of both strands: *if my people ... humble themselves (ÉïÉÆ), and pray (äÜöîî) and seek (üùÖ) my face, and turn (Öàü) from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land* (2 Chron 7:14). Manasseh committed ÄÆî, and his renovation is due to prayer (Üöîä) and humbling (ÉïÉÆ) himself (2 Chron 33:19). The description of the penitential prayers in Ezra 9,20 Neh 1, 9, Dan 9, Bar 1:15-3:8, and Prayer of Azariah as acts of humbling and confession owes more to Lev 26 than the Deuteronomic strand. The sin of the people is called ÄÆî in Ezra 9, Neh 1 and Dan 9, and the prayers of Ezra 9, Neh 9, and Dan 9 are explicitly called confession (äÜàâä). The confession formula of Lev 16:21 seems to be the influence for the multiple confessions in Dan 9 and Bar 1:15-3:8. The prayers of Neh 9 and Dan 9 seem to understand respectively the message of the prophets and the covenantal warnings in the Pentateuch to prescribe repentance and prayer as the program for restoration.21 It is not sufficient to say that these prayers envisage repentance alone atoning for sin. As with Lev 26:43, the experience of God's punishment is assumed as reparation. This is explicit in Dan 9:24,22 but also underlies the frequent declarations that the people have suffered God's punishment. Furthermore, there is no hint that the confession is offered as an alternative to sacrifice. Ezra's prayer is offered at the temple at the time of the evening sacrifice (Ezra 9:5; 10:1), and for their sin of intermarriage*described as ÄÆî by which they incurred guilt (ÇÖì)*the congregation both confess (ÜÉà Üàâä) their sins and offer a guilt offering (ÇÖì; Ezra 10:10-11, 19). In Baruch, the people in Babylon do acts of humbling (weeping, fasting) and they pray (1:5), and they collect money to send to Jerusalem for sacrifices (1:6-7, 10). In Prayer of Azariah, there is petition for God to accept a contrite heart and humble spirit (cf. Lev 26) as sacrifice to atone, since they have no altar: *such may our sacrifice be in your sight today.* One should assume that if there was an altar the response would be to confess and make sacrifice.
Despite considerable use of Deuteronomic language, these prayers present a picture still reflecting the perspective of the Priestly strand: humbling, confessing sin, making reparation, and*where possible*sacrifice. There are plausible grounds, then, to argue that the development of the penitential prayer tradition blossomed in the Second Temple period drawing on a priestly legal tradition in which confession normally works together with sacrifice to atone for deliberate sin against God. Under the conditions of exile, confession and humbling before God could be accepted for atonement without sacrifice. But theoretically, at least, this is not as an alternative for sacrifice, since sacrifice alone could not atone for deliberate ÄÆî. Although this is speculative, I believe that the Priestly tradition on the role of confession may have influenced the D tradition on this. For our purposes speculation on the early development of traditions is not of real relevance. All that is important here is to recognize the two strands, and thir influence on the development of the penitential prayer tradition.
It is perhaps worth raising one further speculative thought. Milgrom deals with the psychology of fear of unconscious sin: one's suffering is imagined to result from having trespassed upon God's sancta.23 The response could be to offer a sacrifice *in case.*24 The growing importance of this is seen in the concept of the *suspended asham* cited in sayings attributed to early rabbis as a pious practice.25 Could this provide a psychological and social context for understanding the ultimate extension to daily confession of sin?
3. Prayers of Confession in the Dead Sea Scrolls
It is now time to turn to the scrolls to explore the use of the strands we have been considering. This will be only very tentative and preliminary, and for now will ask just one question in a limited way: how plausible is it that the theory of confession as a priestly legal device would have been perceived in our period, and more to the point, is there any evidence for it in the Dead Sea Scrolls? Milgrom points out that Philo shows the same interpretation of asham and confession in his exposition of Lev 5:20-26 (Eng. 6:1-7) about a deliberate false oath (Laws I, 235-238): it is atoned by voluntary confession, reparation + 1/5, temple sacrifice.26 He also finds evidence for this theory in the tannaim with regard to the Day of Atonment (*Since he has confessed his brazen and rebellious deeds it is as if they become as unintentional ones before him;* *Great is repentance which converts intentional sins into unintentional ones*).27 In the Dead Sea Scrolls, Milgrom points to 1QS 8:17-18 and CD 10:2-3 concerning purification for deliberate sin. He also notes that ÄÆî is an important term in the DSS and at least once refers to sancta trespass and once to covenant violation. In the latter case, 1QH 12(=4):34 it is drawn from Lev 26:40. But it often has a metaphorical use.28
There is, however, much stronger evidence. The key passage on which Milgrom built his argument*the priestly law concerning deliberate false oaths from Lev 5:20-26//Num 5:5-10*is raised twice in Damascus Document: CD 9:13-14 and 15:3-5. In both cases, confession is required to atone for deliberate sin in addition to restitution. In the situation when there is no human party to make restitution to (CD 9:13-14), one confesses sin, makes restitution to God by giving it to the priest29 in addition to the ram for ÇÖì sacrifice.30
The admonition section of the Damascus Document draws heavily on both the Deuteronomic strand and the Priestly strand in its presentation of the failings of Israel and the origins of the sect. The exile is thus the result of ÄÆî and warrants destruction. A penitent movement begins later (*390 years* after the beginning of the exile; CD 1:5-8): they recognized their guilt (ÇÖì), but didn't know what to do. They sought God (âÿÖ) but needed to be instructed in repentance (Öàü) and the secret things (ÉæÜÿàÜ; derived from a midrash on Deut 29:28 [Eng 29:29] and Neh 9:14). Those atoned by God (CD 3:18-19; 4:6; 20:34) are defined those repent (CD 4:2; 6:5; 8:16; 19:29) seek God (âÿÖ), described as study and interpretation (CD 6:2-11). Those who remain firm in the last days follow the teachings of the Teacher and confess (äÜàâä, mistakenly written äÜàÿä) their sins and God's just judgments (CD 20:27-30; similar to communal confessions but not quoting from any one, cf. Dan 9:5, 7). Thus, this seems to be interpreting the Öàü and âÿÖ of Deut as repentance/confession and study/interpretation.
The Covenant Ceremony, only alluded to in Damascus Document (confession of sin in CD 20:27-30; the expulsion ritual in 4QDe 7 i 15-15//4QDa 11) and described most fully in 1QS 1:18-2:18, also shows a combination of both strands in a regularized ritual. It follows closely the *covenant formulary* of the Bible (e.g., Deut 27:11-26; see Baltzer, Covenant Formulary, 39-50) and the prayers of communal confession (e.g., Neh 9:6-37; Ezra 9:6-15; Dan 9:4-19; Bar 1:15-3:8; Pr Azar; 4Q504 2 v 1-2 vii 2). The confession of sin relates to the Priestly tradition (the terms äÜàâä in CD and Äàâëì in 1QS; the multiple confession cf. Lev 16:21). I have argued elsewhere that the unique character of the covenant ceremony*confession of sin followed by cursing on outsiders and apostates*is motivated by reflection on Lev 26:40-45 and Deut 29:17-20 and 30:1-10.31
Finally, I believe that the expulsion ritual described at the end of the Damascus Document draws on both strands and assumes the understanding of confession I have been suggesting.
(4QDe 7 i 15-15//4QDa 11)
Heading: [And these are the re]gulations by wh[ich they will judge] all who are disciplined.
Everyo[ne] who ... shall come and confess it (make it known, ëâëÆäà) to the priest [o]verseer
(4QDa 11)
over the many, and he shall freely accept his sentence. As he (God) saidthrough Moses concer[ning] the person who sins inadvertently, *let them bring his sin offering [a]nd his guilt offering* (Lev 4:2, 27; Num 15:27). But concerning Israel, it is written *Let me go to the ends of [the] heavens, so that I will not smell the fragrance of your offerings* (Lev 26:31 + Deut 30:4).32 And in another place it is written *to return to God with weeping and with fasting* (Joel 2:12?). And in [anoth]er plac[e], *rend your hearts and not your garments* (Joel 2:13). Everyone who rejects these judgements, in accordance with all the laws which are found in the Torah of Moses, shall not be reckoned among all the sons of his truth, for his soul abhors the disciplines of righteousness in rebellion. From the presence of the many he shall be sent away (cf. Num 15:30-31).
Baumgarten suggests that the implication of the first quote is that *the disciplinary penalty is to be accepted as atonement comparable to a sin offering* (Baumgarten, DJD 18, 77). But then it is difficult to understand the meaning of the second quote (see Baumgarten's attempt in JJS 43 (1992) 95-8). The first quote mentions the case of inadvertent sin, for which sacrifice alone atones. The wording is mostly according to Lev 4:27 but it is the context of Numbers 15:27 in mind because the text goes on to talk about those whose sin is deliberate and their exclusion. Hence, apparenlty if one confesses sin and accepts discipline it is treated as an inadvertent sin. If one resists discipline, it is treated as deliberate sin and the offender is banished as according to Num 15:30-31.33 The second quote (Lev 26:31 + Deut 30:4) I believe must be understood disjunctively: for an inadvertent sin, sacrifice is accepted, but for Israel's sin that led to exile, sacrifice does not atone; it requires humbling, accepting discipline, repentance and confession. Reparation is mentioned, not sacrifice but rather acceptance of discipline. The basis for this may be Lev 26:39-42 where the people make reparation in exile while the land lies desolate. The third and fourth quotes (from Joel 2:12-13) support the idea that repentance is required. Thus, the assumption of this passage is that all sin (even inadvertent sin) in the age of wrath is treated as potential deliberate sin in the light of the exile. Sacrifice cannot atone for the sin that led to the exile but rather repentance, confession, and acceptance of discipline. These fulfill the requirements of Deut 4, 30 and Lev 26. Perhaps it is for this reason that the instructions in D emphasize confessing to the priest (not in either Lev 4:27 or Num 15:27, although telling the priest what one was there for is certainly assumed).
4. Conclusion
This paper has been very speculative and allows no positive conclusion. Its concern was merely to open up room to consider development of regularized prayer apart from the need to replace sacrifices. I tentatively suggest that there is room for such thinking. There is no biblical basis for the sins of the exile being atoned by sacrifice alone. In both D and P(H) strands confession is essential for atonement; in the absence of sacrifice, confession alone will suffice. There is evidence for the same theoretical framework even in the sectarian scrolls, and thus no reason to believe that confession would have been regarded as an alternative for sacrifice*i.e., if one had sacrifice one wouldn't have to confess*even when it functioned in lieu of sacrifice. Moreover, Words of the Luminaries suggests that daily communal confession originated before the establishment of the Yahad, and probably before that movement had withdrawn from temple participation (if this ever was absolute). When considering a possible Sitz im Leben for this composition*as with the origin of regularized prayer in general*one should not be restricted by the idea of prayer as replacement for sacrifice.
Torleif Elgvin
1Q/4QMysteries, 4QInstruction and the roots of the Rosh Hashanah liturgy
The earliest rabbinic reference to the Rosh Hashanah litugy is Lev. R. 29.1, which attributes the composition of the Shofar benediction to Rav (Babylonia, 3rd cent), and quotes some sentences from it. This paper examines some texts from the last two centuries BCE which demonstrate a number of parallels with the Rosh Hashanah liturgy, and force us to ask whether elements of the liturgy may be pushed back as far as the second century BCE.
We will primarily review two discourses in the sapiential composition 4QInstruction. The first (4Q416 1) deals with eschatology, the second (4Q417 1) reflects on creation and revelation. Both passages demonstrate poetic features which might reflect liturgical traditions. We will also review Flusser's suggestion that 1Q/4QMysteries (some kind of relative of 4QInstruction) has influenced the Rosh Hashanah liturgy. Also this composition shows poetical elements. Relevant material from 1 Enoch and some other second temple sources will also be discussed. In our survey we will go through main motifs in the liturgies of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and note the parallels from the second temple sources in the process.
Creation, remembrance of creation
In the liturgy, 1. Tishrei is the day of creation, and the festival is a memorial of creation: "This day, on which was the beginning of Your work, is a memorial of the first day" (= Lev. R. 29.1). 4Q417 1 i preserves a long discourse which admonishes the addresse to meditate on the mysteries of creation and history which now are revealed; "what was and what comes into being with what will b[e" (ll. 6-7). The passage describes God's creation of the world and its creatures (ll. 10-12). Further, man will understand his ways when he remembers the time of creation, when the heavenly tablets were inscribed (ll. 15-17).
Creation and order of luminaries
The liturgy combines the notion of God’s yearly judgement with the creation of the luminaries: "He stretched out the heavens and established the foundations of the earth" (RH liturgy); "He changes the times and appoints the stars in their heavenly courses according to His will, He who is the Creator of day and night" (Yom Kippur liturgy, this benediction recurs in the Maariv prayer). The benediction hakol yoduka praises the Lord of creation and the luminaries, who will redeem his people and whom all creatures will exalt.
4Q416 1 preserves a text on the final judgment. The text opens with a theophany description (ll. 2-7), refers to the creation of the heavenly hosts and the luminaries, perhaps connected to the calendar on earth (ll. 8-10), and continues with a description of the judgment in heaven and on earth (ll. 11-14).
Similar motifs occurs in 1 Enoch 2 and 72-82. The Enochic texts compare the order of the heavenly realms with the sin and disorder which characterizes the world of men, a theme found also in the festival prayers 1Q34bis II 1-5. According to 1 Enoch 100:10-13, angels and luminaries testify against the ungodly on earth.
Day of judgment
Some rabbis expected the eschatological redemption to happen on Rosh Hashanah, thus the world would be judged in the same month it was created (Mekilta to Exod 12:42; Lev. R. 29.10; b. Rosh Hash. 10b, 11b). A main theme in the Rosh Hashanah liturgy is God's yearly judgment of all creation and his deciding the fate of the year to come: "Today is the birth(day) of the world, today all creatures of the world stand in judgement"; "For the remembrance of every creature comes before You, each man’s deeds and destiny"; "You will bring on the appointed time of memorial when every spirit and soul shall be visited". Rabbinic literature frequently refers to this dimension of Rosh Hashanah, m. Rosh Hash 1.2; t. Rosh Hash 1:13; Lev. R 29.1; b. Ber 18b; b. B. Bat 10a; b. Rosh Hash 16b; Ber. R. 25:1.
The final judgment occurs as well, there is a correlation between the two 'judgment days'. The divine judgement on men and nations on Rosh Hashanah foreshadows the end-time judgement. "Hidden in (his) heart is (the time of) the final vengeance"; "You look and see unto the end of all generations". The meditation in 4QInstruction mentions the creatures, their destinies as well as the eternal visitiation (4Q417 1 i 9-10). The liturgy uses the word pequdah for God’s visitation of men each year, the destiny of each and every one, and the ultimate visitation at the judgement day. We find the same usage in 4QInstruction (4Q417 1 i 9-10). Rosh Hashanah is the day of judgment, yom hamishpat, yom hadin. The eschatological passage in 4QInstruction looks forward to the end-time day of judgment (yom mishpatah, i.e.the day of the judgment of evil, ll. 13-14). The terminology in 4QInstruction is close to 1 Enoch 10:6 "the great day of judgement" (of Azazel/evil powers).
4QInstruction discerns sharply between the righteous and the ungodly. In the discourse on meditation we encounter 'the Book of Memory of those who keep His word', a book which records the names of the righteous (4Q417 1 i 17-19). This motif recurs in the liturgies of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, in the petitions to be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life, as well as the liturgy's mention of 'the Book of Memories' (in the piyyut Unetaneh toqef, see below), which forms the basis for God's judgment. Similarly, the liturgy asks God that "the decree of our sentence be torn asunder".
In both traditions God's might is contrasted with man's humble standing. "Every creature will know that You made him, and every being understand that You formed him, every living being shall acknowledge You"; "Are not all the mighty men as nought before You, the men of renown as though they had not been, the wise as if without knowledge, and the men of understanding as if without discernment?" (RH/YK liturgy); "Before His wrath nobody can stand, and who can be deemed righteous in His judgement? And how can the poor one [stand] without forgiveness?" (4Q417 2 i 15-17).
The liturgy asks God to "appear and be exalted over us before the eyes of all living", and proclaims that "all the sons of flesh will call upon Your name, when You will turn unto You all the wicked of the earth"; The theophany scene in 4QInstruction closes with the conviction that everyone will know God’s judgements and understand that man is only flesh before the divine judge ( 4Q416 1 16-17). Man will see that he is only a creature of flesh (ki yetser basar hu'a). The theophany scene opens with God's coming to confront 'all the spirit of flesh', kol ruah basar. The wording is close to the liturgy's kol bene basar "all the sons of flesh will call upon Your name", as well as 1 Enoch 1:9 "He will censure all flesh on account of everything that they have done".
According to the liturgy, on Rosh Hashanah God will determine the fate of the provinces for the coming year. "And on the provinces will be pronounced, which one to the sword and which to peace, which one to famine and which to abundance" (= Lev. R. 29.1). 4QInstruction preserves remarkably similar terminology in its description of the end-time judgment: God will judge everything created; "hin for hin, ge[neration upon generation, city upon city(?), kingdom] upon kingdom, provi[nce] upon province, man upon man" (4Q416 1 5-6). Both sources use the word medinah for the provinces to be censured by God.
The annihilation of evil
To the end-time hope of the liturgy as well as that of the Qumran texts belongs the annihilation of all evil. D. Flusser proposed in a 1994 article that 1QMysteries did influence the 'Ten pachdeka' prayer of Rosh Hashanah. According to Flusser, this prayer reflects a dualistic view of this world and its approaching end more than standard rabbinic theology, and portrays God in contrast to the transcendent 'kingdom of evil'. Both texts use the image of smoke that disappears to describe the comsumption of evil.
"When the begotten of unrighteousness are delivered up, and wickedness is removed from before righteousness, as darkness is removed from before light. (Then), just as smoke wholly ceases and is no more, so shall wickedness cease for ever... and all the adherents of the mysteries of [evi]l will be no more" [1Q27 (1QMyst) 1 i 4-6];
"Then the righteous will see and be glad, the upright will rejoice, the pious will shout in happiness, iniquity will shut its mouth, and all evil will disappear like smoke, for You will remove the usurpant kingdom from the earth" (liturgy).
For Flusser, the 'kingdom of evil', memshelet zadon, originally did not refer to the Roman empire, but to overworldy forces antagonistic to God. Three further texts from 1Q/4QMysteries refer to the coming day of judgment, 4Q299 50; 4Q300 9; 4Q301 (4QMystc?) 3 8. The theophany scene in 4QInstruction also describes the trembling of some kind of evil kingdom, meml[eket rish'ah?: "the king[dom of iniquity?] will tremble, and expects that "all iniquity shall be consumed" (4Q416 1 12-14). Similarly, 1 Enoch 10 expects the judgement of Azazel and the evil powers.
The theophany text describes the evil forces trembling and the sinners being stripped naked before God. In a similar way the liturgy proclaims that "every creature will tremble before him ... the world trembles intensely, before the one enthroned upon the cherubim the earth will shudder". And it asserts that God will investigate and "act towards all, those below and those above". He is "the King, for whom the world is terrified when gazing him, he makes the foundations shudder when they gaze him"; and "Heaven and earth will tremble from the fear of the King". Another eschatological text of 4QInstruction describes the trembling of the foundations of heaven before God (4Q418 69 ii 14-15).
Flusser saw 1QMysteries as a work of the Yahad, and thus asserted a direct influence from the Yahad upon the Rosh Hashanah liturgy. The ascription of the composition of 1Q/4QMysteries to circles of the Yahad can hardly be upheld. And I would rather speak of a common background of 1Q/4QMysteries and this part of the liturgy than a direct influence.
The liturgy's mention of the righteous ones rejoicing at God's judgment has close parallels in the two eschatological discourses of 4QInstruction, 4Q416 1 11; 4Q418 69 ii 7-9. One could also point to the description of 1. Tishrei as a day of rejoicing already in biblical times, Neh 8:9-12.
The early piyyt Unetaneh toqef (ca 6th century), included in the liturgy, describes 'this day' as a day of judgment for heavenly forces above - and for men through all times of history, below. In the context of the liturgy 'this day' refers to Rosh Hashanah and the last day together, while in its original setting it probably meant the ultimate day of judgment only.
Revelation of God's mysteries
The dimension of divine revelation is mentioned a number of times in the liturgy, a few times it refers to revelation of mysteries: "From the beginning You made this Your purpose known, and from aforetime You revealed it"; "Before you all hidden things are revealed, and the many mysteries since the beginning of creation"; "The supreme king ... who reveals the deep mysteries" (RH liturgy) "You know the eternal secrets and the hidden mysteries of all the living" (YK liturgy).
Revelation is a main thrust in 4QInstruction. The central revelatory concept all through this work is raz nihyeh, 'the mystery to come', a term referring to the mysteries of creation, history and salvation of the elect. The discourse in 4Q417 1 deals with revelation, and exhorts meditation on the mysteries of creation as well as God’s preordination of history and the ways of men, in past, present and future. Similarly, the liturgy proclaims that God "sees all hidden things ... foresees the things that come into being, and searches out future happenings. The texts of 4QInstruction connect the dimensions of creation, judgement and revelation, as does the liturgy.
At one point the liturgy appeals to "the mystery (sod) of wise and knowledgable ones, to teaching deriving from the knowledge of discerning ones (mebinim)". In another prayer the supplicant asks the Master of the Universe to give him "knowledge and insight to understand and discern the depths of your mysteries". We may note that 4QInstruction is addressed to the (son of) the discerning one, to whom the mysteries of God have been revealed.
In both traditions we encounter Noah in an important role. For the liturgy Noah is a type of salvation through judgment, and he received divine revelation on what was to come: "and You remembered Noah in love and endowed him with the word of salvation and mercy, when you brought the waters of the flood to destroy all flesh". In 4QInstruction we encounter Noah as recipient of divine revelation about the periods of world history, including the end-time judgement: "what was] to come God made known to Noah" (4Q416 1 3/4Q418 201).
We disagree with Strugnell's recent reading of this fragment (in DJD 34) as "God has made known the inher[itance" (reading nah[alah ] in stead of Noah). 4Q253 (CommGenB) 1 provides support for our reading, as it uses exactly the same phrases on revelation to Noah, h]oq lehodia' to Noa[h. The location of the text of this fragment from 4Q418 ("what was] to come God made known to Noah ... He will shut up all the sons of e[vil") in lines 3-4 of the theophany text in 4Q416 is only tentative, but both physical evidence and the thematical context supports this solution.
Noah has the same typological role in 1 Enoch 10, as type of salvation through judgment as well as recipient of divine revelation. Also the later Sefer ha-razim describes how to Noah were revealed the secrets of the end-time.
Other terminological parallels
The liturgy and 4QInstruction use similar terms with regard to the people that hopes for salvation. Both traditions use the words heleq and goral on the spiritual inheritance of the elect, and simhat olam is used for their end-time hope. Both texts refer to the turning away of God’s wrath: "let Your wrath turn from your people, your city, your land and your inheritance" (liturgy); "Then God will appear, his anger will subside and he will overlook your sin" (4Q417 2 i 15); "It is in your hands to turn aside wrath from the men of {HIS} favour" (4Q418 81 10).
Similar divine designations are also used. Both traditions refer to the 'God of truth': In 4Q416 1 15, the One on the judgment seat is El 'emet . The liturgy proclaims that "You are a God of truth (Elohim 'emet), and your word is true'. Further, in both settings the God of judgment is 'the awesome God', El nor'a(im): 4Q417 1 i 4, 4Q300 (4QMystb) 3 5. "Ex[alted ]is He in His great mercy, and terrifying is He in the plan of His wrath"; "Impose Your dread upon all You have created, that all creatures may fear You ... and Your name is to be feared above all You have created" (liturgy).
The liturgies of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur often use the word ma'aseh with the meaning ‘creature’. The same word occurs three times in 4Q417 1 i 11, 21, where the translation ‘creatures’ makes good sense. The same use of ma'aseh is found in 4Q300 (4QMystb) 2 ii 15, "the tribulations of every creature"
In 1979 L. Hartman investigated the parallels between 1 Enoch 1-5 and the liturgies of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Shavuot (Asking for a Meaning. A Study of 1 Enoch 1-5). He found the following five elements in each of these contexts: (1) theophany imposes dread, (2) nature's order, (3) God as creator, (4) judgment, (5) blessing of the righteous and cursing of the wicked. He tended to see in 1 Enoch 1-5 a reflection of liturgical traditions connected to the feasts of Tishrei and perhaps of Shavuot. The wider Qumran material available today confirms Hartman's perceptions more with regard to the feasts of Tishrei than to Shavuot.
It is further worth mentioning that Mowinckel in the 50'ies used Rosh Hashanah traditions to understand the nature of the New Year festival in biblical times. He asserted that the themes and celebration of the New Year festival inevitably would create among the Israelites the hope of eschatological fulfilment of the kingship of YHWH, for which they would long and pray on this occasion.
A couple of other second temple sources may bear on the subject. Pseudo-Philo´s Biblical Antiquities connects the Feast of Trumpets on 1. Tishrei with creation as well as the fate of men. At this time God musters all men and decides their fates. According to Jubilees 12:16-18, on the 1st of the 7th month "Abraham observed the stars from evening until daybreak so that he might see what the nature of the year would be with respect to rain". The text continues with Abraham praying to the creator of all things.
One of the festival prayers in 1Q34 would fit well as a prayer of 1. Tishrei:
You will reward the righteous ones] with the lot of the right[eo]us, and [give] to the evil ones the l[o]t [of the evil ... ] in their bones a disgrace to all flesh. But the righteous ones [ ...You will let fl]ourish, thanks to the yields of the heavens and the produce of the earth, to d[iscer]n [ ... between the righte]ous and the wicked. You will give wicked ones for our [ra]nsom and tr[ai]tors [in our stead, and bring about the de]struction of all our enemies. And we will praise Your name for ever [and ever ... , ]for this is why You created us. Thus [we will praise ]You: Blessed [ festival pr1Q34bis 3 i (4Q508 1, translation and emendations ours)
Concluding comments
How are these various sources to be dated? Biblical Antiquities was probably authored in Judea around the turn of the era. Jubilees is from the Maccabean period or shortly thereafter. The introduction to the Book of Watchers, 1 Enoch 1-5, may be dated to the first half of the 2nd cent BCE. Although all its copies are written in Herodian hands, most interpreters tend to locate 4QInstruction somewhere in the 2nd century BCE (so Lange, Harrington, Collins, Elgvin), while Strugnell and Stegemann advocate a much earlier dating. With Harrington I tend to ascribe 4QInstruction to precursors of the Yahad. 1Q/4QMysteries is also a non-Yahad text from Qumran, perhaps with origins in the Maccabean period.
Are we able to draw conclusions from this survey of texts from somewhat different backgrounds? Caution is needed, my conclusions are tentative and by nature hypothetical. However, the weight of evidence assembled together seems to point in certain directions.
The bulk of the Rosh Hashanah prayers is medieval, from Eleazar Kallir (6th-7th cent) and onwards. A core must go back to the tannaitic and amoraic periods. The parallels in second temple sources surveyed here suggest that those who composed the medieval liturgy drew upon traditions connected to 1. Tishrei going back to second temple times, and that some kind of a nucleus of the liturgy was in use before the turn of the era.
We have observed striking parallels between three Qumran writings (4QInstruction, 1Q/4QMysteries, 1Q34) and traditions connected with 1. Tishrei from the medieval and rabbinic periods and back to the second century BCE. One must admit that neither 4QInstruction nor 1Q/4QMysteries explicitly mention 1. Tishrei. And some of the parallels between 4QInstruction and the liturgy may be incidental. Others may reflect parallel, but independent use of biblical terms and motifs in similar eschatological contexts. However, the large number of parallels does suggest common roots.
4QInstruction was an influential book in Qumran. Six or seven copies of this work were found in Cave 4, one in Cave 1. Writings authored in the Yahad quote 4QInstruction at least three times, and probably allude to it in other cases.
On this background I suggest that the eschatological passages in 4QInstruction and 1Q/4QMysteries were connected to 1. Tishrei, as it was celebrated by the men of the Yahad and their predecessors. Both the Temple Scroll and the calendrical scroll 4Q321 confirm that the 'Day of Remembrance' or 'Day of Remembrance and Trumpetblowing' was an important one in the festival calendar of the Yahad.
The evidence further suggests that the later Rosh Hashanah prayers together with these Qumran texts, 1 Enoch 1-5 and the Epistle of Enoch have common roots in eschatological traditions in the land of Israel in the second century BCE, before the Yahad separated from Israel at large. There is thus reason to believe that some kind of nucleus of the Rosh Hashanah prayers was formulated as festival prayers already in the early second century BCE. Whether the Sitz im Leben of these prayers should be sought in temple liturgy, pietist circles or circles seeing themselves as an alternative to the temple and its worship, remains an open question.
Ms. Esther Eshel
Bar-Ilan University
Aprotropaic Prayers From The Second Temple Period
Apotropaic prayers and hymns address God and request His protection from evil spirits. These prayers, already known in ancient Israel, became more common in the Second temple period. The oldest such Jewish prayer is the Priestly blessing found in Leviticus 9 and Numbers 6, which also appears in ninth and eighth century BCE inscriptions, such as the inscription written on a pithoi found at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, or on the silver amulets found at Ketef Hinnom in Jerusalem, which quotes an abbreviated version of Numbers 6. These priestly blessings were also used by the author of 1QSa and 1QSb.
In his discussion of apotropaic prayer, D. Flusser tried to build a typology based on their shared elements, such as: reference to the knowledge of God and his Law, a plea for protection against sin, a request for forgiveness, and a plea for purification. Some of these elements can be found, for example, in the Prayer of Levi, in one of the hymns of the Psalms Scroll, named the Plea for Deliverance (11QPsa col. 19), as well as in Psalm 155:1-14 (ibid., col. 24), and the Lord’s Prayer in the Gospels (Mt. 6:13).
To return to the evidence from Qumran where four scrolls (4Q510, 4Q511, 4Q444 and 6Q18) belonging to the genre of apotropaic prayer were found, all of which seem to be close to the thought of the Qumran sect, and were probably composed by its members. Of these texts, the most important are 4Q511 and 4Q510, which appear to be different versions of the same composition and were attributed to the Maskil. The small text 4Q444 seems to be generally related to these texts, and in 6Q18 some fragments of apotropaic prayers have survived. The purpose of these texts was to protect the Sons of Light from the forces of evil, various spirits under the control of Belial. The fight against these forces was carried out by reciting the praise of God, and the Qumran texts share elements with other apotropaic prayers, such as the ones found in Jubilees, in the Prayer of Levi, in the Plea for Deliverance, and in Psalm 155.
Stefan C. Reif
The Second Temple Period, Qumran Research and Rabbinic Liturgy: Some Contextual and Linguistic Comparisons
It is widely recognized that most proponents of Wissenschaft des Judentums, at least in the first century of its existence, were at one time or another engaged in research on the history of Jewish liturgy. Although their interests in this connection ranged widely within the Rabbinic tradition from texts to theology, from prose to poetry, and from the mystical to the mundane, there was always also a preoccupation on the part of some scholars with the precise relationship between the earliest manifestations of Rabbinic liturgy and the broader history and literature of the Jews during the Second Temple period. Tending as they did to see the religious histories of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism in diachronic terms, they combed the late books of the Hebrew Bible, the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, and the literary sources of Hellenistic Judaism, to identify the material that could most closely be related to the earliest Talmudic-Midrashic traditions. While the Christian scholars tended to see the New Testament and the early Church as the faithful transmitters of major Second Temple ideas and practice, their Jewish counterparts preferred to locate such a continuation in the extensive literature of the Talmudic-Midrashic sources.
This Jewish scholastic tendency in the field of liturgical research may be traced in the work of many scholars from Reform circles in mid-nineteenth-century Germany to modern Orthodox stalwarts in mid-twentieth-century Israel but is perhaps best exemplified in the work of an American liturgical specialist who ultimately headed the Rabbinical school of the Conservative movement. Louis Finkelstein devoted much of his early research to the history of the traditional Hebrew prayers and it is now some seventy years since he produced detailed studies of the amidah and the birkat ha-mazon, later supplemented by articles on the shema and the hallel. These studies, which appeared in the form of lengthy articles in scholarly periodicals, contained a mass of evidence from Talmudic, Geonic and Midrashic literature, from Genizah and other manuscript folios (some of them containing unique material), from medieval halakhic compositions and liturgical commentaries, and from early printed editions. Finkelsteins analysis, though containing important theological, literary and historical elements, and making comparisons with Christian and Karaite traditions, was primarily textual and he reached very precise conclusions about the origin and development of these central Jewish prayers. Having compared all the rites, versions and citations, and laying particular stress on what he had drawn from the Genizah source, he felt able to eliminate what he regarded as later accretions and to present, in tabulated format, a text that could be defined as a pristine version originating in Judea in the Second Temple period, probably as early as pre-Maccabean times. In his view, the role of Rabban Gamliel in the second century of the current era had been to establish the authentic and authoritative nature of such a version and through his powerful leadership to transmit its purity to future generations. In the wake of Finkelstein's definitions, it became fairly common for general studies of Second Temple Judaism to cite his reconstructed texts as examples of standard Jewish liturgy in that period.
The notion that there were single and standard manifestations of Jewish thought, religious practice, sacred literature, popular language and liturgical rite that existed in the Second Temple, and that may be traced in direct lines of evolution into the early Christian centuries, has been seriously challenged by numerous scholarly developments since the time of Finkelstein. The discovery, exploitation and publication of the Qumran corpus has undoubtedly made the most major impact and will shortly engage our closer attention. There have, however, also been other changes of outlook on the part of specialists in the period that have made their mark on the scientific understanding of its Jewish liturgical history. In a brief paper that I delivered at the World Congress of Jewish Studies held in Jerusalem in 1993 I argued the need for a change in the methodology required to reach such a scientific understanding. It seemed to me then, and it seems to me now, that the broader Near Eastern background and the more specific Hellenistic culture have to be taken into account; that social, economic and political factors are now to be given more recognition than they once were; that the role of archeological and inscriptional evidence is continuing to grow in significance; and that, above all, the definition of what constitutes history must be permitted to add a powerful voice to the discussion.
More specifically, the views of Joseph Heinemann and Ezra Fleischer, diametrically opposed and mutually contradictory in so many ways as they are, nevertheless have in common that they both force the liturgical historian to think again about what preceded the Tannaitic traditions in general and the achievements of Rabban Gamliel in particular. As far as Heinemann was concerned, there never was one original version and the Genizah texts, far from being distillable to one pure essence, should rather be analysed as testifying to a variety and complexity of content that characterized Jewish liturgy from its foundations during the Second Temple period. Such an inherent lack of textual consistency was more consonant with a proposed orality of transmission than with the notion of a standard formulation committed to writing. What the scholar could and should do was to employ the form-critical method to uncover the varied ritual, educational and individual contexts in which the different sets of prayers had their origins and to identify the common themes and factors that run through the varied formulations. For his part, Fleischer saw the variegated nature of liturgical texts from the Genizah as testimony to the revolutionary impact of the liturgical poets on the central Jewish prayers in the Geonic period. Their recitations and compositions encouraged a degree of innovation that spawned a host of novel versions for what had previously been the standard liturgy. That liturgy had been created virtually de novo by Rabban Gamliel in the second century, had existed in written form, and had throughout the Talmudic period enjoyed a more authoritative status than any of the varied formulations that are cited from time to time by the other Rabbis. What appears to be a central pillar in both historical reconstructions is the conviction that it is impossible to identify a standard amidah-type or similar liturgical text that was broadly used in Jewish religious communities to meet a religious obligation in the final two or three centuries of the Second Temple period.
In the course of the last decade or two, the liturgical texts available from Qumran have increased considerably in number and variety and consequently represent the latest phase of the challenge to which reference was earlier made. The question that needs to be answered is whether this new evidence and its close study and careful publication have reinforced the conviction that is common to the Heinemann and Fleischer views or have, even in a limited fashion, moved more in the direction of justifying that aspect of Finkelsteins approach that presupposed that scholars could uncover standard liturgical texts dating from the pre-Christian period that were the undisputed ancestors of later Jewish and Christian worship. When I was, some ten years ago, writing my general history of normative Hebrew prayer in the Jewish religious community, I decided not to give any more than brief attention to the Qumran evidence because I was unsure of the degree to which it could justifiably be regarded as directly mundane to the topic. Having looked at liturgical items such as the Hodayot, Benedictions, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and Words of the Luminaries, and the literature then available on these, I noted that they went beyond what was known from Biblical, apocryphal and pseudepigraphical literature and hinted that this might lend some credence to the connection originally made by Kaufmann Kohler a century ago between the liturgy of the Essenes and that of the early Rabbis. Such themes as the choice of Israel, the centrality of Zion, the elimination of evil and the survival of the saints occurred at Qumran and in the relevant Rabbinic texts and there were possible parallels with the later amidah, viddui and tahanun. At the same time, there were no clear indications about matters of recitation, participation and context and I therefore offered the following tentative conclusions:
Certainly, the Qumran scrolls provide the earliest testimony to liturgical formulations of a communal nature designated for particular occasions and conducted in a centre totally independent of Jerusalem and the Temple, making use of terminology and theological concepts that were later to become dominant in Jewish and, in some cases, Christian prayer... The question that has yet to asked, let alone answered, is whether that process is to be understood as a unique feature of the way of life represented at Qumran, which was later adopted and adapted by the Rabbinic inheritors of Jewish religious practice, or as an example of popular liturgical piety that was common to various Pharisaic and Essene groups and subsequently survived in the Tannaitic traditions.
Given that additional texts and more extensive studies of the subject are now available, the time has come to discuss the matter afresh and to offer a re-assessment of its current state.
The scholar who has been most prolific in comparing the liturgical texts from Qumran with those of Rabbinic literature is undoubtedly Moshe Weinfeld and his articles therefore represent a good starting point for this fresh analysis. Indeed, a mere glance at the titles of these scholarly papers and at their summaries and conclusions, some published before I completed the research for my volume and others at a later date, would seem to justify a conclusion that goes significantly beyond what I was then prepared to venture and therefore to call for a more definitive acknowledgement of the Qumran corpus as the source and precedent for Rabbinic liturgy. Weinfeld devotes considerable attention to such liturgical topics as the qedushah, amidah, birkat ha-mazon and morning benedictions, closely examining the relevant texts in both Qumranic and Rabbinic literature and dealing with terminology, content and overall context. He identifies many individual words, in both verbal and nominal forms, and numerous short phrases that the two literatures have in common. He also finds similar theological themes such as creation and calendar, the closeness of the supplicant to God, and the removal of satanic power. Parallel uses of verses and of sections of the Psalms are located and he points to a number of instances in which links are made between the same two or three topics. For example, qedushah, morning light and angels are found in close proximity in both sets of sources, as are repentance, knowledge of God and forgiveness, and there is a possible parallel between sets of texts both of which link the joy of a wedding and the comforting of a mourner.
From the point of view of subject matter, there can be no denying that there are similar theological themes, that one can point to parallel tendencies to deal with groups of topics in contexts that are not dissimilar, and that the language used has its common factors. There are, however, a number of criteria that combine to call into question whether these basic similarities are sufficient to indicate that Rabbinic liturgy is directly borrowed from Qumran. The precise word-order, the complete phraseology, and the structure of the syntax are by no means parallel and the liturgical use made of the language differs in the two corpora. The topics covered and the links made are among those that constituted the stuff of contemporary religious thinking and may therefore be theologically rather than liturgically meaningful. Many of the parallels have common precedents in the Biblical Hebrew books and this is not always clarified. In addition, Weinfeld permits himself to use Rabbinic material in a chronologically indiscriminate manner, citing sources that range over many centuries and numerous communities, rather than limiting himself to items that may with some confidence be dated to the early Christian centuries. While in the case of the other liturgical texts, limited linguistic and thematic similarities will be acceptable even to those who are more sceptical about their overall significance for making direct links between Qumran and the Rabbinic synagogue and academy, the instance of the claimed parallel between 4Q434, frag. 2, and the post-prandial grace recited at the home of the mourner in the Rabbinic tradition is somewhat speculative and far from convincing.
Weinfelds arguments in connection with that Qumran fragment, and indeed with regard to 4QDeutn and 4QDeutj, led me to consider whether the use of current computer-based searches might not establish linguistic similarities that could conceivably strengthen his position. I therefore began to make use of the software available from Oxford University Press and Brill in Leiden in their second CDRom in the series entitled The Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Reference Library, edited by Timothy Lim, to comb the available Qumran sources for direct parallels to Rabbinic texts, paying particular attention to the grace after meals. To date, I have searched only for the major vocabulary and content that are characteristic of limited sections of the birkat ha-mazon but the results nevertheless seem worthy of consideration in this context. Given the limited context here, I have in any case been able to include only a few illustrations. In 4Q504, for example, we encounter notions such as the divine love of Israel, the choice of Jerusalem, the special status of Zion, the uniqueness of the Davidic kingdom, Gods great name, and the removal of satanic and evil power. The roots kl, sv and brk coincide in 4Q370, references to the exodus from Egypt and the feeding (klkl) of the Jewish people in 4Q3934, and the notion of a shortage of food, by way of the use of the verb hsr and the noun lhm is to be found in 4Q416-7. The writer in 4Q504 takes pride in the fact that his group are called by Gods name and that same divine name is described as the great name in a number of 4Qumranic contexts. If we move beyond the vocabulary and content of the grace, we may note two other interesting examples. The Davidic occupation of the royal throne is described as eternal in 4Q252, echoing Deuteronomy 17:18, 1 Kings 2:45, as well as Daniel 2:44 and 7:14, and finding a parallel in the third post-haftarah benediction dealing with the messianic age.
The manner in which these and similar citations are reminiscent of Rabbinic texts is undoubtedly intriguing but we must be careful not to draw conclusions that go beyond the evidence before us. There are here concepts and linguistic usages that are similar but there is very little that is actually identical and the order of the phraseology and the syntactical structure are by no means parallel. The standardized formats and contexts of the Rabbinic formulations appear to have no clear-cut precedents at Qumran. Both sets of texts have Biblical precedents but they utilize them in different ways, each opting for the kind of adjustments that take account of its own predilections. With regard to Israel, Jerusalem and the Temple, the religious groups that lie behind the various textual constructions have a variety of theological motivations for their preferences. One may even tentatively suggest that divine attributes such tuv, hesed and rahamim are regarded at Qumran as the models for human piety while the stress in the Rabbinic texts is more on the blessings they convey on Israel.
At this point it is necessary to make reference to a comparative linguistic analysis of the texts from Qumran and from Rabbinic sources that was made by Chaim Rabin and to assess the degree to which it is relevant to the current discussion. Although the original English article appeared in 1965 and its Hebrew translation in 1972, Rabins reputation was such that it is still often cited and it has without question exercised a formative influence on subsequent approaches to the subject. Rabin argued for the existence in Palestine in the middle of the Second Temple period of a literary language in which BH and MH elements coexisted upon a mainly MH grammatical foundation. He suggested reasons why the authors of the texts found at Qumran consciously chose to move in the direction of a BH style while their later Rabbinic counterparts reacted to this and related developments by committing themselves even more enthusiastically to the MH flavour of their own linguistic usage. For our purposes here, it is important to deal not so much with his overall linguistic theory but what he has to say about the liturgical field. Adopting the view, particularly as earlier expressed by Talmon, that the Qumran sect was familiar with the benedictions of the shema and the amidah in a sequence not unlike that of the Rabbinic version, Rabin concluded that anything characteristic of the prayers is therefore common inheritance of the Qumran Sect and of Pharisaism.
At first glance, this appears to be at odds with our findings as described above and to require either a reconsideration of these or a challenge to the kind of view espoused by Rabin. A closer examination of his article does, however, reveal that he makes a number of additional points that make it clear that he was proposing a more refined assessment of the situation. He alludes to the fact that the common inheritance appears to have included a store of expressions and some similar vocabulary but is at the same time cautious enough to disclaim any possibility of recovering the original linguistic form of such prayers. The Qumran texts adapted whatever they inherited with a view to matching it to their own style and the Rabbis remained loyal to an idiom of MH that was exclusively used for their prayers but fixed the precise textual formulation of the latter only in the post-Talmudic period. It is therefore clear that Rabin, even from the limited texts available to him thirty years ago, is tending to the view that commonality of subjects and vocabulary is not to be confused with identity of liturgical context, order and formulation.
The findings of another, later article of his are also worthy of summary in the current context. There he argues that a better understanding of Jewish liturgical history is to be achieved by adopting aspects of the structuralist approach, by stressing the synchronic as well as the diachronic analysis, and by pointing to the legal and theological elements in the language of the prayers. What he presupposes is a long and complicated development from a format that may well have been originally oral, through a process of literary improvement and linguistic selection, towards the establishment of independent parameters, and a status that could even ultimately exercise a formative influence on the emergence of contemporary, spoken Hebrew. Such views are by no means at odds with the notion that what had been liturgically expressed in varieties of language, structure and context in Second Temple times came to be formulated and utilized in a generally more standardized fashion in what became the authorized Rabbinic traditions of subsequent periods.
No less relevant to this discussion are the views of another, more contemporary specialist in the history of the Hebrew language in the Second Temple period, Avi Hurvitz. In a helpful overview of developments, he has defined the language of the Qumran scrolls as a variety of late Biblical Hebrew and has drawn attention to the Biblical elements in the Hebrew of Rabbinic prayer. He has also contrasted the spontaneous and classical nature of the language used for prayer in the First Temple period with its later equivalent, as for instance, recorded in the book of Ezra, and noted linguistic moves in the direction of the compositions of the early Rabbinic authorities, as well as similarities and parallels between the Rabbinic and Qumranic usages. At the same time, however, he has pointed to the possibility that the commitment to Biblical Hebrew may have been the result of a conscious mimicry and, even more significantly for the topic here being considered, has stressed that it is the roots of Rabbinic liturgy that one can find in the Second Temple period and not the precise formulation of its actual prayers.
Recognizing the fact that my own perspective is one that is firmly fixed in the historical study of Rabbinic sources rather than in the literary analysis of the Judean scrolls, I am aware of the need to turn now to the recent work of a sample selection of Qumran specialists and to bring into the equation how they have recently come to view the overall liturgical history of the Second Temple period from their own particular outlook.
Bilhah Nitzan's study Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry appeared in English translation in 1994 and was based on the Hebrew original that appeared in Tel Aviv in 1989. In that important and extensive treatment of the subject, Nitzan devoted some of the discussion to the relationship between Qumranic and Rabbinic prayer. Although both are dependent on the same Biblical sources, they each demonstrate unique characteristics. Blessings and prayers occur in both sets of texts but in each case with its own formulas. Although they do share some ideas, it appears to be fruitless to seek precise parallels of pattern. The priestly benediction has a much more central role in the arrangement of poetic and ceremonial compositions at Qumran while the structure and use of the qedushah is considerably less crystallized there than among the Rabbis. Other specific features of the Judean scrolls are that they supplement Biblical content with apocalyptic material and reformulate apocalyptic myths in the Biblical style, as well as expressing the sanctity of the sabbath by the use of ritual poetry. What emerges from all this data is that both groups may be said to have fixed liturgy but only the Rabbinic variety is of a fully uniform nature and that the Qumranic use of benedictions is not to be seen as a precedent for the later Rabbinic employment of this genre. More accurately, the liturgical developments at Qumran should be plotted at a point between the Biblical beginning and the Rabbinic progression that is close to the position occupied by the Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphical literature.
Some attention must also be given to the conclusions reached in studies recently penned by Eileen Schuller and Esther Chazon on the place of the Qumranic liturgical texts in the search for the origins of Rabbinic prayer. Schuller has made it clear that the non-canonical psalms enjoyed a provenance that was both earlier and broader than that of Qumran and that they were employed for liturgical purposes. She has demonstrated that although they make use of the more common Biblical precedents in the formulation of the terms with which they describe themselves, they also contribute innovative developments to this whole process. Her analysis of the Hodayot has revealed that they, more specifically, reflect the experiences and teachings of the Qumranic sect and that they exist in a variety of collections. Schuller has pointed to words and expressions in the non-canonical psalms that have their equivalents in other Hebrew texts of the late Second Temple and early post-Destruction periods and to elements of Aramaic influence. She has also provided clear evidence that formulations and concepts known in Tannaitic Judaism and early Christianity are already adumbrated in such psalms as that found in 4Q372 1 and has stressed the importance of the Qumranic scrolls for plotting the development of the use and formulation of the Jewish liturgical benediction.
Perhaps the most important of Esther Chazon's many findings and conclusions is her overall assessment that although there are some sectarian liturgical elements at Qumran, there is now a wealth of evidence to indicate that many of the hymns and prayers found there represent the religious activities of the common Judaism of the Second Temple period. Although more work has to be done on explaining such phenomena as the occurrence of different prayers for the same occasion, it can no longer be doubted (even if she and others had some earlier hesitations) that communal prayer at fixed times predated the Rabbis of the Mishnah and that the content, language, form and function of Rabbinic prayer cannot justifiably be regarded as totally innovative. As Chazon herself puts it, daily prayers such as those found in 4Q503 and 4Q408 were said by different Jewish groups in the late Second Temple period and were considered important enough to be incorporated into the liturgy that was institutionalized by the Rabbis in the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.
In his contribution to the third volume of the Cambridge History of Judaism, Daniel Falk has covered the topic of Prayer in the Qumran Texts and expressed some cautious views concerning its historical link with Rabbinic liturgy. He places the origins of Qumranic prayer texts in a variety of provenances, including the Temple, the priesthood, the levitical groups and the maamadot and describes how some are linked to the calendar, some to special events, and some to penitential themes. He accepts that there are parallels of subject and language with Rabbinic texts and identifies some particularly striking similarities between the Festival Prayers and the later synagogal liturgy. He is, however, convinced that we are dealing with independent exploitations of the Biblical models and not a direct link between Qumran and the Talmudic traditions. He consequently rejects Weinfelds view that the major Rabbinic prayers have their prototypes among the Judean scrolls, preferring to argue that the prayers found at Qumran belong to a broad stream of prayer tradition in which the Rabbis also stood.
Being in the happy position of having more texts and interpretations now available to him, Falk has been able to devote his Cambridge doctoral dissertation to a close study of many daily, sabbath, and festival prayers in the Dead Sea scrolls and to have a revised version of this published by Brill. He sets out to identify where lines of continuity may be established in the history of Jewish prayer and whether the traditions represented at Qumran are sectarian or of broader significance. The points made in his CHJ article are here discussed and exemplified at length and he stresses the importance of recognizing that prayer in the Dead Sea Scrolls is not a uniform phenomenon but has a variety of forms, functions and socio-liturgical settings that are perhaps being welded together at Qumran. The Temple appears to have stood at the centre of many of these liturgical traditions which is why they appear in many, variant types of Jewish literature emanating from the axial age. Jewish, and indeed Christian, institutionalized prayer had its origins in the attraction of prayer to the Temple cult, rather than the need to provide a replacement for the sacrificial system and not directly in the Qumranic context.
It remains only to offer a few brief conclusions for students of Rabbinic liturgy who are anxious to know what relevant lessons may be learned from recent Qumran studies for their own historical reconstructions:
1. There is, in the broad context of Second Temple Judaism, clear evidence for the existence, at least among some groups, of a practice to recite regular prayers at specific times but there is no obvious consistency of text and context for these.
2. There are written texts from Qumran that record such prayers and they have elements in common with the Rabbinic liturgy of the second Christian century. This by no means rules out the possibility that there were also oral liturgical traditions during that period, nor does it imply that early Rabbinic prayer moved totally from orality to wholly fixed texts.
3. In various religious spheres, the Jews at Qumran and the Rabbis sometimes express themselves uniquely while at others they follow well-established precedents. As far as liturgy is concerned, Rabbinic prayer incorporates material broadly known from Qumran but imposes upon it a fresh order, style and distinctive formulation. This innovative aspect reflects the traditions of Tannaitic Judaism and its own approach to the Hebrew language and to the Biblical canon. The later development of Rabbinic prayer also has dynamic characteristics and caution must be exercised in using post-Talmudic and Geonic texts for the reconstruction of earlier trends.
4. Given the breadth of the liturgical material found at Qumran, there was clearly more than one provenance for the development of hymns and prayers during the Second Temple period. It is therefore likely that the Rabbis borrowed, directly or indirectly, from various contexts, among them the Temple, the priesthood, communal gatherings such as the maamadot, pietistic and mystical circles, and popular practice.
David Levine
A Temple Prayer for Fast Days
The description of a fast day prayer, its format and content, demands the attention of three different sources found in the second chapter of Mishnah Ta'anit. The editor of this text collated these sources in order to establish - and elaborate on - a structured prayer "complex". This paper will attempt to trace one element of this composite, a litrurgical text to be associated with the Temple precincts. Certain structural traits of this Temple ritual are explicitly described in other Tannaitic traditions (in the T. and B.T.). As presented in the Mishnah, this Temple prayer has already been integrated into the general daily "Prayer of Eighteen", the Shmoneh 'Esreh. Since the Mishnah most comprehensively describes the prayer under question, we will use it as a point of departure and later add other elements alluded to elsewhere.
The general picture emerging from the Mishnah is clear. The daily Shmoneh 'Esreh prayer (the weekday 'Amidah), is taken for granted by the editor of this composite text. The special fast-day blessings were added on to this routine structure. The format of these additional berakhot was unlike the regular ones, and is therefore described in detail. Each is composed of three parts:
[1] The main section of each ·¯־” is comprised of a Biblical passage, typically from Psalms, or various individual verses with a common theme i.e. the ֺ־¯ֲ•ֲ™ and ˜ֲ¯ֲ™ .
[2] The concluding ׃ָ ˜•” sentence alludes to a Biblical figure who was in distress and saved from it by divine intervention.
[3] The conventional ·¯ֲֽ ‎™” ”' blessing eulogy, the ֱ™ָ׃” - as can be expected - is the final element of each berakhah.
The Mishnah here does not describe the prayer text as a continuum, but presents two lists each dealing with a different part of the structure. Mishnah 3 enumerates the Biblical texts constituting the main part - ’ֲ ”·¯־” - of the added blessings [1], and Mishnah 4 details the concluding elements of each blessing, the ׃ָ ˜•” sentence and the ֱ™ָ׃” [2], [3].
Mishnah 5, also dealing with the fast day prayer, is of a different nature and will be refered to later.
I will ultimately suggest that the fast-day prayer betrays a Second Temple setting. But for now we will postpone discussion of the sources of this text, focusing instead on the common elements and the emerging prayer as a whole.
* * *
On the chart, the six Biblical references are presented in conjunction with the last six concluding formulae (#2-#7). This is the necessary connection because of the affinity of the ֺ־¯ֲ•ֲ™ verses to the ֲֺ־¯ ”·¯ָ™ eulogy in the second berakhah; and the tie between the ˜ֲ¯ֲ™ verses and the concluding ˜ֲ׃ ™¯ֲ” in the third berakhah. In general, the cohesiveness acheived in combining the different elements is clear and coherent.
#2 - As mentioned, the ֲֺ־¯ ”·¯ָ™ eulogy echos the theme of the ֺ־¯ֲ•ֲ™ verses that comprise the main section of the second blessing.
#3 - The verses gathered under the rubric of ˜ֲ¯ֲ™ , in the third blessing are appropriate for Joshua and Israel camped at Gilgal anticipating the battle of Jericho, who are mentioned in the ׃ָ ˜•” sentence. The description of this battle is characterized by the sounding of the ram's horn, the shofar: "the seven priests carrying the seven shofarot advanced before the Lord blowing their shofarot and the Ark of the Lord's Covenant followed them. The vanguard marched in front of the priests who were blowing the shofarot, and the rear guard marched behind the Ark, with the shofarot sounding all the time" - Joshua 6:13, as an example. The blowing of the shofar is mentioned several more times throughout this chapter in Joshua. The ˜ֲ׃ ™¯ֲ” conclusion highlights this dimension.
#4 - Psalm 120 which comprises the main part of the fourth blessing, utilizes inter alia an idiom of battle: ֱ–ָ ’·ֲ¯ ˜•ֲ•ָּ "a warrior's sharp arrow", ˜ֲ•‎ ˜ֲּֿ "those who hate peace", ”׃” ֿ׃ֱֿ׃” "they are for war". Samuel's prayer at Mitzpah (I Samuel 7:5-9), mentioned in the ׃ָ ˜•” part, antcipates the Philistine war. The manner of the prayer, as described - "and Samuel cried out - ֲָֺ— ˜׃ֲ‎ֿ - to the Lord on behalf of Israel, and the Lord responded to him" - fits in with the ˜ֲ׃ –—” ending.
#5 - The fifth blessing opens with the phrase ‎˜‎ ָ•ָ ‎ֿ ””¯ָּ ׃‎ָװ ָ·‎ ֺ¯ָ "I turn my eyes to the mountains, from where will my help come?" (Psalm 121) and is appropriate in conjunction with Elijah on Mt. Carmel. The prayer offered on that occasion - ֲָ’˜ ‎ָֿ”ֲ ”•·ָ‎ ֲָ‎׃«¯ - "The prophet Elijah came foward and said 'O Lord, God of Abraham Issac and Jacob, let it be known today that you are God in Israel' " - is calmer and more minoric than Samuel's prayer above. This is reflected in the ˜ֲ׃ ™ָֿ” conclusion (as against the ˜ֲ׃ –—” , in the previous ֱ™ָ׃” ).
#6 - The setting implied in the verse ׃׃—ָּ —¯‎™ָֽ ”' "Out of the depths I call You, O Lord" (Psalm 130) opening the sixth blessing, fits in with "Jonah in the bowels of the fish" which is the reference in the ׃ָ ˜•” sentence. The beginning of Jonah's prayer —¯‎™ָ ׃–¯” ָֿ ‎ֿ ”' ֲָ••ָ "In my trouble I called to the Lord, and he answered me" (Jonah 2:3) is the source for the sixth ֱ™ָ׃” idiom ”ֲ•” ·™ –¯” .
#7 - The body of the seventh blessing, Psalm 102, mentions Zion and Jerusalem several times thus tying it in with "David and Solomon in Jerusalem" appearing in the ׃ָ ˜•” sentence toward the end of this benediction. Both David and Solomon are mentioned as taking action or beseeching the Lord for sustenance in times of drought and famine (II Samuel 21:14, I Kings 8:35-39). The phrase ֲָ™‰¯ ‎ֿ”ָּ ֿ‎¯ž "God responded to the plea of the land", from the David narrative (ibid.) is akin to the ׃¯ֱּ ֿ ”‎¯ž eulogy of this blessing.
* * *
Despite this apparently thoughtful and careful composition, three anomalies are apparent: [1] In the second berakhah, the connection between "Our forefathers at the Sea of Reeds" and the Zikhronot is rather forced, and a specific individual is not mentioned as being answered. In all other blessings the ׃ָ ˜•” formulae refer to individuals whose distress was addressed. [2] All Biblical figures mentioned are ordered chronologically, except for David and Solomon. Instead of being last, they might have been placed between Samuel (#4) and Elijah (#5). The Yerushalmi picks on this and asks, ֿ‎ –ֲ¯־” “ֿ‎ “ֲ“ ֲ˜ֿ׃” ֲ‎ֱ¯ ־ֽ ‎ָֿ”ֲ ֲֲָ•” , "Was it not necessary to have David and Solomon (mentioned first) and (then) Elijah and Jonah?!" (Y. Ta'anit 2:9 65d). [3] Most obvious is the discrepancy between the six Biblical passages and the seven conluding formulae. ”•ָ ˜˜ ˜· ”ֲָָװ , wonders the Bavli (B. Ta'anit 16b) "These six are actually seven!". How can seven conclusions be appended to six berakhot?
It has been suggested that the last blessing - ׃¯ֱּ ֿ ”‎¯ž - had been added on at a later stage. This would solve both the numerical and chronological discrepancies. An additional indication of this late addition, was seen in the opposing opinion in the Tosefta which advanced an alternative formula - ׃˜ָֿ ”¯׃ָּ - for the conclusion of this last blessing (T. Ta'anit 1:10 [p. 326], Y. Ta'anit 2:10 65d, B. Ta'anit 17a). However, there is no conclusive proof for this suggestion, and while it may be possible its probability is questionable.
The aformentioned Tosefta places the fast day prayer-text in the middle section of the weekday 'Amidah prayer, after the seventh berakhah of the eighteen: ”ָ־װ ‎ֲ׃¯װ "Where does he recite them?" [i.e. the special additions] ·ָװ ’ֲ‎ֿ ֿ¯ֲ‎ ֱֲָּֿ between Go'el and Rofe Holim" (T. ibid. B. 16b). Accordingly, six additional blessings were inserted, but the first of seven conclusions may have been intended for the ’ֲ‎ֿ ָ˜¯‎ֿ blessing of the regular 'Amidah, thereby yielding seven ׃ָ ˜•” sentences and seven ֱ™ָ׃ֲ™ . While this interpretation makes sense, it is not the only, or even the necessary way of understanding the Mishnah. It is not explicitly mentioned, and the text can easily be understood as refering to the eighteen regular benedictions with the six added at the end. This possibility is illustrated - indeed not proven, but illustrated - in a medieval piyyut for the 'Amidah of communal fast days. In this liturgical poem the six fast-day berakhot are added at the conclusion of the prayer, after the regular 19 (!) berakhot are recited.
The clarification of this issue requires an analysis of the composite nature of our text. Had this been a single source one might have expected an integral presentation of each berakhah-structure from its main part (’ֲ ”·¯־”), through the ׃ָ ˜•” formula, ending with the specific eulogy (ֱ™ָ׃”). In addition, the gap between 6-berakhot and 7-conclusions seems to be a clear indication of diverse sources. This does not resolve the somewhat inelegant combining of the sources, but at least their origins are explained. Given this assumption each source must then be viewed and explained on its own. The first source actually encompasses Mishnayot 1-3 of the chapter, which deal comprehensively with the communal fast day ritual in the city square under the title of ׂ“¯ ™•ֲָ™ ־ָ–“at the beginning of the chapter. After setting the scene and describing the fast day sermon, the liturgical framework of the prayer in this source is stated explicitly as ˜׃ֲ•” ˜¯” ˜·־ֿ ֲָּ "the eighteen of every day" to which ֲ“ ˜˜ "another six" are added. In contrast, the second source, Mishnah 4, deals only with the fast day berakhot and identifies seven. This group of seven berakhot has no express link to the daily 'Amidah. If we add on the irregular structure of birkot hata'anit, we can conclude that these seven berakhot were originally a liturgical unit in-and-of-itself without being connected to other frameworks.
Essentially the same prayer text is preserved in two liturgical contexts: Mishnah 3 presents the fast day prayer as incorporated into the daily 'Amidah; Mishnah 4 describes the special fast-day prayer as an integral unit unto itself. I will now try to demonstrate that the fast day prayer - as described in-and-of-itself - is of Second Temple provanence.
* * *
This assumption is borne out by the fast day liturgy in the Temple precincts alluded to in three Tannaitic sources (Mishnah Ta'anit 2:5; T. Ta'anit 1:9-10 & B.T. Ta'anit 16b). No where do these sources mention the fast day prayer as being connected to a shmoneh 'esreh framework. These descriptions deal solely with the birkot hata'anit (fast day blessings), their unique components, and the public/congregational responses to them in the Temple. This Temple prayer included a unique concluding formula. Instead of the prevalent ·¯ֲֽ ‎™” ”' , the conclusions were ·¯ֲֽ ”' ‎ֿ”ָ ָ˜¯‎ֿ ׃װ ”ֲּֿ ֲ“ ”ֲּֿ with the appropriate ֱ™ָ׃” idiom appended. The congregational responses included:
[1] a direct ·¯ֲֽ ˜ּ ־·ֲ“ ׃ֿ־ֲ™ֲ ֿֲּֿ ֲ“ response to each berakhah, explained as the Temple response parallel to the generic ‎׃װ .
[2] a recitation of the ׃ָ ˜•” sentence after the berakhah. (Whether this was repeated or said only at this juncture, depends on how we understand ֱֲֺ¯ ֲ‎ֲ׃¯ and also depends on the B.T.'s textual variants, issues we won't explore now)
[3] a call to blow the shofar - either ™ָ—ֲ ”־”•ָּ or ”¯ָֲ ·•ָ ‎”¯ֲװ - and then the actual sounding of the instrument.
The fast day liturgy ·˜¯ ׃ֺ¯ֱ ֲ·”¯ ”·ָ™ "at the Eastern Gate and on the Temple Mount", with prominent priestly participation, was a seven-part prayer, with each part consisting of a public recitation of a blessing with vocal and instrumental responses.
Morever, in the generation following the destruction of the Temple in the year 70, attempts were made to copy parts of the Temple fast day ritual in the Galilean towns of Tzipori and Sikhnin. The reasons this attempt was frowned upon need not concern us here, but the fact remains that rabbinic tradition preserves a Yavnean grappling with Temple precident, with different opinions as to its application outside of Jerusalem.
* * *
A Temple or Jerusalem setting might explain another characterisic of this text. The first ׃ָ ˜•” sentence mentions ”¯ ”׃ֲ¯ָ” and the final ׃ָ ˜•” notes the the two most famous Israelite kings in Jerusalem. Thus the prayer text bears a literary inclusio that focuses attention on Jerusalem and the Temple. The identification of Moriah - the site of the 'Akedah - with the location of the Temple might already be implicit in the Genesis story [22:14] and is explicit in II Chronicles 3:1, and subsequently retained in Second Temple and later tradition. This might provide an indication as to the provenance of the text, but we must first examine the significance of stressing the geographic location of each figure mentioned. Why is it important to state that Samuel was answered at Mitzpah and Elijah on the Carmel? This information comes at the expense of relating the type of distress and nature of divine intervention. Prayer or the performance of a specific liturgy are not necessary - or even mentioned - components of these past events. What we have are references to figures who were relieved of distress by divine intervention at given locations. There is no desire to create models or indicate precedents for contemporary behaviour on the basis of past exempla. The references deal with action taken by God on behalf of those in past danger and an expectation of parallel intervention now: He has answered in the past and is beseeched to do so now. The rhetoric of the prayer is not one of ֺ־ֲ™ ‎·ֲ™ "merits of fathers". Good deeds and obedience of past generations are not mentioned. Here the expectation of divine action is direct and straightfoward: This has happened in the past to different individuals in several locations and under a variety of circumstances, without linkage to their merits or prayers. This accentuation of geographic locale yields that commencing and concluding with references to past prayer in Jerusalem is of significance, and should be interpreted as indicating the setting of the prayer text at hand. The context of the prayer as a whole is to be situated in Jerusalem - as in the days of David and Solomon; on Mt. Moriah - as with Abraham.
* * *
We have mentioned several characteristics of this Temple prayer. I would like to suggest two addtional perspectives, one of form the other of content. The basic format of the special fast day berakhot is one of Biblical texts with liturgical conclusions. This is reminiscent of other Temple liturgies. M. Tamid 5:1 refers to a daily Temple prayer which is comprised of Biblical passages encompassed by prayer formulae. After the slaughtering and dismembering of the morning sacrifice, ™׃ָ“ ˜ֿ ˜ֱ¯ , the officiating kohanim would retire to lishkat hagazit, the Chamber of Hewn Stone, and recite the Ten Commandments and the three kri'at shma' passages. Here too, the recitation of the Biblical text is preceeded by one blessing and followed by three. M. Yoma 7:1 indicates that on the Day of Atonement, following the sacrificial rite, there was a public Torah reading by the High Priest. The reading and reciting of the appropriate passages is likewise said to have been concluded by eight berakhot. In a third instance, the king's public reading of the Torah after the conclusion of a Sabbatical year, a reading held in the ֺ¯” - the Temple courtyard, is expressly likened by Mishnah Sotah 7:8 to the Yom Kippur format, just mentioned, with almost the same concluding berakhot.
This liturgical framing of selected Biblical texts, seems to be a characteristic element of Temple ritual (at least as presented in Talmudic tradition). The fast day prayer under discussion conforms to this pattern.
The thematic rhetoric of citing historical precedent as part of a supplication for deliverance, is a much attested theme in the literature of the Second Temple period. A more general review of the unraveling of Israelite-Jewish history in times of distress (for different purposes, some edifying some criticizing), is already present in the Bible and subsequent literature from Nehemiah 9 through the prayer found in I Baruch chapters 2-3 and Stephen's speech before his martyrdom in Acts 7. But more percise parallels - of itemized references to past persons or events, in prayers petitioning for rescue and deliverance - are found in several contexts in the literature of the period. The two prayers that are found in III Maccabees appeal for God's mercy and rescue while indicating that this divine intervention had been forthcoming in the past. In chapter 2, when the High Priest Simon prays for divine intercession in the face of Ptolemaic aggression, he says: "You destroyed men for their wicked deeds in the past among them giants relying on their own strength and self confidence, upon whom you brought an immeasurable flood of water. When the inhabitants of Sodom acted insolently and became notorious for their crimes, you burned them up with fire and brimestone and made them an example to later generations. You tested the proud Pharaoh, who enslaved the your holy people Israel, with many different punishments and made known to him your mighty power" (2:4-6). Later on in the book (chapter 6) when the Jews are incarcerated at the Alexandrian hippodrome, Elazar "a man of distinction among the priests/Jews" prays on their behalf. Elazar's prayer mentions God's smiting of Pharaoh's Egypt and Sennacherib's Assyria, and beseeches for rescue as in the cases of the three comrades in the Babylonian fire; Daniel in the lion's den; and Jonah in the belly of the whale (6:4-8). (Looser parallels are the lists of past heros found inter alia in Sirach 44-49 and Mattathias' deathbead scene in I Maccabees 2:51 ff. )
Different prayer texts found at Qumran are characterized by this type of historical recollection as part of their rhetorical scheme. The Divrei haMe'orot scroll incorporates an historical review with a quest for penitence and deliverance. Depending on how the scroll is reconstructed, we receive a sequence of references to Biblical history illustrating past promise, glory and downfall. These references are introduced by a formulaic ֺ־ֲ¯ ”' or ֺ־ֲ¯ •‎ "Remember, O Lord". Most compelling, for the purposes of our comparison are the following excerpts from Divrei haMe'orot:
‎•‎ ‎“•ָ ˜” •‎ ־׃ֲ־” ־’“ֲֿ ־ֱֲ־” ‎˜¯ •˜‎™” ֿ‎·ֲ™ָ•ֲ ·”׃¯ֲ™ּ ‎™ ָ־”
"O Lord, may you act as Yourself, as the extent of Your might, that You have pardoned our fathers when they transgressed Your words" (4Q504 1-2 ii:7-8; DJD 7, p. 139).
‎•‎ ‎“ֲ•ָ ־˜ֲ™־” •ֿ‎ֲ™ ׃ֲּֿ “ ֲּֿ ָ˜ֲ· •‎ ‎־” ֱֲ׃™־” ׃׃•ֲ, ֲ¯‎” [•ָָ•ֲ?ֲֲ•ָ•ֲ?] ֲ׃ֿ•ֲ ֱֲֿ–ָ•ֲ ֲ”–ָֿ” ‎™ ׃־” ָ˜¯‎ֿ
"Please Lord, as you have done wonders from eternity to eternity, may Your anger and wrath turn away from us, and behold our impoverishment and servitude and subjugation and deliver Your people Israel" (4Q504 1-2 vi:10 - vii:2; DJD 7, p. 148).
Here too, the rhetoric beseeching for deliverance is based solely on the fact of past precedent, without employing present day merit or mitigating circumstance.
The enumeration of past deliverances found in the fast day prayer conforms to this general rhetorical pattern.
* * *
In conclusion, I have claimed that Talmudic tradition has preserved remnants of a Temple prayer for fast days. The Mishnah incorporates a source presenting the seven blessing prayer as an liturgical unit, and other Tannaitic traditions place these berakhot in the Temple precincts on fast days. The prominence of the Jerusalem locale is attested by the opening and closing sections of this prayer which expect divine intervention on Mt. Moriah as in the days of old. The participation of the kohanim (or: bnei Aharon) also points to a ritual in the Jerusalem Temple. The high profile and lasting impression of this prayer is attested to by the desire to emulate at least some of its components in the Galilee during the decades following the Temple's destruction.
Stefan C. Reif
The Second Temple Period, Qumran Research and Rabbinic Liturgy: Some Contextual and Linguistic Comparisons
It is widely recognized that most proponents of Wissenschaft des Judentums, at least in the first century of its existence, were at one time or another engaged in research on the history of Jewish liturgy. Although their interests in this connection ranged widely within the Rabbinic tradition from texts to theology, from prose to poetry, and from the mystical to the mundane, there was always also a preoccupation on the part of some scholars with the precise relationship between the earliest manifestations of Rabbinic liturgy and the broader history and literature of the Jews during the Second Temple period. Tending as they did to see the religious histories of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism in diachronic terms, they combed the late books of the Hebrew Bible, the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, and the literary sources of Hellenistic Judaism, to identify the material that could most closely be related to the earliest Talmudic-Midrashic traditions. While the Christian scholars tended to see the New Testament and the early Church as the faithful transmitters of major Second Temple ideas and practice, their Jewish counterparts preferred to locate such a continuation in the extensive literature of the Talmudic-Midrashic sources.
This Jewish scholastic tendency in the field of liturgical research may be traced in the work of many scholars from Reform circles in mid-nineteenth-century Germany to modern Orthodox stalwarts in mid-twentieth-century Israel but is perhaps best exemplified in the work of an American liturgical specialist who ultimately headed the Rabbinical school of the Conservative movement. Louis Finkelstein devoted much of his early research to the history of the traditional Hebrew prayers and it is now some seventy years since he produced detailed studies of the amidah and the birkat ha-mazon, later supplemented by articles on the shema and the hallel. These studies, which appeared in the form of lengthy articles in scholarly periodicals, contained a mass of evidence from Talmudic, Geonic and Midrashic literature, from Genizah and other manuscript folios (some of them containing unique material), from medieval halakhic compositions and liturgical commentaries, and from early printed editions. Finkelsteins analysis, though containing important theological, literary and historical elements, and making comparisons with Christian and Karaite traditions, was primarily textual and he reached very precise conclusions about the origin and development of these central Jewish prayers. Having compared all the rites, versions and citations, and laying particular stress on what he had drawn from the Genizah source, he felt able to eliminate what he regarded as later accretions and to present, in tabulated format, a text that could be defined as a pristine version originating in Judea in the Second Temple period, probably as early as pre-Maccabean times. In his view, the role of Rabban Gamliel in the second century of the current era had been to establish the authentic and authoritative nature of such a version and through his powerful leadership to transmit its purity to future generations. In the wake of Finkelstein's definitions, it became fairly common for general studies of Second Temple Judaism to cite his reconstructed texts as examples of standard Jewish liturgy in that period.
The notion that there were single and standard manifestations of Jewish thought, religious practice, sacred literature, popular language and liturgical rite that existed in the Second Temple, and that may be traced in direct lines of evolution into the early Christian centuries, has been seriously challenged by numerous scholarly developments since the time of Finkelstein. The discovery, exploitation and publication of the Qumran corpus has undoubtedly made the most major impact and will shortly engage our closer attention. There have, however, also been other changes of outlook on the part of specialists in the period that have made their mark on the scientific understanding of its Jewish liturgical history. In a brief paper that I delivered at the World Congress of Jewish Studies held in Jerusalem in 1993 I argued the need for a change in the methodology required to reach such a scientific understanding. It seemed to me then, and it seems to me now, that the broader Near Eastern background and the more specific Hellenistic culture have to be taken into account; that social, economic and political factors are now to be given more recognition than they once were; that the role of archeological and inscriptional evidence is continuing to grow in significance; and that, above all, the definition of what constitutes history must be permitted to add a powerful voice to the discussion.
More specifically, the views of Joseph Heinemann and Ezra Fleischer, diametrically opposed and mutually contradictory in so many ways as they are, nevertheless have in common that they both force the liturgical historian to think again about what preceded the Tannaitic traditions in general and the achievements of Rabban Gamliel in particular. As far as Heinemann was concerned, there never was one original version and the Genizah texts, far from being distillable to one pure essence, should rather be analysed as testifying to a variety and complexity of content that characterized Jewish liturgy from its foundations during the Second Temple period. Such an inherent lack of textual consistency was more consonant with a proposed orality of transmission than with the notion of a standard formulation committed to writing. What the scholar could and should do was to employ the form-critical method to uncover the varied ritual, educational and individual contexts in which the different sets of prayers had their origins and to identify the common themes and factors that run through the varied formulations. For his part, Fleischer saw the variegated nature of liturgical texts from the Genizah as testimony to the revolutionary impact of the liturgical poets on the central Jewish prayers in the Geonic period. Their recitations and compositions encouraged a degree of innovation that spawned a host of novel versions for what had previously been the standard liturgy. That liturgy had been created virtually de novo by Rabban Gamliel in the second century, had existed in written form, and had throughout the Talmudic period enjoyed a more authoritative status than any of the varied formulations that are cited from time to time by the other Rabbis. What appears to be a central pillar in both historical reconstructions is the conviction that it is impossible to identify a standard amidah-type or similar liturgical text that was broadly used in Jewish religious communities to meet a religious obligation in the final two or three centuries of the Second Temple period.
In the course of the last decade or two, the liturgical texts available from Qumran have increased considerably in number and variety and consequently represent the latest phase of the challenge to which reference was earlier made. The question that needs to be answered is whether this new evidence and its close study and careful publication have reinforced the conviction that is common to the Heinemann and Fleischer views or have, even in a limited fashion, moved more in the direction of justifying that aspect of Finkelsteins approach that presupposed that scholars could uncover standard liturgical texts dating from the pre-Christian period that were the undisputed ancestors of later Jewish and Christian worship. When I was, some ten years ago, writing my general history of normative Hebrew prayer in the Jewish religious community, I decided not to give any more than brief attention to the Qumran evidence because I was unsure of the degree to which it could justifiably be regarded as directly mundane to the topic. Having looked at liturgical items such as the Hodayot, Benedictions, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and Words of the Luminaries, and the literature then available on these, I noted that they went beyond what was known from Biblical, apocryphal and pseudepigraphical literature and hinted that this might lend some credence to the connection originally made by Kaufmann Kohler a century ago between the liturgy of the Essenes and that of the early Rabbis. Such themes as the choice of Israel, the centrality of Zion, the elimination of evil and the survival of the saints occurred at Qumran and in the relevant Rabbinic texts and there were possible parallels with the later amidah, viddui and tahanun. At the same time, there were no clear indications about matters of recitation, participation and context and I therefore offered the following tentative conclusions:
Certainly, the Qumran scrolls provide the earliest testimony to liturgical formulations of a communal nature designated for particular occasions and conducted in a centre totally independent of Jerusalem and the Temple, making use of terminology and theological concepts that were later to become dominant in Jewish and, in some cases, Christian prayer... The question that has yet to asked, let alone answered, is whether that process is to be understood as a unique feature of the way of life represented at Qumran, which was later adopted and adapted by the Rabbinic inheritors of Jewish religious practice, or as an example of popular liturgical piety that was common to various Pharisaic and Essene groups and subsequently survived in the Tannaitic traditions.
Given that additional texts and more extensive studies of the subject are now available, the time has come to discuss the matter afresh and to offer a re-assessment of its current state.
The scholar who has been most prolific in comparing the liturgical texts from Qumran with those of Rabbinic literature is undoubtedly Moshe Weinfeld and his articles therefore represent a good starting point for this fresh analysis. Indeed, a mere glance at the titles of these scholarly papers and at their summaries and conclusions, some published before I completed the research for my volume and others at a later date, would seem to justify a conclusion that goes significantly beyond what I was then prepared to venture and therefore to call for a more definitive acknowledgement of the Qumran corpus as the source and precedent for Rabbinic liturgy. Weinfeld devotes considerable attention to such liturgical topics as the qedushah, amidah, birkat ha-mazon and morning benedictions, closely examining the relevant texts in both Qumranic and Rabbinic literature and dealing with terminology, content and overall context. He identifies many individual words, in both verbal and nominal forms, and numerous short phrases that the two literatures have in common. He also finds similar theological themes such as creation and calendar, the closeness of the supplicant to God, and the removal of satanic power. Parallel uses of verses and of sections of the Psalms are located and he points to a number of instances in which links are made between the same two or three topics. For example, qedushah, morning light and angels are found in close proximity in both sets of sources, as are repentance, knowledge of God and forgiveness, and there is a possible parallel between sets of texts both of which link the joy of a wedding and the comforting of a mourner.
From the point of view of subject matter, there can be no denying that there are similar theological themes, that one can point to parallel tendencies to deal with groups of topics in contexts that are not dissimilar, and that the language used has its common factors. There are, however, a number of criteria that combine to call into question whether these basic similarities are sufficient to indicate that Rabbinic liturgy is directly borrowed from Qumran. The precise word-order, the complete phraseology, and the structure of the syntax are by no means parallel and the liturgical use made of the language differs in the two corpora. The topics covered and the links made are among those that constituted the stuff of contemporary religious thinking and may therefore be theologically rather than liturgically meaningful. Many of the parallels have common precedents in the Biblical Hebrew books and this is not always clarified. In addition, Weinfeld permits himself to use Rabbinic material in a chronologically indiscriminate manner, citing sources that range over many centuries and numerous communities, rather than limiting himself to items that may with some confidence be dated to the early Christian centuries. While in the case of the other liturgical texts, limited linguistic and thematic similarities will be acceptable even to those who are more sceptical about their overall significance for making direct links between Qumran and the Rabbinic synagogue and academy, the instance of the claimed parallel between 4Q434, frag. 2, and the post-prandial grace recited at the home of the mourner in the Rabbinic tradition is somewhat speculative and far from convincing.
Weinfelds arguments in connection with that Qumran fragment, and indeed with regard to 4QDeutn and 4QDeutj, led me to consider whether the use of current computer-based searches might not establish linguistic similarities that could conceivably strengthen his position. I therefore began to make use of the software available from Oxford University Press and Brill in Leiden in their second CDRom in the series entitled The Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Reference Library, edited by Timothy Lim, to comb the available Qumran sources for direct parallels to Rabbinic texts, paying particular attention to the grace after meals. To date, I have searched only for the major vocabulary and content that are characteristic of limited sections of the birkat ha-mazon but the results nevertheless seem worthy of consideration in this context. Given the limited context here, I have in any case been able to include only a few illustrations. In 4Q504, for example, we encounter notions such as the divine love of Israel, the choice of Jerusalem, the special status of Zion, the uniqueness of the Davidic kingdom, Gods great name, and the removal of satanic and evil power. The roots kl, sv and brk coincide in 4Q370, references to the exodus from Egypt and the feeding (klkl) of the Jewish people in 4Q3934, and the notion of a shortage of food, by way of the use of the verb hsr and the noun lhm is to be found in 4Q416-7. The writer in 4Q504 takes pride in the fact that his group are called by Gods name and that same divine name is described as the great name in a number of 4Qumranic contexts. If we move beyond the vocabulary and content of the grace, we may note two other interesting examples. The Davidic occupation of the royal throne is described as eternal in 4Q252, echoing Deuteronomy 17:18, 1 Kings 2:45, as well as Daniel 2:44 and 7:14, and finding a parallel in the third post-haftarah benediction dealing with the messianic age.
The manner in which these and similar citations are reminiscent of Rabbinic texts is undoubtedly intriguing but we must be careful not to draw conclusions that go beyond the evidence before us. There are here concepts and linguistic usages that are similar but there is very little that is actually identical and the order of the phraseology and the syntactical structure are by no means parallel. The standardized formats and contexts of the Rabbinic formulations appear to have no clear-cut precedents at Qumran. Both sets of texts have Biblical precedents but they utilize them in different ways, each opting for the kind of adjustments that take account of its own predilections. With regard to Israel, Jerusalem and the Temple, the religious groups that lie behind the various textual constructions have a variety of theological motivations for their preferences. One may even tentatively suggest that divine attributes such tuv, hesed and rahamim are regarded at Qumran as the models for human piety while the stress in the Rabbinic texts is more on the blessings they convey on Israel.
At this point it is necessary to make reference to a comparative linguistic analysis of the texts from Qumran and from Rabbinic sources that was made by Chaim Rabin and to assess the degree to which it is relevant to the current discussion. Although the original English article appeared in 1965 and its Hebrew translation in 1972, Rabins reputation was such that it is still often cited and it has without question exercised a formative influence on subsequent approaches to the subject. Rabin argued for the existence in Palestine in the middle of the Second Temple period of a literary language in which BH and MH elements coexisted upon a mainly MH grammatical foundation. He suggested reasons why the authors of the texts found at Qumran consciously chose to move in the direction of a BH style while their later Rabbinic counterparts reacted to this and related developments by committing themselves even more enthusiastically to the MH flavour of their own linguistic usage. For our purposes here, it is important to deal not so much with his overall linguistic theory but what he has to say about the liturgical field. Adopting the view, particularly as earlier expressed by Talmon, that the Qumran sect was familiar with the benedictions of the shema and the amidah in a sequence not unlike that of the Rabbinic version, Rabin concluded that anything characteristic of the prayers is therefore common inheritance of the Qumran Sect and of Pharisaism.
At first glance, this appears to be at odds with our findings as described above and to require either a reconsideration of these or a challenge to the kind of view espoused by Rabin. A closer examination of his article does, however, reveal that he makes a number of additional points that make it clear that he was proposing a more refined assessment of the situation. He alludes to the fact that the common inheritance appears to have included a store of expressions and some similar vocabulary but is at the same time cautious enough to disclaim any possibility of recovering the original linguistic form of such prayers. The Qumran texts adapted whatever they inherited with a view to matching it to their own style and the Rabbis remained loyal to an idiom of MH that was exclusively used for their prayers but fixed the precise textual formulation of the latter only in the post-Talmudic period. It is therefore clear that Rabin, even from the limited texts available to him thirty years ago, is tending to the view that commonality of subjects and vocabulary is not to be confused with identity of liturgical context, order and formulation.
The findings of another, later article of his are also worthy of summary in the current context. There he argues that a better understanding of Jewish liturgical history is to be achieved by adopting aspects of the structuralist approach, by stressing the synchronic as well as the diachronic analysis, and by pointing to the legal and theological elements in the language of the prayers. What he presupposes is a long and complicated development from a format that may well have been originally oral, through a process of literary improvement and linguistic selection, towards the establishment of independent parameters, and a status that could even ultimately exercise a formative influence on the emergence of contemporary, spoken Hebrew. Such views are by no means at odds with the notion that what had been liturgically expressed in varieties of language, structure and context in Second Temple times came to be formulated and utilized in a generally more standardized fashion in what became the authorized Rabbinic traditions of subsequent periods.
No less relevant to this discussion are the views of another, more contemporary specialist in the history of the Hebrew language in the Second Temple period, Avi Hurvitz. In a helpful overview of developments, he has defined the language of the Qumran scrolls as a variety of late Biblical Hebrew and has drawn attention to the Biblical elements in the Hebrew of Rabbinic prayer. He has also contrasted the spontaneous and classical nature of the language used for prayer in the First Temple period with its later equivalent, as for instance, recorded in the book of Ezra, and noted linguistic moves in the direction of the compositions of the early Rabbinic authorities, as well as similarities and parallels between the Rabbinic and Qumranic usages. At the same time, however, he has pointed to the possibility that the commitment to Biblical Hebrew may have been the result of a conscious mimicry and, even more significantly for the topic here being considered, has stressed that it is the roots of Rabbinic liturgy that one can find in the Second Temple period and not the precise formulation of its actual prayers.
Recognizing the fact that my own perspective is one that is firmly fixed in the historical study of Rabbinic sources rather than in the literary analysis of the Judean scrolls, I am aware of the need to turn now to the recent work of a sample selection of Qumran specialists and to bring into the equation how they have recently come to view the overall liturgical history of the Second Temple period from their own particular outlook.
Bilhah Nitzan's study Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry appeared in English translation in 1994 and was based on the Hebrew original that appeared in Tel Aviv in 1989. In that important and extensive treatment of the subject, Nitzan devoted some of the discussion to the relationship between Qumranic and Rabbinic prayer. Although both are dependent on the same Biblical sources, they each demonstrate unique characteristics. Blessings and prayers occur in both sets of texts but in each case with its own formulas. Although they do share some ideas, it appears to be fruitless to seek precise parallels of pattern. The priestly benediction has a much more central role in the arrangement of poetic and ceremonial compositions at Qumran while the structure and use of the qedushah is considerably less crystallized there than among the Rabbis. Other specific features of the Judean scrolls are that they supplement Biblical content with apocalyptic material and reformulate apocalyptic myths in the Biblical style, as well as expressing the sanctity of the sabbath by the use of ritual poetry. What emerges from all this data is that both groups may be said to have fixed liturgy but only the Rabbinic variety is of a fully uniform nature and that the Qumranic use of benedictions is not to be seen as a precedent for the later Rabbinic employment of this genre. More accurately, the liturgical developments at Qumran should be plotted at a point between the Biblical beginning and the Rabbinic progression that is close to the position occupied by the Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphical literature.
Some attention must also be given to the conclusions reached in studies recently penned by Eileen Schuller and Esther Chazon on the place of the Qumranic liturgical texts in the search for the origins of Rabbinic prayer. Schuller has made it clear that the non-canonical psalms enjoyed a provenance that was both earlier and broader than that of Qumran and that they were employed for liturgical purposes. She has demonstrated that although they make use of the more common Biblical precedents in the formulation of the terms with which they describe themselves, they also contribute innovative developments to this whole process. Her analysis of the Hodayot has revealed that they, more specifically, reflect the experiences and teachings of the Qumranic sect and that they exist in a variety of collections. Schuller has pointed to words and expressions in the non-canonical psalms that have their equivalents in other Hebrew texts of the late Second Temple and early post-Destruction periods and to elements of Aramaic influence. She has also provided clear evidence that formulations and concepts known in Tannaitic Judaism and early Christianity are already adumbrated in such psalms as that found in 4Q372 1 and has stressed the importance of the Qumranic scrolls for plotting the development of the use and formulation of the Jewish liturgical benediction.
Perhaps the most important of Esther Chazon's many findings and conclusions is her overall assessment that although there are some sectarian liturgical elements at Qumran, there is now a wealth of evidence to indicate that many of the hymns and prayers found there represent the religious activities of the common Judaism of the Second Temple period. Although more work has to be done on explaining such phenomena as the occurrence of different prayers for the same occasion, it can no longer be doubted (even if she and others had some earlier hesitations) that communal prayer at fixed times predated the Rabbis of the Mishnah and that the content, language, form and function of Rabbinic prayer cannot justifiably be regarded as totally innovative. As Chazon herself puts it, daily prayers such as those found in 4Q503 and 4Q408 were said by different Jewish groups in the late Second Temple period and were considered important enough to be incorporated into the liturgy that was institutionalized by the Rabbis in the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.
In his contribution to the third volume of the Cambridge History of Judaism, Daniel Falk has covered the topic of Prayer in the Qumran Texts and expressed some cautious views concerning its historical link with Rabbinic liturgy. He places the origins of Qumranic prayer texts in a variety of provenances, including the Temple, the priesthood, the levitical groups and the maamadot and describes how some are linked to the calendar, some to special events, and some to penitential themes. He accepts that there are parallels of subject and language with Rabbinic texts and identifies some particularly striking similarities between the Festival Prayers and the later synagogal liturgy. He is, however, convinced that we are dealing with independent exploitations of the Biblical models and not a direct link between Qumran and the Talmudic traditions. He consequently rejects Weinfelds view that the major Rabbinic prayers have their prototypes among the Judean scrolls, preferring to argue that the prayers found at Qumran belong to a broad stream of prayer tradition in which the Rabbis also stood.
Being in the happy position of having more texts and interpretations now available to him, Falk has been able to devote his Cambridge doctoral dissertation to a close study of many daily, sabbath, and festival prayers in the Dead Sea scrolls and to have a revised version of this published by Brill. He sets out to identify where lines of continuity may be established in the history of Jewish prayer and whether the traditions represented at Qumran are sectarian or of broader significance. The points made in his CHJ article are here discussed and exemplified at length and he stresses the importance of recognizing that prayer in the Dead Sea Scrolls is not a uniform phenomenon but has a variety of forms, functions and socio-liturgical settings that are perhaps being welded together at Qumran. The Temple appears to have stood at the centre of many of these liturgical traditions which is why they appear in many, variant types of Jewish literature emanating from the axial age. Jewish, and indeed Christian, institutionalized prayer had its origins in the attraction of prayer to the Temple cult, rather than the need to provide a replacement for the sacrificial system and not directly in the Qumranic context.
It remains only to offer a few brief conclusions for students of Rabbinic liturgy who are anxious to know what relevant lessons may be learned from recent Qumran studies for their own historical reconstructions:
1. There is, in the broad context of Second Temple Judaism, clear evidence for the existence, at least among some groups, of a practice to recite regular prayers at specific times but there is no obvious consistency of text and context for these.
2. There are written texts from Qumran that record such prayers and they have elements in common with the Rabbinic liturgy of the second Christian century. This by no means rules out the possibility that there were also oral liturgical traditions during that period, nor does it imply that early Rabbinic prayer moved totally from orality to wholly fixed texts.
3. In various religious spheres, the Jews at Qumran and the Rabbis sometimes express themselves uniquely while at others they follow well-established precedents. As far as liturgy is concerned, Rabbinic prayer incorporates material broadly known from Qumran but imposes upon it a fresh order, style and distinctive formulation. This innovative aspect reflects the traditions of Tannaitic Judaism and its own approach to the Hebrew language and to the Biblical canon. The later development of Rabbinic prayer also has dynamic characteristics and caution must be exercised in using post-Talmudic and Geonic texts for the reconstruction of earlier trends.
4. Given the breadth of the liturgical material found at Qumran, there was clearly more than one provenance for the development of hymns and prayers during the Second Temple period. It is therefore likely that the Rabbis borrowed, directly or indirectly, from various contexts, among them the Temple, the priesthood, communal gatherings such as the maamadot, pietistic and mystical circles, and popular practice.
Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev: Prayer in St Isaac of Nineveh
Paper delivered at the Conference on ‘Prayer and Spirituality in the EarlyChurch’, Melbourne, Australia, August 1995
Outward aspects of prayer
Prayer before the Cross
Reading
Night vigil
Prayer for the world
The highest stages of prayer

The theme of prayer is undoubtedly the most frequently discussed and most thoroughly developed theme in St Isaac of Nineveh, an East Syrian ascetical writer of the seventh century. When reading his works, one not only receives a clear idea about how he and other members of the Church of the East prayed in his times: one also gains a detailed picture of the theory and practice of prayer in the whole of the Eastern Christian tradition.

In this paper we shall outline the most characteristic features of Isaac’s doctrine of prayer, in particular, his teachings on different outward aspects of prayer; on the prayer before the Cross; on reading; on night vigil; on the prayer for one’s neighbour, the Church and the world; and on the highest mystical stages of prayer.

Outward aspects of prayer

There is a widespread opinion that an interest in the external aspects of ascetical activity and the practice of prayer is not characteristic of the mystical writers: they allegedly concentrate only upon the inner fruits of this practice. Isaac of Nineveh is one of many writers who provide confirmation of how misleading this opinion is. We find in him many descriptions of outward forms of prayer on the basis of his own practice and that of the solitaries of his time.
Here is one of these descriptions:
One person may spend the entire day in prayer and in reading Scripture, giving over only a small part to standing in the recitation of the Psalter... Another person may be occupied the whole day solely in psalmody, without specifically being aware at all of prayer. Yet another may occupy himself night and day just with frequent kneelings... And occasionally, standing up from there for a while in peace in his heart, he will turn himself for a little to meditating on Scripture. Yet another person may occupy the entire day in reading Scripture...’[1]
In this passage, there are several outward forms of prayer listed, such as psalmody, reading, kneeling.
Isaac renders much value to kneelings (prostrations), considering them as one of the most important spiritual exercises.[2] In his writings we find indications both about multiple prostrations and a single extended prostration: the latter is falling down and lying prostrated for a long time. In particular, he mentions thirty and more prostrations at one time, as well as lying down before the Cross for three days.[3]
Apart from prostrations, another external action which can accompany prayer is striking one’s head upon the ground.[4] This, or a similar, practice seems to be widespread not only in the Syrian tradition, but also in Oriental monasticism in general.[5] Isaac emphasizes that one or another form of ascetical practice during prayer is suitable for every ascetic and that there is no common rule for everyone. But it is quite intriguing that he regards beating one’s head as a possible substitute for the whole sequence of daily monastic offices: ‘one man strikes his head all the day long, and does this instead of the hours of his services’.[6]
The importance of outward forms of prayer in especially emphasized by Isaac in his polemics with the Messalians. The Messalian movement (from Syriac msalyane, ‘those who pray’), which appeared in the fourth century and spread over the entire Christian Orient, rejected the Church’s sacraments and asceticism: prayer was considered as the main spiritual activity, by means of which, the Messalians claimed, one reaches different ecstatic states. Among Isaac’s writings which are dedicated to anti-Messalian polemics, chapter XIV of Part II occupies the first place: it is called ‘On Prayer and Its Outward Forms’.
Here Isaac claims that reverential outward postures are conducive to one’s inward progress towards pure prayer.[7] It is not God who needs external signs of reverence; rather, a reverential outward posture is necessary for us so that we may be trained in a pious attitude to God.[8] The Messalians, Isaac claims, despised these outward postures; they were not concerned with prostrations and making the sign of the Cross.[9] By their neglect of outward forms of prayers, the Messalians placed themselves in opposition to the tradition of the ancient Fathers, who not only prayed in their heart, but also kept different external rules and cared for the posture of the body during prayer.[10] With great reverence and deep lowliness the ancient Fathers stood up and made many prostrations, kissing the Cross five or ten times; some of them lay prostrated before the Cross for many hours.[11] Isaac discusses in detail how it was possible for ancient monks to make fifty, sixty, one hundred or three hundred prostrations.[12]
Continuing his description of the outward forms of prayer, Isaac then comes to prayer with outstretched hands. This posture, according to him, promotes concentration of thought and a deep feeling of compunction. Isaac also emphasizes the necessity of prayer with one’s own words; this prayer, he is convinced, leads to inner spiritual insights.[13] The advantage of prayer with one’s own words is that it does not require one to recite certain texts from a book or to learn texts by heart or to repeat them. Some ancient saints, Isaac notes, did not know the psalms at all, yet their prayer, unlike that of the Messalians, reached God because of their humility.[14]
We see what the meaning for Isaac was of outward forms of prayers. He is convinced that prayer with all its outward forms is ‘the fulfillment of all virtues’.[15]
At the same time he understands that outward forms, however important they might be, are only an auxiliary means for acquiring pure prayer. Outside the context of the anti-Messalian polemic he speaks of the necessity of outward forms in a much more reserved manner. In particular, he accepts prayer while sitting, especially for old people.[16] In general, for the old and the sick, there must be special rules which would exclude bodily labour. [17]
Outward forms of prayer are necessary, but they should be measured in accordance with the strength of every person. Not only the old and infirm are freed from the necessity of performing many prostrations and other external actions of prayer: anyone who is exhausted from prayer is deserving of rest.[18] One can pray standing, sitting or kneeling; what is more important is that prayer should be accomplished with the fear of God.[19] Ultimately, Isaac comes to the conclusion that there are no outward postures that would be inevitable during prayer. A deliberate rejection of outward forms of prayer may cause one’s falling into pride and the ‘Messalian error’. However, this does not imply that it would be completely impossible to pray without outward forms. On the contrary, one should pray at any time and in any posture of the body:
...A person can be occupied with this while standing up or sitting down, while working or while walking inside his cell, while he is going to sleep, until the point when sleep takes over, while he is indoors or while he is traveling on a journey, secretly occupying himself with them within his heart; likewise, while he is constantly kneeling on the ground, or wherever he happens to be standing, even if it is not in front of the Cross...’[20]
Prayer before the Cross
In many places Isaac mentions prayer and prostrations before the Cross, kissing the Cross, and other signs of special reverence which must be shown by a Christian to the Cross. These frequent references to the Cross in Isaac’s writings are connected with the exceptional place that the Holy Cross occupies in Syriac Christianity. The SyrianChurch has never had its own tradition of icon-painting.[21] At the same time, since very early on, the SyrianChurch has surrounded the Holy Cross with devotional and liturgical veneration, as a symbol of human salvation and of God’s invisible presence. In this respect Isaac’s teaching on prayer before the Cross is of special interest as it allows us to come into contact with the ancient tradition of the Syrian Orient and to see what the importance was of the Cross in the spiritual life of Isaac’s compatriots and contemporaries.
In Chapter XI of Part II Isaac expounds the teaching on the Holy Cross as a symbol of divine dispensation and an object of religious veneration. He presents a very elaborated theology of the Cross, which is based on the idea of the power of God being constantly present in the Cross. According to Isaac, this power is nothing else but the invisible Shekhina (Presence) of God, which dwelt in the Ark of Covenant. This power was venerated by Moses and the people of Israel, who lay prostrated before the Ark[22] because of divine revelations and wonders manifested in it. The very same Shekhina is now residing in the Holy Cross: it has departed from the Old Testament Ark and entered the New Testament Cross.[23] This is why the miracles of the Apostles, which are described in the New Testament, were more powerful than those performed in Old Testament antiquity.[24] In fact, the whole of the Old Testament cult, with all its signs and wonders, was primarily a symbol pointing forward to the New Testament realities: this cult was unable to eradicate sin, whereas the Cross destroyed the power of sin and death.[25]
Speaking of the Old Testament images, Isaac asks why was it that before the wooden construction of the Ark, which was built by the hands of craftsmen, ‘adoration filled with awe was offered up continuously’, in spite of the prohibition of the Law to worship the work of human hands or any image or likeness.[26] Because in the Ark, he answers, unlike in the pagan idols, the power of God was manifested openly and the name of God was set upon it.[27] Isaac therefore sweeps aside the accusation of idolatry, the very same accusation that was brought up against the Iconodules in Byzantium in the seventh and eighth centuries. Though the context of Byzantine polemic with Iconoclasm was different, and the main argument for the veneration of icons was the Incarnation of God the Word, which made possible the depiction of God in material colours (a theme not touched upon by Isaac), in more general terms Isaac’s idea of the presence of the Godhead in material objects has much in common with what Byzantine polemicists of his time wrote on the presence of God in icons. In particular, Isaac says that if the Cross was made not ‘in the name of that Man in whom the Divinity dwells’, that is, the Incarnate God the Word, the accusation of idolatry would have been just.[28] He also alludes to the interpretation of the ‘Orthodox Fathers’, according to which the metal leaf, which was placed above the Ark,[29] was a type of the human nature of Christ.[30]
Old Testament symbols, according to Isaac, were only a type and shadow of New Testament realities: he emphasizes the superiority of the Cross over Old Testament symbols.[31] The material Cross, whose type was the Ark of the Covenant, is, in turn, the type of the eschatological Kingdom of Christ. The Cross, as it were, links the Old Testament with the New, and the New Testament, with the age to come, where all material symbols and types will be abolished. The whole economy of Christ, which began in Old Testament times and continues until the end of the world, is encompassed in the symbol of the Cross:
For the Cross is Christ’s garment just as the humanity of Christ is the garment of the Divinity.[32] Thus the Cross today serves as a type, awaiting the time when the true prototype will be revealed: then those things will not be required any longer. For the Divinity dwells inseparably in the humanity... For this reason we look on the Cross as the place belonging to the Shekhina of the Most High, the Lord’s sanctuary, the ocean of the symbols of God’s economy. This form of the Cross manifests to us, by means of the eye of faith, the symbol belonging to the two Testaments... Moreover, it is the final seal of the economy of our Saviour. Whenever we gaze on the Cross.., the recollection of our Lord’s entire economy gathers together and stands before our interior eyes’.[33]
We see that in the Syriac tradition in general and in St Isaac in particular, the Cross is in fact the main and the only sacred picture which becomes an object of liturgical veneration. If in the Byzantine tradition, different stages of Christ’s economy, as well as different heroes of Biblical and Church history (prophets, apostles, saints) might have found their incarnation in different iconographic subjects, for a Syrian Christian all this variety of iconography was replaced by the sole image of the Cross. This is an extremely concentrated and ascetic vision, which does not need different painted images. In the Syriac tradition prayer is, as it were, focused on one point, and this point is the Cross of Christ.
Isaac describes different forms of prayer before the Cross. One of them is lying prostrated before the Cross for a long time in silence.[34] Thus, lying down before the Cross is, according to Isaac, higher than all other forms of prayer as it encompasses them in itself, being an experience of extreme concentration and collectedness, which is accompanied by an intensive feeling of God’s presence.
Another form of prayer before the Cross is the prayer with the raising of the eyes and continual ‘gazing’ upon the Cross: this prayer can be accomplished while standing or sitting, as well as kneeling with the hands stretched out.[35] In one passage Isaac speaks of ‘insight into the Crucified One’ during prayer before the Cross.[36] The question here is not of the Crucifixion, the Cross with the image of the crucified Christ, but of the simple Cross without any image, which is a symbol of the invisible presence of the Crucified One. The images of the crucified Christ, which were so popular in Byzantine East and Latin West, did not spread to the Syrian tradition
Isaac also speaks of the prostrations before the Cross and kissing it many times.[37] Isaac tells us of the prayer of a solitary at whose house he happened to spend night when he was ill:
...I saw this brother’s custom of rising at night before the other brethren to begin his prayer rule. He would recite the psalms until suddenly he would leave off his rule, and falling upon his face he would strike his head upon the ground a hundred times or more with fervour that was kindled in his heart by grace. Then he would stand up, kiss the Cross of the Master, again make a prostration, again kiss the same Cross, and again throw himself upon his face... He would kiss the Cross some twenty times with fear and ardour, with love mingled with reverence, and then begin again to recite the psalms’.[38]
It is therefore very clear that the practice of the veneration of the Cross and prayer before the Cross was one of the most important constituents of Isaac’s teaching on prayer.
Reading
Another important element was the practice of prayerful recitation, or ‘reading (qeryana), which is often spoken of or described by Isaac. This term refers primarily, though not exclusively, to the reading of Scripture. For Isaac, as for the whole of ancient monastic tradition, the reading of Scripture is not so much study of the biblical text with a cognitive aim, but rather converse, encounter, revelation: the text of the Bible is a means for a direct experience of converse with God, for a mystical encounter with God, for insights into the depths of the divine reality.
Isaac speaks of the reading of Scripture as the main means of a spiritual transformation that is accompanied by rejection of sinful life.[39] The reading in the cell includes also the writings of the Fathers of the Church on dogmatic and ascetical subjects.[40] The reading of Scripture and the Fathers, as well as the lives of the saints, is, like prayer, the converse with God. Isaac recommends alternating prayer and reading, so that the ideas drawn from Scripture fill the mind during prayer.[41]
However, ‘not all books are profitable for the concentration of the mind’[42] An ascetic should abstain, first, from reading heterodox and heretical literature.[43] In general, any kind of literature outside the circle of scriptural and patristic writings should be excluded from the daily reading of an ascetic.[44] For some monks, especially for the beginners, even the books of the Fathers on dogmatic matters are not useful, as their intellect is not cleansed from the passions: their reading should be appropriate to the spiritual stage they have reached.[45] This reflects a general attitude of ancient monasticism, according to which the only significance of reading is that it can improve one’s life. A monk is not supposed to be well-read: he is rather supposed to be pure in mind. Hence the recommendation:
The course of your reading should be parallel to the aim of your way of life... Most books that contain instructions in doctrine are not useful for purification. The reading of many diverse books brings distraction of mind upon you. Know, then that not every book that teaches about religion is useful for the purification of the consciousness and the concentration of the thoughts.[46]
Now the recommendation to abstain from reading not only secular, but also Christian dogmatic literature may seem to be a sort of obscurantism on the part of Isaac. We think, however, that Isaac does not mean that a monk is not in need of understanding Christian doctrine clearly and distinctly. His intention in the passage quoted was, first, to remind his reader of a monastic maxim, one which is very traditional indeed, that reading should correspond to life. Furthermore, Isaac probably had in mind the situation of the continuing conflict on Christological matters in which he and his contemporaries had to live. His warning against reading books on dogmatic matters should be understood in the context of this situation: he did not want the monks to be involved in any kind of theological argument, even if the question was about the truth and the true faith. ‘He who has tasted the truth will not enter into dispute concerning the truth... He is not even aroused concerning the faith’.[47] The true faith, according to Isaac, derives not from books, but from experience: it is born of purification of mind rather than of reading.
Isaac makes suggestions concerning how reading should be accomplished in practice. His first requirement for any kind of reading in the cell is that it should be done in silence and stillness.[48] The second requirement is collectedness of mind and absence of exterior thoughts.[49] The third requirement is prayer before the beginning of reading.[50] One can see that the reading of Scripture, as well as of patristic literature, was included by Isaac in the idea of prayer. We should remember that in Christian antiquity, especially in monastic practice, reading was accomplished not with one’s eyes, but aloud, even if one was alone. Scripture was read slowly, with pauses, thinking of the meaning of each phrase and word. This culture of reading practically fell into disuse in modern time because of the necessity for one to swallow a great deal of meaningless words and glance over tens and hundreds of pages. It is clear, however, that ‘prayerful reading’ which is recommended by Isaac, that is, reading involving the maximum attention of the mind to every word, remains an ideal for everyone who wants to penetrate into the spiritual meaning of Holy Scripture. In this sense, the experience and recommendations of Isaac have not lost their validity.
The understanding of the inner and hidden meaning of Scripture is the main goal of reading. The question is not of the allegorical interpretation of the text, which was not favoured by the East-Syriac tradition, though Isaac employed it here and there. The question is of mystical insights (sukkale) into the spiritual meaning of certain words and phrases of Scripture which appear in an ascetic’s mind while reading with deep recollectedness and attention. These insights are like a ray of the sun that suddenly appears in the mind of the one who reads.[51] Isaac discerns in Holy Scripture, on the one hand, ‘the words spoken simply’, which say nothing to one’s heart and mind, and, on the other hand, ‘what is said spiritually’ and what is aimed directly to the soul of the reader.[52] This distinction does not imply that there are in Scripture both meaningful and meaningless words: it rather implies that not every word of Scripture has equal significance to each particular reader. Isaac puts the accent on the subjective attitude of a person to the text he reads: there are words and phrases that leave him cool and indifferent, and there are some which kindle the flame of the love of God in him. It is important not to miss these ‘meaningful’ verses of Scripture and not to be devoid of those spiritual insights which are contained in them.
For all his love of reading, especially that of Scripture, Isaac admits that there could be such a spiritual state when no kind of reading is necessary:
Until a man has received the Comforter, he requires inscriptions in ink to imprint the memory of good in his heart, to keep his striving for good constantly renewed by continual reading... (But) when the power of the Spirit has penetrated the noetic powers of the active soul, then in place of the laws written in ink, the commandments of the Spirit take root in his heart and a man is secretly taught by the Spirit and needs no help from sensory matter’.[53]
Isaac was not alone in his emphasis on the priority of inner spiritual experience over any formal expression of this experience, including reading of scriptural and ascetical texts: this is, in fact, one of the characteristic themes of monastic and hagiographic literature.[54] For Isaac, the text that is read is not that important: more important are the spiritual and mystical insights which one can receive by means of reading. Reading as a form of converse with God leads one to where the activity of the mind on the human level ceases as the mind enters into direct contiguity with God.
Night vigil
Nocturnal prayer is traditional in both Christian liturgical practice in general,[55] and, particularly, in the monastic practice of prayer. When recommending night vigils to monks, the teachers of ascetical life underlined the fact that because at night the whole world is immersed in sleep and there is nothing that could distract an ascetic, this is the most suitable time for prayer. ‘Let every prayer that you offer in the night’, Isaac says, ‘be more precious in your eyes than all your activities of the day’.[56] Night vigil is that ‘work filled with delight’ during which ‘the soul experiences that immortal life, and by means of this experience she puts off the vesture of darkness and receives the gifts of the Spirit’.[57]
According to Isaac, one should not begin night vigil without proper preparation, namely one should first make a prostration, make the sign of the Cross, stand in silence for a while and then pray with one’s own words.[58] The night vigil of every ascetic should include a certain ‘rule’, that is, the succession of prayers, psalms, hymns, readings and prostrations, which are prescribed to be accomplished every time when the vigil takes place. However, this rule, according to Isaac, does not need to contain a fixed number of prayers: to remain in God with one’s intellect is much more important than to adhere rigidly to a particular rule.[59] There is a ‘rule of slavery’ and a ‘rule of freedom’. The first consists of reciting a fixed number of psalms and prayers at every Office: he who is subject to this rule, ‘is inalterably bound by obligation... to follow the details of the number, length, and fixed character of the quantity (of prayers)...’[60] On the contrary, the ‘rule of liberty’ does not fix the sequence and quantity of prayers to be read and ‘does not set a time limit for each of these prayers, nor does one decide upon specific words to use’.[61]
The order of nocturnal vigil is not the same for all ascetics. There are many types of vigil and different sequences of prayers which might be read, as well as various means of attaining attention and humility. Of special interest is Isaac’s reference to the prayer with a short formula[62] and to the practice of prayer without kneeling:
Neither prayer nor a simple psalmody fully comprise a monk’s vigil. One man continues in psalmody all the night long; another passes the night in repentance, compunctionate entreaties, and prostrations; another in weeping, tears and lamentation over his sins. It is written concerning one of our Fathers that for forty years his prayer consisted of but one saying, “As a man I have sinned, but Thou, as God, forgive me”... Another man passes the night in glorifying God and in reading marmyata,[63] and between each marmita he illumines and refreshes himself with reading from the Bible until he is rested. And again another makes for himself the rule not to bend his knees, not even in the prayer that concludes a marmita, though this be customary during vigils, and he passes the entire night in the unbroken silence.[64]
The aim of the night vigil is spiritual illumination: nothing makes the mind so radiant and joyous, as do continual vigils.[65] Isaac calls night vigil ‘the light of the thinking (tar‘itha)’, by which ‘the understanding (mad‘a) is exalted, the mind (re‘yana) is collected, and the intellect (hauna) takes flight and gazes at spiritual things and by prayer is rejuvenated and shines brightly’.[66] This is a unique passage in Isaac where all four Syriac terms for the mental faculties of man are employed together. By this Isaac probably wants to emphasize that night prayer can embrace an entire man and can totally transfigure the whole of man’s intellectual sphere. Nocturnal prayer has, in Isaac, an all-embracing character and is regarded as a universal means for attaining to the illumination of mind.
Prayer for the world
Isaac of Nineveh was a solitary by vocation. Yet in his mind the whole of the universe was present. This is the paradox of a solitary life: withdrawing from people, a solitary does not forget them; renouncing the world, he does not cease to pray for the world. Isaac loved solitude and stillness, but any kind of closing into himself, as well as the thought of his own salvation in isolation from that of his brethren, was entirely alien to him. He possessed that ‘merciful heart’ which is characterized by having pity for all creatures, including not only Christians, but also apostates, animals and demons. His personal prayer grew, like liturgical prayer, to a cosmic scale, embracing not only neighbours and strangers, but also the whole of humanity and the whole universe.
This is especially clear in Chapter V of Part II, which contains a lengthy prayer for the whole world. Isaac begins with the thanksgiving to God for His Incarnation,[67] asking God to hold him worthy of insight ‘into the mystery of the killing’ of His beloved Son.[68] After a long and expressive prayer to Christ,[69] he turns to prayer for monks and solitaries, both living and departed. This is when his prayer acquires that universal ring which characterizes the eucharistic anaphoras of the Eastern Church. It is not by mere chance that the offering of the Body and Blood of Christ is referred to in his prayer:
May there be remembered, Lord, on Your holy altar at the fearful moment when Your Body and Your Blood are sacrificed for the salvation of the world, all the fathers and brethren who are on mountains, in caves, in ravines, cliffs, rugged and desolate places, who are hidden from the world and it is only known to You where they are - those who have died and those still living and ministering before You in body and soul, You the Holy One Who dwell in the holy ones...[70] O King of all worlds and of all the Orthodox Fathers who, for the sake of the truth of the faith, have endured exile and afflictions at the hands of persecutors, who in monasteries, convents, deserts and the habitations of the world, everywhere and in every place, have made it their care to please You with labours for the sake of virtue...[71]
After the prayer for monks and solitaries, one for the sick and captives follows.[72] Then Isaac prays for deliverance of the Church from persecution and inner conflicts, as well as for the preservation of love and unanimity between ‘kings and priests’ (i.e. between the state and the Church). In his final petitions, Isaac remembers those who have gone astray and those who have departed this life without repentance and true faith:
I beg and beseech You, Lord, grant to all who have gone astray a true knowledge of You, so that each and every one may come to know Your glory.[73] In the case of those who have passed from this world lacking a virtuous life and having had no faith, be an advocate for them, Lord, for the sake of the body which You took from them, so that from the single united body of the world we may offer up praise to Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the kingdom of heaven, an unending source of eternal delight’.[74]
This last petition, for those who died without having true faith, shows that the idea of the impossibility of prayer for the departed non-Christians was totally alien to Isaac. He did not imagine the Kingdom of heaven which would be accessible only to certain chosen people, whereas the rest of mankind would remain outside of it. As we can see, Isaac regards the whole world as a single body, in which every human being is a member. In the age to come, the whole universe will be transformed into the Body of Christ, which is the Church of those redeemed by Him.
Thus, Isaac is convinced that Christians should pray for all people, regardless of their virtues or religion: with suffering we should make our supplication to God for the whole of the universe and for all human beings.[75]
The highest stages of prayer
Among the different kinds of prayer mentioned by Isaac, meditation is the one which is regarded as one of the highest states of prayer. Isaac uses several terms to designate this type of prayer, including three which are characteristic for the whole of the East-Syrian tradition: herga, meditation; renya, reflection; ‘uhdana, recollection, remembrance. Each of these three terms, for all their difference in nuances, may refer to what Isaac called herga db-alaha, meditation on God. This meditation is closely connected with prayer, and one cannot easily separate the one from the other: prayer sometimes gives birth to meditation, and at other times it is born from meditation.[76] Meditation on God includes remembrance of the whole economy of God concerning humanity, beginning with the creation of man and finishing with the Incarnation.[77] At the same time, meditation on God also includes pondering upon the ascetical life and Christian virtues: this meditation, according to Isaac, leads one to spiritual illumination.[78] This examining of virtues and their different kinds, which is suggested by Isaac, is a sort of rather abstract meditation on moral issues. It is, however, necessary for an ascetic to be accomplished in this, as it provides a theoretical background to his virtuous living. Meditation on God, which is accompanied by total forgetfulness of this world, leads one to the state of spiritual contemplation, when one penetrates into the ‘dark cloud’ of God’s glory,[79] and becomes like the angels.[80] ‘Luminous meditation’ on God is one of the highest stages of prayer: from thence, there is only one step to mystical ‘wonder’, a state when the intellect is totally withdrawn from this world and entirely captivated by God.[81] In some instances Isaac equates ‘luminous meditation’ on God with ‘pure prayer’, which is ‘culmination of every kind of collectedness of mind and of excellence of prayer’.[82]
The most characteristic idea of Isaac concerning the highest stages of prayer is that at these stages prayer in fact ceases, giving birth to mystical states of ‘spiritual prayer’, contemplation-theoria, and inebriation by the divine love.
According to Isaac, the difference between prayer and the state which begins beyond its borders is that, during pure prayer, a person’s mind is full of different movements (zaw‘e, stirrings), such as the prayers for deliverance from trials, whereas in the beyond-the-borders state, the mind is free from all movements. There is pure prayer and ‘spiritual prayer’ (slota ruhanayta): the last phrase is borrowed from John of Apamea and other early ascetical writers, and is understood by Isaac as the state which is beyond the borders of pure prayer. ‘Spiritual prayer’ does not involve any movement of the mind: it is the very prayer with which the saints of the age to come pray, when ‘their intellects have been swallowed up by the Spirit’.[83]
Is this complete cessation of the intellectual activity which Isaac calls ‘stillness of mind’ not a sort of Buddhist Nirvana, a migration beyond the borders of every personal existence, a full loss of personal self-consciousness? The answer must be negative. In Isaac, ‘stillness of mind’ is not a synonym for unconscious and insensible oblivion: there is a positive element in Isaac’s ‘stillness’, the capture of the mind by God. Unlike Nirvana, ‘stillness of mind’ is an extremely intense state of the mind, which finds itself entirely under the power of God and is drawn into undiscovered depths of the Spirit.[84] The question concerns, therefore, the absence of the movements and desires of the intellect, but not the loss of personal existence: on the contrary, in the stillness of mind there is an intense personal communion of a human person with personal God.
‘Spiritual prayer’, which begins beyond the borders of pure prayer, is the descent of mind to a state of peace and stillness: it is synonymous with te‘oryia-contemplation.[85] The term te‘orya (from Greek theoria) is borrowed by Isaac from the language of Evagrius and Dionysius the Areopagite. Isaac uses this term as a synonym for the ‘vision of God’. He speaks of the supernatural state of the soul, which is ‘her movement in the contemplation of the transubstantial Deity’.[86] In this state, the soul ‘rushes forward’ and ‘becomes as one drunken in awestruck wonder of her continual solicitude for God’.[87]
The term ‘wonder’ (temha or tehra, which both correspond to the Greek ekstasis), is closely linked to the states of the ‘stillness of mind’ and ‘spiritual contemplation’. The state of wonder is born from a prayerful meditation.[88] It may also come out of the reading of Scripture,[89] or from the recollection of God.[90] It is characterised by forgetfulness of oneself, losing self-control and one’s mind being entirely ‘captured’ by God.[91] It can be accompanied by a weakening of the bodily members,[92] a loss of the sense of one’s corporeality and the withdrawal of the mind from the body.[93]
Isaac often speaks of the joy which arises in a person who is in a state of wonder. It is a supernatural and divine joy that has come about from a feeling of freedom and love of God, and is also accompanied by a liberation from fear.[94] To describe this unspeakable and unearthly joy, Isaac uses the term ‘inebriation’ (rawwayuta), which is intended to refer to an especially strong experience of the love of God, accompanied by joy and spiritual elevation in a state of mystical ecstasy. The theme of ‘sober inebriation’ is a central one in the whole of the Christian mystical tradition, from Origen and Gregory of Nyssa onwards. In the Syriac tradition, this theme is outlined as early as in Ephrem and John of Apamea; among the writers of the seventh century, it was developed by Dadisho and Symeon d’Taibutheh. For Isaac the Syrian, the theme of spiritual inebriation is a synthesis of the whole system of his mystical theology: when analyzing it, we can perceive the most characteristic traits of his mysticism.
In one of the chapters of Part II, speaking of the state of wonder which begins beyond the borders of prayer, Isaac uses the image of wine to describe the spiritual exaltation which grips a person:
From here onwards he finds the senses continuously stilled and the thoughts bound fast with the bond of wonder; he is continually filled with a vision replete with the praise that takes place without the tongue’s movement. Sometimes, again, while prayer remains for its part, the intellect is taken away from it as if into heaven, and tears fall like fountains of waters, involuntarily soaking the whole face... Very often he will not be allowed even to pray: this in truth is the state of cessation above prayer when he remains continually in amazement at God’s work of creation - like people who are crazed by wine... Not only do the lips cease from the flow of prayer and become still, but the heart too dries up from all thoughts, due to the amazement that alights upon it... Blessed is the person who has entered this door in the experience of his own soul, for all the power of ink, letters and phrases is too feeble to indicate the delight of this mystery’.[95]
This description of spiritual ‘inebriation’ illustrates in a very striking manner that the mystical experience which is described by Isaac is of a very active and dynamic nature. The ultimate goal of any prayer is in fact this spiritual state, when prayer ceases and gives place to what Isaac calls ‘pure prayer’, ‘meditation’, ‘wonder’ or ‘inebriation’. In this state, a person’s intellect is ravished, and he remains silent before the Mystery that surpasses all human understanding.
Based on: The Spiritual
Prof. Richard S. Sarason
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati
Communal Prayer at Qumran and among the Rabbis: Certainties and Uncertainties
After half a century of scholarly inquiry, the Dead Sea Scrolls remain a uniquely valuable and problematic corpus of literary evidence testifying to the nature and range of Judaic world-views and social systems in the late Hellenistic and Greco-Roman periods. They are unique in comprising, together with the other texts uncovered in the Dead Sea region, our only first-hand, contemporary literary evidence from Greco-Roman Palestine. They are problematic to the extent that they generate new historical questions and require us to reframe and refine older ones, but in many cases do not allow us to pose definitive answers to either. This paper deals with the implications of this observation for the question of the existence and diffusion of regular, communal prayer among Jews in the Land of Israel before and after 70 C.E., and the uses of both the Qumran and early rabbinic evidence, in particular, to address this question. Methodologically speaking, we focus attention on what can be known with certainty from the evidence and what remains speculative, with greater or lesser degrees of probability. In thus framing the issue of the security of our historical knowledge, I do not mean to advocate a thoroughgoing Cartesian skepticism--but given the problematic nature of the evidence, with its multiplicity of often contradictory voices, I merely wish to underscore the extent to which our conclusions must be qualified. Speculation, however warranted, must be clearly labeled as such and not be allowed to "slip" into the realm of the demonstrated.
The Qumran evidence contributes powerfully to our impression of late Second Commonwealth Jewish religious culture as rich, complex, multivocal, and fractious. Under these circumstances, without adequate corroboration we cannot speak innocently about Jewish communal prayer as a generalized, undifferentiated phenomenon, but must always be cognizant of the social, and even geographical, location of our surviving evidence. I will argue later that both the literary and archaeological evidence make this observation equally applicable to the post-70 period.
Ezra Fleischer has argued forcefully, on the basis of the entire corpus of evidence, that regular, obligatory communal prayer did not exist as a generalized phenomenon among Jews in the Land of Israel before 70 C.E. Phrased in this way, his claim is certainly correct. A weaker formulation would ask whether regular communal prayer was, perhaps, customary at synagogue gatherings on the Sabbath. Fleischer would acknowledge the possibility of secondary, ritual elaborations of the primary activities of Torah reading and study that took place on these occasions, but nothing more than this. The courtyards of the Jerusalem Temple during the same period were the locus for regular, individual prayer at the time of the sacrifices, but not for regular communal prayer (though, I would note, occasional communal liturgies such as Hoshanot litanies for Sukkot might have developed there). This same basic reading of the evidence has been put forward by Lee Levine and Stefan Reif, and--despite recent demurrals from Pieter van der Horst and Donald Binder--I believe it is fundamentally sound. While essentially an argument from silence, in this case the silence of the sources is indeed deafening.
At the same time, both Fleischer and Reif remark on the manner in which Josephus and Philo describe communal sunrise prayer among the Essenes and Therapeutae as if it were something unique, ethnographically exotic, and different from common practice. The impression gleaned is that daily group prayer at fixed times determined by the course of the sun is a "sectarian" phenomenon, in the broad sense of that word, the practice of pietist groups. This, obviously, is the context in which to locate the evidence for regular communal prayer and liturgies at Qumran. The purposes and functions of these activities are to be sought in the larger world-view of the group.
I wish to examine now what we know and do not know about communal prayer at Qumran, and what--with due qualifications--we may plausibly surmise. First, addressing the larger picture, it is clear from the sources that communal prayer at Qumran serves a cultic function, as a substitute for sacrifices (1QS ix, 5). Like the sacrifices, it also functions as a vehicle for effecting communal atonement, together with the other communal activities of the group. The Shirot Olat haShabbat liturgy enacts the community's conviction that divine beings dwell with them and that they can participate in, or, minimally, contemplate, the angelic liturgy and offerings in the heavenly Temple at the appropriate time on the Sabbath.
The various periodic liturgies that are to be performed at precise times according to the cosmic calendar as understood by the group--and to which we shall return in more detail presently--ritually enact and maintain the cosmic order, as, in principle, did the sacrifices in the Temple. It is noteworthy in this regard (and not surprising) that the liturgical times in the various Qumran texts correspond to the times of transition on the cosmic clock as envisioned at Qumran rather than the times of the sacrifices in the metaphysically flawed Jerusalem Temple. Finally, the daily penitential liturgy represented in Divre haM'orot, by virtue of its genre, would seem to function as part of the activity of communal atonement. As Rodney Alan Werline has recently suggested, it may also relate to the community's eschatological sensibilities and express their perception of urgent ongoing crisis, to which ongoing communal penitance is deemed the proper response. Just as the communal liturgies are varied, so would be their purposes.
Indeed, the fact of variation among the Qumran periodic liturgies, their discrete differences, and the differences between them and the various descriptions of communal prayer times and activities in other Qumran texts has led to the question of whether this is in fact a unified liturgical corpus at all. Do the different texts and liturgies reflect different moments in the history of the Qumran community, including its pre-history? Were they all used in the same period? Are the texts and liturgies to be harmonized with each other or read discretely? Must we distinguish between the social locations of their use and their origins? And if some of the liturgies should turn out to be pre-Qumranic in their origins, what does that imply about the social location of regular communal prayer before 70? These are all crucial questions, which must be raised, but to which we likely can give no definitive answers. Within this general framework, let me review some of the evidence and modestly attempt to advance our discussions:
(1) The periodic liturgies at Qumran are intimately bound to, and dramatically enact, that community's calendar. The cycles are diurnal, weekly, monthly, and annual-seasonal (including the division of the year into four quarters). The evidence regarding the diurnal cycle is not uniform. On the one hand, 4QDaily Prayers gives us liturgies that are to be recited at sunrise and sunset on each day of a month, and which notably mark the phases of the moon. It is the only Qumran liturgical text to specify its precise time of recitation according to a diurnal clock. On the other hand, the so-called Hymn on Occasions for Prayer appended in the tenth column of 1QSerekh haYahad (lines 1-3), and a close parallel in 1QHodayyot (xx [Sukenik xii, 5] 3-7), list the diurnal times for prayer in a difficult style that has been construed variously as referring to six times in a twenty-four hour period (Talmon) or two (Schiffman, Nitzan). Both Schiffman and Nitzan were influenced by the evidence of 4QDaily Prayers in their interpretation of the Hymns, and effectively harmonized the two. But I think that an innocent reading of the passages in the two hymns favors Talmon's interpretation, and that the word tekufah refers to a separate period between the two extremes of beginning and end. This interpretation would also accord with the division of the night into three parts in 1QSerekh haYahad vi, 6-8, where the "Many" are required to stand watch for a third of every night, studying, expounding, and reciting benedictions. The evidence and vocabulary from Serekh haYahad and the Hodayyot is consistent. These two documents, of course, routinely are used to characterize what is uniquely sectarian in the Qumran corpus. This does not ipso facto mean that 4QDaily Prayers originated outside of Qumran. Daniel Falk presents a plausible--though admittedly tentative--case, on stylistic grounds, for Qumran origin. We may simply be witness to diversity in the development of the community's practices, or there may be no implied conflict at all and 4QDaily Prayers is simply a specialized liturgy for sunrise and sunset. We cannot know.
(2) A number of scholars have seen in 1QS x, 10, a reference to the twice-daily recitation of Deuteronomy 6:4ff. The passage is far too brief and general in its language to allow of a definitive interpretation. It certainly indicates that the hymnist devotes himself day and night to the study of God's laws. It is only the presence at Qumran of tefillin and mezuzot, which derive equally from a hyper-literalist reading of Deuteronomy 6:7-8 and 11:18-20, that allows the hypothesis of a scriptural recitation to be maintained. In this passage, too, it is not clear whether the activity mentioned takes place four times a day or twice a day. I think one could make a good case for literary parallelism here. (Should that case extend as well to the beginning of the Hymn, we would still have diurnal blessings recited four times in a full cycle, not twice.)
(3) We do not know precisely how these liturgies were recited or joined together. Lawrence Schiffman, commenting on 4QDaily Prayers, remarks that "the liturgical materials found here are too short to have constituted the entire liturgy. They appear to have represented a small section of the worship service . . ." There is no way to tell. It is noteworthy that each liturgy bears an integrity of its own, both of content and of calendrical function. Esther Chazon and Carol Newsom have stressed the unitary character of the longer liturgical compositions Divre haM'orot and Shirot Olat haShabbat. In both of these works, an extended narrative or description of a unitary and progressive character is parsed out among the several recitation-times of the liturgical cycle. The same holds true for the brief diurnal liturgy, 4QDaily Prayers (better, "Daily Blessings," for that is what these are). Here the brevity of the recitations emphasizes their formulaic content and function as time-markers for praising the divine Creator. Precisely because these various liturgies were written down and preserved as separate compositions in a way that emphasizes the immanent logic of each as a discrete cycle, we have no way of knowing if, or how, they were conjoined. (By analogy, the rabbinic Qeriat Shema and Tefillah are also separate liturgies, each with its own integrity. An extended rabbinic liturgy only began with their conjunction for reasons of convenience.) In the case of Divre haM'orot, we do not even know when or how many times during the day the liturgy was recited. There is nothing intrinsic to the content which would indicate this. Esther Chazon's suggestion that the title is an ellipsis for "prayers to be recited at the turning of the luminaries" is plausible; whether this indicates once or twice a day is uncertain. In the case of 4QDaily Prayers and Shirot Olat haShabbat, the liturgical cycles, while integral in their content, do not extend as far as we would expect. In the case of both of these liturgies, the texts are written out for specific dates. 4QDaily Prayers gives us a monthly cycle for a single, specific month (either the first or the seventh on the Qumran solar calendar). What about the remaining months of the year? Is the text intended to be exemplary? Were there other texts for the other monthly patterns? The same issue pertains to Shirot Olat haShabbat, which gives us a Sabbath cycle for the first quarter of the year. Was the cycle supposed to be repeated during each of the three other quarters? Were there separate cycles for the other quarters (there is no evidence to suggest that), or were there no other recitations during those quarters? We do not know.
As to the mode of recitation, some of the texts themselves give us indicators. The brief, formulaic daily prayers are to be recited together by the community (as indicated by the repeated y'varkhu v'anu v'amru). Here, form and function cohere nicely. The more lengthy, baroque descriptions of the celestial worship in Shirot Olat haShabbat are presumably recited by the Maskil, since each song begins with the superscription, "LaMaskil." There is no communal response (such as "Amen") indicated at the end of any of the Songs, presumably because none is called for; these are not prayers or blessings uttered by humans, but descriptions of the angelic liturgy. In the case of the lengthy penitential prayers in Divre haM'orot, on the other hand, no speaker is indicated, but each day's prayer concludes with a benedictory formula, followed by "Amen! Amen!" Chazon plausibly understands this is as a bona fide congregational response, rather than simply a literary-rhetorical formula. One would then assume as well that the prayer was recited or led by an individual.
It is noteworthy that we find at Qumran composed, written liturgies, each with its own literary integrity. This is particularly noticeable with regard to the longer liturgies, Divre haM'orot and Shirot Olat haShabbat. All the liturgies exist in multiple copies; the largest number of copies of any liturgy is nine (the Shabbat Shirot, with a tenth copy found at Masada). In the case of the Festival Prayers, one of the manuscripts (4Q505 + 509) has other texts written later on the verso, including another copy of Divre HaM'orot. We cannot know for certain how the written texts were actually used, but we must hold out the possibility that liturgies were recited from written copies; certainly written copies were consulted. Suffice it to say, the presence at Qumran of written liturgies whose wording is fixed says nothing about the issue of original fixity in the wording of rabbinic liturgies after 70, to which we shall return later.
4) Finally we come to the thorny issue of provenance. The presence of these liturgies at Qumran plausibly suggests that they were used by the community. But were they composed in the community? We cannot know for certain. All of the discussions of this issue are, appropriately, couched in the language of probability. The presence in any text of assured Qumran sectarian terminology and ideology, or the presence of language that is shared with other assured Qumran texts is a reasonable tool for determining Qumran provenance. But in the case of texts that do not display any "sectually explicit" language (in Carol Newsom's felicitous phrase), the determination is more difficult. So much the moreso is this true for liturgical texts, as both Newsom and Eileen Schuller have pointed out, since they tend to use stock language. Daniel Falk has cautiously argued for the Qumran provenance of 4QDaily Prayers on the basis of shared formal traits with assured Qumran texts. Similar criteria were employed by both Carol Newsom and Falk to suggest the Qumran provenance of Shirot Olat haShabbat. Although Newsom subsequently changed her mind, I find Falk's analysis convincing. The presence of a copy of the text at Masada unfortunately is not determinative, since it could have been brought there by refugees from Qumran, as both Yadin and Talmon have argued.
The case of Divre haM'orot is the most difficult. Israel Knohl has argued for the logical inappropriateness of petitionary prayer at Qumran on the basis of the group's doctrine of predestination. Acknowledging that Divre HaM'orot was likely used at Qumran, he admits that "the religious norms here deviated from the strict and rigid theological principles" (Knohl, 30). This would be an instance of what Albert Baumgarten elsewhere calls "infelicitous landings," where people are not rigidly consistent in their behavior. But one might also argue, given the acknowledged function of prayer at Qumran to make atonement on behalf of Israel, that penitential prayer--long associated with atonement--serves precisely this function on a daily basis and is thus not inconsistent with the group's self-understanding.
More crucial are the arguments advanced by Esther Chazon for the pre-Qumran origin of this liturgy. Beyond the absence of explicit Qumran terminology, the early dating, on paleographic grounds, of the manuscript 4Q504 to the mid-second century B.C.E. is the strongest evidence for pre-Qumran origin, though, as Chazon herself notes, it is not absolutely determinative. Falk is certainly right to stress the similarity of this text, on formal and generic grounds, with the Festival Prayers. What we do not know is whether the formulaic use of zakhor adonai ki at the beginning of each supplication and barukh adonai asher . . . amen amen, at its end is more widely typical of the genre of penitential prayer (there is no evidence for this being the case in the penitential prayers preserved elsewhere in Second Commonwealth literature), or whether this represents the specific formalization of a particular group from which both liturgies must be deemed to originate. I am inclined to favor the latter possibility, as does Falk, and my reasoning is analogical. I have elsewhere argued that what identifies rabbinic prayers as rabbinic is not their content, but their specific, distinctive formalizations (i.e., the formulation of prayers as benedictions which begin with the liturgical berakhah formula and conclude with a hatimah). It appears that we have an analogously distinctive formalization in the several penitential liturgies at Qumran which would point to a common social origin for Divre haM'orot and the Festival Prayers. Newsom and Falk have suggested a non-Qumranic origin for this liturgy on the basis of calendrical considerations: the scroll apparently begins with the autumn new year festival, while the Qumran calendar began in the spring. But Falk concedes that this is not certain, because some of the prayers for the festivals in 4Q509 appear to be out of order. The conclusion is that the social origin of these two liturgies is uncertain. There is a strong likelihood of pre-Qumranic origin, but this cannot be proven definitively.
Allowing, however, for the possiblity of pre-Qumranic origin (based on the paleographical dating of 4Q504), we would still have to ask about the probable social location of these prayers. Our responses can only be speculative. Falk suggests that both originated in levitical circles "in a context associated with the Temple" (Falk, 91-92, 215). Knohl and Chazon, on the other hand, favor as a location "the circle in which the book of Jubilees was written" (Knohl, 30). I would agree with Knohl and Chazon, for the following reason: A fixed communal liturgy requires a well-defined group. Penitential prayers are attested in Second Commonwealth literature as having been recited communally or on behalf of the community in times of distress, and as the pious customs of individuals also in times of distress. Daily communal recitation of such prayers would appear to be an act of hyper-piety among people who perceive an ongoing need for penitence and confession in a time of ongoing distress, as Werline has suggested. To me, this seems to fit specifically the situation of "sectarian" groupings (again, in the larger sense of the word) in the period in question. So even if some of the Qumran liturgies turn out to be pre-Qumran in origin, they do not necessarily attest to a common, widely diffused custom of daily communal prayer before 70. Specific social location here must be the determining factor (and about this we can only conjecture).
Social location remains a determining factor when we take up the question of regular communal prayer after 70 C.E. as well. Rabbinic literature attests, first and foremost, to the culture--practices, convictions--of the Rabbis themselves. The Mishnah, like any other prescriptive legal text, describes the contours of an ideal society. It adumbrates the rabbinic understanding of how Israelite society should function under the aegis of God's revealed Torah. Social history can be teased out of these texts only with difficulty and great caution. It is fair to assume that the rabbinic liturgical rubrics and the rules which govern them were observed within the rabbinic movement itself. It is not at all clear to what extent, when, and where these practices were observed outside the rabbinic community. It is fairly clear from the full range of the evidence that the rabbinization of the Jewish community of the Land of Israel proceeded in fits and starts, with more evidence for rabbinic influence in general after 200 C.E. than earlier, and that local differences loomed large in this regard. Locales with a significant rabbinic population would have been more subject to rabbinic influence than those without such a population. The studies of Lee Levine, Stuart Miller, and Shaye Cohen, among others, have argued--I believe, convincingly--for such a picture.
While most of the tannaitic references to the synagogue have to do with the reading of Scripture and various communal functions continuous with the pre-70 period, the sources do assume that the public recitation of Shema and praying of the Tefillah took place there (cf. M. Bikkurim 1:4; T. Berakhot 2:4 = T. Megillah 2:3; T. Sukkah 2:10; T. Sotah 6:3; and cf. Mehkilta Bahodesh 11 [ed. Horovitz-Rabin, p. 243]; Sifre Deuteronomy 306:3 [ed. Finkelstein, p. 342], and M. Berakhot 7:1; in the latter two sources it is not clear whether the Barkhu invitational formula in question is recited before the Torah reading or before Qeriat Shema), although these activities were not confined exclusively to the synagogue nor to public recitation. We do not know whether the Rabbis bore primary responsibility for the diffusion and institutionalization of public prayer in synagogues after 70, or whether this was a process with a dynamic and logic of its own in the aftermath of the destruction of the Temple, or even whether this is a false dichotomy. Certainly if the sources can be trusted that specifically rabbinic liturgical rubrics were recited in synagogues, then the former was the case. Again, it is likely that rabbinic influence in this regard would have been primarily local, varying from place to place and among regions, and that the process would have extended over a period of time; a century and a quarter, after all, elapsed between the destruction of the Temple and the editing of the Mishnah. The critical role of the prayer leader, then, would have been at least two-fold: on the one hand, it would carry foward the well-attested pre-70 role of intercession before God on behalf of the community (as indicated by the term shaliah tsibbur), which the congregation would affirm by a response formula; on the other hand, it would be didactic, modeling proper (rabbinic) prayer for each individual, and fulfilling for both the community and the individual their (rabbinic) obligation to pray (cf. T. Rosh Hashanah 4:18).
We do not know precisely the basis for the rabbinic custom of reciting the Tefillah three times a day. This could rest on their determination that the day is divided into three parts according to the movement of the sun (as the night is divided into three watches). If so, this might correspond to the prayer-times at Qumran according to Talmon's reading of 1QS x, 1-3, and be based on the same logic. Or it might represent a conflation of a diurnal cycle (sunrise-sunset) with the Temple calendar as it stood in the first century, with the evening sacrifice being offered in the late afternoon before sunset. In any case, there is a biblical model for thrice-daily prayer in the pious custom articulated in Daniel 6:10 and Psalm 55:18.
As regards the question of the degree of original formalization of the wording of the prayers, I believe that an innocent reading of the sources points to only partial formalization, unlike the apparent situation at Qumran. Beyond the detailing of liturgical structures, tannaitic sources, as is well known, spell out opening formulae and closing formulae (hatimot). They also enumerate topics, or "talking points" to be included within some of the more thematically complex benedictions, but nothing more. The two crucial texts here, in my opinion, are both in Tosefta Berakhot: 2:6, on the topics that one must include in the benediction "Emet ve-yatsiv," followed by a specification of the hatimah, "Tsur yisra'el ve-go'alo," and 3:25, on how one combines similar topics so as to maintain the total number of eighteen benedictions in the weekday Tefillah. The very articulation of these rules in this fashion presupposes some flexibility in the formulation of berakhot.
But that flexibility is relative, not absolute, because the characteristic language of Hebrew prayer is heavily formulaic and stereotyped, as Joseph Heinemann and others have pointed out. The models of scriptural and Second Commonwealth prayers, and the ongoing use and development of these models in a living prayer tradition (however circumscribed) before 70, would not require a great deal of spontaneous ingenuity on the part of a learned master or his disciples. One would simply manipulate the stock vocabulary and idioms. Indeed, the very formalization of the weekday petitionary sequence as a series of eighteen, relatively short, benedictions, each with its own distinct topic--eighteen "talking points" or "bullets", if you will--and its thrice-daily repetition would facilitate the individual's memorization of the sequence and formulation of those parts which were not fixed. (Contrast this with the lengthy penitential cycle in Divre HaM'orot at Qumran which is spread out over six days of the week and involves much variation.)
Within the rabbinic movement, then, the ideal of partially open-ended prayer would not be unrealistic. At the same time, the psychological, social, and ritual forces pushing toward repetition and routinization are easily understandable. A particularly apt and effective formula (like Akiva's avinu malkenu) would be repeated. Familiarity, we know, can breed comfort as well as contempt, while improvisation, as Rabbi Zeira points out (y. Berakhot 4:4, 8a) can breed confusion and dismay. So, too, to the extent that liturgical prayer is conceived as a ritual activity whose purpose, as ritual, is to enact the divine cosmic order, it will tend intrinsically to become more formalized. So the tension between concentration and routinization in rabbinic prayer exists from the very outset and is, I would maintain, endemic to the very enterprise. In the Babylonian Talmud we already have alternative formulations that must be decided between (e.g., ahavah rabbah vs. ahavat olam to begin the second benediction before the Shema; we favor the biblical pattern [b. Ber. 11b]) or harmonized (e.g., rofe kol basar vs. mafli' la'asot as the hatimah for one of the morning benedictions; we say them both [b. Ber. 60b]). We also have citations of fixed formulations from the bodies of benedictions (e.g., golel 'or mipnei hoshekh v'hoshekh mipnei 'or in the first benediction before the evening Shema recitation; b. Ber. 11b). Fixity is certainly to be found by the amoraic period, but probably not universally, and not the same in all places. It would, no doubt, be easier to spread a routinized liturgy beyond the confines of the rabbinic movement, as Fleischer has maintained, but the true liturgical virtuosi--hab'ki'im bivrakhot--the rabbinic masters themselves, would likely be able to improvise according to all the fine points of rabbinic liturgical etiquette. I would argue, then, that notwithstanding the obvious differences from the pre-70 period, the situation of regular communal prayer after 70 C.E. remains complex and multifaceted.
Finally, I would briefly like to address the issue of whether there is a common, living tradition of prayer that unites the Qumran and rabbinic liturgies. In a word, and with due qualification, I would answer in the affirmative. There was certainly no direct contact or influence between the two communities, and we do not know whether the Pharisees before 70 engaged in communal prayer among themselves (Levine considers this a possibility if the Houses dispute at T. R.H. 2:17, about the number of benedictions to be recited if Rosh HaShanah or a festival falls on the Sabbath, is historical). Many of the linguistic, stylistic, and thematic parallels can be traced to biblical models. Still, not everything can be accounted for on the grounds of shared literary models. The ecstatic hymnic style used to describe the angelic liturgy in Shirot Olat haShabbat and the rabbinic Qedushot, both of which bear some affinities to, but are not identical with, the Hekhalot literature, is not solely derivable from biblical models. The accounts of the angelic liturgy in the Enoch literature and in the Apocryphon of Levi share in this tradition. While Johann Meier's suggestion that the Sabbath Shirot derive from an esoteric priestly tradition connected to the Jerusalem Temple has been criticized as highly speculative, something was clearly "in the air" here, perhaps among the various pietist groups of the period. These liturgies certainly belong to the same genre.
So, too, there surely was a living tradition of penitential prayer (though not widely on a daily basis) during the Second Commonwealth period that fed the penitential liturgies at Qumran and among the Rabbis. (The rabbinic Tefillah only mutedly belongs to this tradition; it is evidenced more fully in the private prayers of the Rabbis and in the later Tahunun liturgies.)
Esther Chazon has called attention to a linguistic usage--lata'at torah b...--that appears in both Divre HaM'orot and rabbinic benedictions but has no biblical basis. Clearly this derives from a common linguistic background. Some of the other parallels she notes--the avoidance of petitionary prayer on the Sabbath and the offering in its stead of hymns to God the creator, and the prayer on the festivals for remembrance before God and ingathering of the exiles--could perhaps be understood as similar interpretations of biblical sabbath and festival prescriptions, but might equally reflect a living tradition of prayer genres for sabbaths and festivals, possibly recited around the scriptural readings in the synagogue (on the analogy of the rabbinic benedictions that follow the haftarah reading today).
It is also possible that some of these similarities are to be attributed to the shared pietist "sectarian" background (in the larger sense) that characterizes both the Qumran group and the Pharisees before 70. Albert Baumgarten, in his suggestive volume on the flourishing of Jewish sects in the Maccabean era, has remarked astutely that the cultural commonalities and shared issues addressed among these groups ultimately are more striking than their differences. The same might apply to their cultivation of prayer and prayer language. But these remarks are purely speculative.
There is much that we wish to know about the origins and development of institutionalized prayer among the Jews of the Land of Israel both before and after 70. We sense a larger common background, but the details elude us. The evidence that we possess is partial and socially located; the medium is never neutral. Still, if we proceed with caution, self-awareness, and refinement, we may be fortunate enough to illuminate, provisionally, small corners of the darkness.
Esther G. Chazon
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Human and Angelic Prayer in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls
This paper will explore the intersection between human and angelic prayer, which takes place when human beings join the angels in praising God. The Dead Sea Scrolls now offer nearly a score of previously unknown texts and testimonies reflecting joint human-angelic praise. With the final publication of some of the major works in the last two years ­the Cave 4 Hodayot manuscripts in DJD 29 and 4QBerakhot and 4QShirot ŒOlat HaShabbat in DJD 11- the time is ripe to take stock of the Scrolls¹ contribution to understanding this interesting religious phenomenon and its varied manifestations in different cultural, social, and historical matrices.
With this goal in mind, I set out to discern the modes of joint human-angelic praise, and to pose the important question of a correlation between a particular mode and a particular religious outlook or social reality. The extant sources from the late biblical through the early medieval periods represent, in my estimation, three main patterns of joint prayer, corresponding to three distinct types of religious experience:
1st) Many voices harmonizing with the universe,
2nd) Two choirs praying like the angels,
3rd) One congregation joining the angels.
In isolating these categories, my principle criteria were liturgical function and the kind of religious experience engendered. Other aspects of phenomenology as well as content and literary form were factors in determining a text¹s function and in identifying different facets or subcategories of each main type.
Before examining each of the three categories outlined above, we should note the typology proposed by Bilhah Nitzan in her seminal article on "Harmonic and Mystical Characteristics in Poetic and Liturgic Writings from Qumran " (JQR 85 [1994] 163-183). As the title of her article indicates, Nitzan distinguishes between two types of human and angelic praise, a "cosmologic approach" characterized by "an experience of harmony with the entire universe" and "a mystical approach" characterized by "an experience of mystic communion" between the human and angelic worshippers. While I basically accept this dichotomy, I perceive additional types, classify several texts differently, and usually refrain from applying the term Œmystical¹ to these ancient Jewish texts.
A) Many Voices: Harmonizing with the Universe
In this pattern, all of God¹s creatures including the angels are invited by human worshippers to praise God. This category corresponds to the cosmological approach outlined by Nitzan. As Nitzan observes, "the praises invoked from all the cosmos express in harmony theŠmajesty of God, the creator of the whole universe" ("Harmonic and Mystical," p. 166). The religious experience engendered by this pattern of joint praise is, then, that of singing in harmony with all God¹s creatures and being at one with them; in short, harmonizing with the universe. The harmony achieved is of a particular kind - it is one of multiple voices, each sung by a separate and distinctive group of created entities, from the heavens above to those under the seas. In fact what distinguishes this pattern of joint praise from the others is the human worshippers¹ distance from the angels. Here they do not emulate angelic praise, nor elevate themselves to angelic status, nor otherwise lay claim to a special association with the angels or their praise.
The paradigmatic example of this pattern is Psalm 148, which invokes praise by all creatures, class by class, first in the heavens and then on earth, including creatures of the ocean depths. Psalm 148 may have served as a model for other hymns of this type such as "The Song of the Three Young Men" in Septuagint Daniel 3:51-88 and the Sabbath prayer in the weekly liturgy of Dibre Ha-me¹orot (4QDibHama 1-2 vii 4-12). Like Psalm 148, these two songs are structured as a series of invocations to praise using 2nd person plural imperative verbs (____ in Psalm 148, ____ in LXX Dan, and ____ in 4QDibHam). As in Psalm 148, the list of invitees is divided into two main parts, those in heaven and those on earth, each part containing a general call to those in that particular realm followed by invitations to specific creatures residing therein. The universality of this cosmic praise is emphasized through repetition of the word Œall¹ (__). These three cosmological songs overlap considerably in their detailing of the specific invitees for instance, the waters above and below the firmament as well as the angels are found in all three. Yet, each text has elements not found in either of the other two. Thus, Psalm 148 and LXX Daniel each list different groups of human beings whereas Dibre Ha-me¹orot emphasizes the depths of the earth, mentioning Abbadon and probably the Great Abyss (____] ___). To illustrate these generic similarities as well as the special bent of our example from Qumran, I quote below the beginning of the Sabbath prayer in Dibre Ha-me¹orot and its closest parallels in LXX Daniel¹s Song of the Three Young Men:
Give thanks [to the Lord forever,
Praise] His name continually.
In the hea[vens]/ Pro[claimŠ]
All angels of the holy firmament,
And [all waters above] the heavens;
The earth and all its depths,
[All the fountains of the] great [deep]
and Abaddon,
and the waters and all that is [in them].
[Give thanks to the Lord]
all his created ones continually,
forever and ever.
(4QDibHama 1-2 vii 4-9) All the works of the Lord, bless the Lord; Laud and highly exalt him forever.
Angels of the Lord, bless the Lord,laudŠ
Heavens, bless the Lord; laudŠ
All the waters above the heaven, bless Š
Let the earth bless the Lord, Let it laudŠ
Rivers and springs, bless the Lord, laudŠ
Seas and rivers, bless the Lord; laudŠ
Sea monsters and all that move in the waters, bless the Lord; laudŠ.

(LXX Dan 3: 57-60, 74, 77-79)
Collins, Daniel, pp.196-197)
Finally, it is important to note that the title of the cosmological song in Dibre Ha-me¹orot, "Thanksgiving Song on the Sabbath Day," clearly indicates its liturgical function as a prayer for recitation on the Sabbath. Like the prayers for the other days of the week in the same document, this Sabbath song would have been recited on a weekly basis. Furthermore, the plural language throughout this text ­that is, the "we" language in the weekday prayers and the 2nd person plural calls to praise God in the Sabbath song ­ strongly suggest this was a liturgy recited in a communal context. Similarly, a living liturgical or cultic setting has also been suggested as the original sitz im leben of the song incorporated into the Septuagint version of the Book of Daniel. Both texts apparently predate the foundation of the Qumran community.
B) Two Choirs: Praying Like the Angels
This pattern differs from the first in two respects: 1) human beings pray exclusively (or primarily) with the angels rather than with the whole universe, and
2) they offer praise which is similar to that of the angels in content or in form and language. The result is that the human worshippers not only pray with the angels but also come to pray like them. This type of joint praise would have engendered an experience of human-angelic liturgical communion and fostered a sense of a special association with the angels on high. Nevertheless, here the choirs remain separate, their voices are distinct, and despite their similarity, human and angelic praise are not identical. In this case, the human worshippers never quite reach the level of their angelic counterparts.
Our first example of "praying like the angels" is 4Q503 "Daily Prayers," a text often overlooked in treatments of angelic liturgy. These blessings for every evening and morning of the month praise God for sunrise and sunset as well as for the daily changes in lunar light as the moon waxes and wanes. A description of the worshippers¹ praise with the heavenly hosts is an essential feature of each blessing. The most complete reference to joint human-angelic praise is found in the morning prayer for the sixth day of the month (frgs. 8-9 ll. 1-5): "[We] the sons of your covenant shall praise [...] with all troops of [light]" (____ ]___ ______ ____[...]__ ___ ____ [___ ). The construction "troops of [light]" evidently serves here as an epithet for the angels associated with the heavenly lights. In other blessings, the heavenly beings engaged in joint praise are called "hosts of angels" (frg. 65), "those who testify with us" (frgs. 11, 15, 65), and "those praising with us" (frgs. 38, 64).
The content of the joint praise is discernable in frg. 30: "[We] praise your name, God of lights in that you have renewed [...] gates of light and with u[s] in praises of your glory" (___]___ ____ __ ___[_]_ ___ _____ ..____ ___ Š____[_] _____ ______). These words together with the astronomically charged epithet "troops of light" demonstrate that the joint praise, like the rest of the blessing, extols God for the regular renewal of the heavenly lights. In this daily liturgy, then, the human blessings and the angelic praise are alike in content.
In our next two examples, the earthly congregation imitates angelic praise, echoing some of the angels¹ words. The sectarian covenant ceremony in 4QBerakhot opens with blessings which praise God¹s attributes and describe the heavenly Temple, the divine chariot-throne, and various classes of angels. The section concludes with a well preserved, liturgical rubric which indicates that "the council of the community" is the group instructed to recite these covenant blessings (___ ____ _____ _____ ____ ___ ___, 4QBera 7 ii 1).
Joint praise is not explicitly mention in 4QBerakhot, but it is implied by the juxtaposition of angelic praise with human praise. For instance, 4QBera 7 i 2-7 first describes praise by (human) "elect ones [Š] and all those who have [k]nowledge" and then immediately describes the praise by the "c]ouncil of angels of purification with all those who have eternal knowledge." These similar portrayals of the elite human and angelic worshippers reflect one important aspect of the joint praise in 4QBerakhot. It is the correspondence between human and angelic praise in form, language, and manner of recitation. The selections cited below illustrate that the praises offered in each realm were formulated similarly as blessings to be recited together (____) by all (_____) the worshippers belonging to that realm:
In the earthly realm:
____]____ ___ ______ ____ _____ ___ ___[__ (1)
And] all the creatures of flesh, all those [You] created, [will ble]ss You (4QBerb 3 2).
_____]___ ___[_] _____ .___ ___ (2 )
and] all of them [will bless] You togeth[er] Amen. Amen. (4QBer b 5 5)
In the heavenly realm:
_____ __]__ _____ __ __ ______ (3
all [will bless toge]ther Your holy name) 4QBer a 2 4
(4)____]_ __ __ ______ ____ [___ __][_[___
and to bles]s Your glorious name in all [ever]la[sting ages]) 4QBer a 7 i 7)
These parallel phrases reveal two additional aspects of this liturgy¹s joint praise. They are: 1) the angelic praise has special elements, and 2) these elements, which are not recited by the earthly beings, are blessings of God¹s holy and glorious name (__ ______ and (__ ______ The latter may allude to the angelic words in Isa 6:3 (the trishagion) and Ezek 3:12 (the blessing of God¹s glory). Such allusions would imply that the angels indeed recite these verses, but the human congregation is refraining from repeating them verbatim. In any event, whether or not 4QBerakhot actually alludes to these two verses, it is clear that by referring indirectly to the angelic blessings of God¹s holy and glorious name, the human worshippers are echoing this heavenly speech, taking what may be called a point/counterpoint approach.
A similar approach is taken by the Shirot ŒOlat HaShabbat from Qumran and Masada. These songs for the first thirteen Sabbaths of the year are an earthly liturgy recited by human worshippers who invite the angels to praise God and describe angelic worship in the heavenly Temple. Not only do the invitations to the angels and the description of their praise imply that the human congregation is joining them in prayer, but such joint praise is mentioned explicitly in one passage (4Q400 2 1-6): "to praise Your glory wondrously with the gods of knowledge and the praiseworthiness of Your kingship with the holiest of he h[oly ones]Š how shall we be considered [among] them?...[What] is the offering of our tongues of dust (compared) with the knowledge of the g[ods?"
The self-effacing remarks by the human worshippers in this passage uncover a qualitative distinction between angelic praise and human praise, which may provide a clue to the Shirot¹s puzzling omission of the angels' words in general, and of Isa 6:3 and Ezek 3:12 in particular. Scholars have noted that while these two verses are not actually quoted in this liturgy, some of the songs do allude to them. The beginnings of Songs 7 and 12 provide good examples. Song 7¹s invocation to the holy angels to praise God for His holiness repeatedly employs the root ____, Œholy,¹ thereby calling to mind Isa 6:3¹s threefold angelic proclamation of God¹s holiness (____, ____, ____): "Let the holiest of the god-like beings magnify the King of glory who sanctifies by His holiness all His holy ones," (______ _____ ______ ____ _____ ______ ____(_)_ ____ _____, 4Q403 1 i 31).
Song 12¹s use of Ezek 3:12 becomes apparent once we recognize its underlying interpretation of that verse. This interpretation associates the blessing of God¹s glory with the sound produced by the hayyot¹s wings (Ezek 3:13) perhaps by recourse to a double reading of baruk/barim (in Ezek 3:12). It also identifies the angels pronouncing the blessing as the cherubim (cf. Ezek 10:5), and specifies the place of God¹s glory (______ in Ezek 3:12) as "His glorious seat" (cf. Ezek 1:26-28):
____[_] _____ _[___]___ __[_]__ ______ _____ ___ ____ ______ ___[ ___]_ ______ _____ ___ _____ ______ ...[___]_ ____ ____ _____ ____ ____ _____
"the cheru[bim] fall before Him; and they bl[es]s as they lift themselves up. Šand there is a tumult of jubilation at the lifting up of their wings, a sound of divine [stillnes]s. The image of the chariot throne do they bless Š[And the splend]our of the luminous platform do they sing (which is) beneath His glorious seat" (4Q405 20ii21-22 7-10).
These invitations to angelic praise which allude to Isa 6:3 and Ezek 3:12 imply that the angels recite the trishagion and the blessing of God¹s glory recorded in these ŒQedushah¹ verses. The human worshippers who extend these invitations, however, merely describe and paraphrase the angels¹ words, without quoting them precisely. Thus by echoing some but not all of the angels¹ words, these human beings pray like the angels to a certain, but not a full, extent. They approximate angelic praise while maintaining the proper distinction between the two choirs, the one human and the other angelic.
One Congregation: Joining the Angels
This type of joint praise is characterized by the union with the angels attained by human worshippers. The distinction between human and angelic praise is dropped, the veil between the realms is removed, and the human worshippers conceive of themselves as actually present with the angels, apparently experiencing a sense of elevation to angelic heights. The meeting ground between the human worshippers and their angelic counterparts is, in some cases, the same congregation whereas in others it is the heavenly throne room. These two arenas are discussed separately below.
The "I" speaker in the Hodayot expresses the conviction that he personally as well as his entire community share a common lot and a common station with the holy ones in heaven. The activity of praising God together is singled out as the goal of the union with the angels, and it is the way this union is concretized. The word ____ ("together," "in union") is used repeatedly for both the joint praise and the shared station, ____ (compare. 1Chr 23:28, 35:15, where this term refers to the Levites¹ duty and post in the Temple). One illustration from a Hymn of the Community shall suffice to demonstrate the Hodayot¹s approach to this issue:
For the sake of your glory you have purified man from transgressionŠ
To become united [with] the sons of your truth
And in the lot with your holy onesŠ
So that he can take his stand in your presence
With the perpetual host and the spirits [Š]
To be renewed with everything that will exist
And with the knowledgeable in a union of jubilation.
______ _____ ______ __ ___ __ _____[_...] ______ __ ___ ____ ___ _____ ____ ___ (1QHa XIX=XI 11-14).
In his commentary on this passage and its parallel in another hymn (1QHa XI=III 19-23), Jacob Licht suggested that the comparable phrase, "to take (his) stand in a station with the host of holy ones" (______ _____ __ ___ ______ )refers to a position around the divine throne as in 1En 60:2 (The Thanksgiving Scroll, pp. 84, 163). This interpretation may gain some support from the so-called "Self-Glorification Hymn," which occurs in three Hodayot manuscripts, all representing the same recension of this hymn (1QH a XXVI 6-38, 4QH a 7 i-ii, and 4QHe I-II=4Q471b; for the second recension see 4Q491 11 i).
The ŒI" speaker in the "Self-Glorification" boldly asks, "Who is like me among the heavenly beings? __ _____ _____" (4QHa 7 I 8+4QHe I 4). He then declares that he is a beloved of the King (____ ____) and a companion to the angels ((__ _______, with whom he claims to be stationed, ___ __ ____ ____[_](4QHa 7 i 10-11+4QHe I 6). This station with the angels who praise God as well as the speaker¹s gifted speech and his subsequent invocations to the beloved ones (______) to sing praise (4QHa 7 i 13-23) imply that he too praises God, and that he does so together with the angels and on a par with them. This text leaves little doubt as to the speaker¹s elevation to angelic status. Moreover, as Eileen Schuller has pointed out, "in the recension of this psalm that is found in the Hodayot manuscripts, the ŒI¹ is to be understood in relationship to the ŒI¹ voice we hear speaking in the other psalms, particularly the other Hymns of the Community." (DJD 29, p. 102). This approach leads to the conclusion that the author(s) of some of the Hodayot claimed to be in the company of angels and reckoned as one of them.
Furthermore, if Schuller is correct that the Œbeloved ones¹ called upon to praise the King, evidently by the Œbeloved of the king,¹ are human beings rather than angels, then the speaker would appear to be making a similar claim for all members of his community. Indeed, this section of the hymn depicts the Œbeloved ones¹ as praising together with the eternal heavenly hosts, placing them in the congregation of God and even in His holy abode according to Schuller¹s reconstruction of the text, ____ _____ [____] (4QH a 7 i 14-15). In addition, like the angels alone in 4QBerakhot and the Shirot, these Œbeloved ones¹ apparently sanctify God¹s holy name (____]__ ___ ) and display eternal qualities (4QH a 7 i 16-18). It is not impossible that the speaker, whether the Teacher of Righteousness or a similarly exalted leader of the Yahad, projected his own spiritual, perhaps even mystical, experience onto all members of his community or conversely, that the Yahad projected onto itself the Teacher¹s achievements and experiences.
Conclusion
This study has isolated three basic patterns of joint human-angelic prayer, corresponding to three types of religious experience and three different levels of association with the angels. They are: many voices harmonizing with the universe, two choirs praying like the angels, and one congregation joining the angels. We have seen that a single group, in this case the Qumran Community, would engage in various types and levels of joint praise on different occasions and for different purposes.
The full publication of Shirot ŒOlat HaShabbat fifteen years ago gave rise to an interesting theory linking the whole phenomenon of joint praise with a particular religious outlook and social context. Specifically, this text¹s striking similarities with Hekhalot literature and their shared interests in such matters as the heavenly Temple and the angelic priesthood led Itamar Gruenwald, Rachel Elior, and other scholars to propose a common priestly origin and a historical axis from the Qumran community and its precursors to the merkabah mystics. This proposal has much to commend it. I would, however, suggest that the picture is more complex, involving other groups.
First, we should recall that not all of the texts of joint praise discovered at Qumran were produced by members of the Qumran Community or by its forerunners. Thus, a non-Qumranic origin has been proposed for Dibre Ha-me¹orot, the Daily Prayers in 4Q503, and even for Shirot ŒOlat HaShabbat. Second, this religious phenomenon as a whole is broader both synchronically and diachronically than apocalyptic, Qumranic, and mystic circles. Its vitality among other segments of the population is attested by Septuagint Daniel, Dibre Ha-me¹orot, the Apostolic Constitutions (Books VII-VIII), and the traditional Qedushah liturgy. Thus, in the arena of religious praxis, the theory of a historical axis from the Qumran Community to the merkabah mystics ultimately may apply only to the highest level of joint praise, the one which unites human beings to the angels most closely, elevating them to angelic heights. Other modes of joint praise may prove to be common religious practices shared by several groups living under different circumstances. In light of the new texts from Qumran, a more nuanced model appears to be emerging, one that more fully reflects the multi-faceted character of this special dimension of religious life ­ the phenomenon of praying with the angels.
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].

Margaret Barker
Parousia and Liturgy[1]

Although there are various possible translations of Maranatha, (Our LORD comes, Our LORD has come), the fragments at the end of the Book of Revelation show that it was understood at that time to mean Come LORD. The LORD himself assures his people that he is coming soon to bring the judgement (Rev.22.7, 12, 20), and the prayer reflects this hope of his imminent return. The position of these fragments at the end of the Book of Revelation suggests that they were no longer central to the message of the book. In other words, Maranatha was being understood in another way.

The same prayer appears elsewhere as the closing lines of a letter which give no indication of how it was understood (1 Cor.16.22), but also at the close of an early Eucharistic prayer, possibly the earliest known outside the New Testament, a very significant context (Didache 10). This links the return of the LORD to the Eucharist. Other lines of the prayer are ambiguous: ‘Let this present world pass away’, for example, could imply either a literal understanding of the LORD’s return or the present transforming effect of the Eucharist. Maranatha in the Eucharist, however, must be the original epiklesis, praying for the coming of the LORD. The Didache prayer has no reference to the words of institution at the Last Supper and no Passover imagery. As implied in John’s account of the Last Supper (John 13.1-20), Jesus is ‘Thy Servant Jesus’, and thanks are offered for the knowledge, faith and everlasting life made known through him. The bread and wine are spiritual meat and drink (cf. John 6.25-58) which cause the Name to dwell in the hearts of those who have been fed. This could indicate that John’s understanding of the Eucharist was the formative influence here, and that it was his new understanding of Maranatha which led to its transformation into the Eucharistic epiklesis.

Passover or Day of Atonement?

Despite the apparently clear accounts of the Eucharist in the Synoptic Gospels, there are many problems as to its true origin and significance. The Passover is the least likely context as this was the one sacrifice not offered by a priest (m.Yoma 5.6), and the earliest tradition remembers Jesus as the great High Priest[2]. The words of institution known to the evangelists (Matt.26.26-28; Mark 14.22-24; Luke 22.14-20) and Paul (1 Cor.11.23-26) indicate as their context the priestly sacrifice of the Eternal Covenant, in other words, the Day of Atonement. The position of the Christian altar in a church building, beyond the boundary between earth and heaven, shows that it derived from the kapporet in the Holy of holies, the place where the Atonement blood was offered.

Even though Paul knew Christ as the paschal lamb (1 Cor.5.7), he had also been taught that his death was ‘for our sins in accordance with the scriptures’ (1 Cor.15.3). This indicates that the earliest interpretation of the death of Jesus was based on the fourth Servant Song, which, in the form known at Qumran, depicts a suffering Messiah figure who bears the sins of others (1Q Isaa 52.13-53.12). He was the High Priest who sprinkled the atonement blood (Isa.52.15) and was himself the sacrifice (Isa.53.10). A similar expectation is found in Peter’s temple sermon; the Servant, the Author of life, was about to return from heaven bringing ‘times of refreshing’ (Acts 3.13-21). Again, these texts indicate that the original understanding of the death of Jesus was the renewal of the Eternal Covenant on the Day of Atonement.

The original context of the Eucharist should sought in the Day of Atonement, when the High Priest took the blood into the holy of holies and then returned to complete the rite of atonement and renewal. At first the Christians had prayed for the literal return of the LORD to bring judgement on their enemies and to establish the Kingdom. Their hopes for the history of their times were based on the ancient ritual pattern of the Day of Atonement. Jesus, the great high priest, had sacrificed himself as the atonement offering of the tenth jubilee, had passed into heaven, the true holy of holies, and would emerge again to complete the atonement. When this did not literally happen, John learned in his vision of the returning high priest (Rev.10) that the expectations of the Church should return to the temple liturgy whence they had come. In the original temple ritual, the anointed high priest, even though he ‘was’ the LORD, had taken into the holy of holies the blood of a goat which represented his own lifeblood. As he emerged, he sprinkled ‘his’ blood, i.e. he gave his life, to cleanse and consecrate the creation. This renewed on earth the kingdom of the LORD’s anointed. Hence ‘Thy Kingdom come.’

The Messiah, both High Priest and victim, was the theme of the Eucharist as it was of the Day of Atonement. Dix concluded: ‘From the days of Clement of Rome in the first century, for whom our LORD is ‘the High-priest of our offerings’ Who is ‘in the heights of the heavens (1 Clem.6) it can be said with truth that this doctrine of the offering of the earthly Eucharist by the heavenly Priest at the heavenly altar is to all intents and purposes the only conception of the eucharistic sacrifice which is known anywhere in the church... there is no pre-Nicene author Eastern or Western whose eucharistic doctrine is at all fully stated who does not regard the offering and consecration of the Eucharist as the present action of the LORD Himself, the Second Person of the Trinity.’[3]

Interpreting the Eucharist as the Day of Atonement offering, Origen wrote: ‘You who came to Christ the true high priest, who made atonement for you... do not hold fast to the blood of the flesh. Learn rather the blood of the Word and hear him saying to you “This is my blood which is poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins.” He who is inspired by the mysteries knows both the flesh and the blood of the Word of God (On Leviticus 9.10). Jerome, commenting on Zephaniah 3 wrote of ‘the priests who pray at the Eucharist for the coming of the LORD’. He too went on to link the day of the LORD’s coming to the Day of Atonement, and ‘wait for me, for the day when I rise’ (RSV Zeph.3.8) was read as ‘Wait for me on the day of my resurrection’. This association of the two advents of the LORD with the Day of Atonement is found as early as the Letter of Barnabas, a Levite. As in Jerome, the earthly life of Jesus is compared to the role of the scapegoat who bore the sins, ‘but the point of there being two similar goats is that when they see him coming on the Day, they are going to be struck with terror at the manifest parallel between him and the goat (Barn.7). The implication is that the blood of the goat being brought from the holy of holies was believed from the very earliest period to prefigure the Parousia and that the association of the Eucharist and the Day of Atonement was well known. Justin in the mid-second century linked the sacrificed goat to the second coming, (Trypho 40) and Cyril of Alexandria wrote some two centuries later: We must perceive the Immanuel in the slaughtered goat... the two goats illustrate the mystery (Letter 41).

In the Eucharist, the bishop or priest ‘was’ the High Priest and therefore the LORD (e.g. Ignatius Magn. 6 ‘Let the bishop preside in the place of God’). He took into the holy of holies the bread and wine of the new bloodless sacrifice which became the body and blood of the LORD; this effected the atonement and renewal of the creation, and thus established on earth the expected Kingdom. Hence the eschatological emphasis of the earliest Eucharists. Dix again: ‘The Eucharist is the contact of time with the eternal fact of the kingdom of God through Jesus. In it the church within time continually, as it were, enters into its own eternal being in that Kingdom.’[4] In other words, it was the ancient high priestly tradition of entering the holy of holies beyond time and matter, the place of the heavenly throne. A fragment of this temple belief in the eternal present of events which humans have experienced as history, is to be found in the writings of the Deuteronomists who did so much to suppress the mystical elements of the ancient cult. The rebellious generation who had been at Sinai were told they would not live to enter the promised land (Num.14.26-35); nevertheless, Moses reminded their children: ‘Not with our fathers did the LORD make this covenant but with us who are all of us here alive this day’ (Deut. 5.3).

Had the original understanding of the Eucharist derived from the Passover, we should have expected the Exodus imagery of liberation from slavery and becoming the chosen people. Instead, the expected benefits of the Eucharist were those of the Day of Atonement. Early evidence drawn from a variety of sources is consistent in this respect. Bishop Sarapion’s Prayer Book, for example, used in Egypt in the middle of the fourth century, speaks of ‘the medicine of life to heal every sickness and not for condemnation’ i.e. of the Eucharist bringing judgement and renewal which are the twin aspects of atonement. He prayed for angels to come and destroy the evil one, and for the establishment of the Church, i.e. for the banishing of Azazel and the establishing of the Kingdom. He prayed that the congregation would be made ‘living men’ [5](c.f. Thomas 1 ‘the living i.e. resurrected Jesus’), able to speak of the unspeakable mysteries. ‘Make us wise by the participation of the body and the blood.’ This is the high priestly tradition of the temple, and the ‘living men’ are the first resurrected, the kingdom of priests reigning on earth after the evil one has been bound (Rev.20.6). The Liturgy of John Chrysostom prays that the holy mysteries may bring remission of sins and forgiveness of transgressions, the gift of the Spirit, access to the LORD and a place in the Kingdom, healing of soul and body, not judgement and condemnation. Even earlier, the Anaphora of Addai and Mari had prayed for enlightenment, and hopes for remission of sins, pardon of offences, hope of resurrection and new life in the Kingdom, and the Liturgy of James had prayed for peace and salvation, for forgiveness and protection from enemies. All these themes derive from the covenant renewal of the Day of Atonement.

There is a striking similarity between these prayers and the Qumran Hymns, and it would be easy to imagine the singer of the Hymns as the priest who had offered the Eucharistic prayers. The singer knows the mysteries and has been purified from sin (1QH IX formerly I and XII formerly IV). He is one of the angels in the holy of holies, (1QH XIV formerly VI), he is strengthened by the Spirit (1QH XV formerly VII), he has experienced light and healing (1QH XVII formerly IX), he has been purified and become one of the holy ones, been resurrected and given understanding, he has stood in the assembly of the living, those with knowledge (1QH XIX formerly XI). A creature of dust, he has been saved from the judgement, entered into the Covenant and stands in the eternal place illumined by perfect light (1QH XXI formerly XVIII).

A recurring theme of the liturgies is that of fear and awe. A homily on the mysteries attributed to Narsai (Homily XVII A, late fifth century) speaks of ‘the dread mysteries... let everyone be in fear and dread as they are performed... the hour of trembling and great fear.’ As the Spirit is summoned to the bread and wine, ‘the priest worships with quaking and fear and harrowing dread.’ The people stand in fear as the Spirit descends. In the mid-fourth century, Cyril of Jerusalem speaks of the ‘most awful hour’ when the priest begins the consecration and of ‘the most awful sacrifice’ (Catecheses 23.4,9). John Chrysostom has similar words to describe the coming of the Spirit (On Priesthood 6.4. 34-36), and the people are commanded in the liturgy ‘to stand in fear.’ Perhaps the oldest example of all is the Anaphora of Addai and Mari which speaks of ‘the great, fearful, holy, life-giving, divine mystery’, before which the people stand in silence and awe. The priest prays as did Isaiah (Isa.6.5): ‘Woe is me... for mine eyes have seen the LORD of Hosts’, and, in the manner of Moses in the tabernacle (Exod.5.22): ‘How dreadful is this place, for this day I have seen the LORD face to face...’

Again, the setting is the holy of holies and the imagery drawn from the Day of Atonement. The earliest biblical account warns Aaron only to enter the Holy of holies once a year, after elaborate, preparation on the Day of Atonement. The LORD warns that he will appear in the cloud upon the kapporet, and Aaron might die (Lev.16.2). The Mishnah records the fear of the high priest as he entered the holy of holies: he spent as little time as possible in the holy place (m.Yoma 5.1), and at the end of the ritual ‘he made a feast for his friends because he had come safely out of the holy of holies’ (m.Yoma 7.4). When the Glory of the LORD came to the desert tabernacle, Moses was not able to enter (Exod.40.35) and when the Glory came to the temple, the priests had were not able to continue their ministrations there (1 Kgs 8. 10-11). The very purpose of the tabernacle was to provide a place where the LORD could dwell in the midst of his people (Exod.25.8), and if this holy place was not pure, the LORD departed (Ezek.8-11). John described the incarnation as the Glory dwelling on earth, the Word made flesh (John 1.14).

Theurgy and Apotheosis

Several passages in the Merkabah texts have suggested to scholars that drawing down the LORD into the temple was a major element of the temple service. ‘The temple and the service performed there were thought of as able to attract the Shekinah (the presence of the LORD)... we can seriously consider the possibility that temple service was conceived as inducing the presence of the Shekinah in the holy of holies.’[6] The Hebrew Scriptures show that the LORD had been expected to appear in his temple (Num.6.23-26, Isa.64.1, Mal.3.1), enthroned between the heavenly beings (Isa.6.1-5), or to speak from above the cherubim of the kapporet (Exod.25.22). The psalmist prayed that the Shepherd of Israel, enthroned upon the cherubim, would shine forth and come to save his people (Ps.80.1-2, 3, 7, 19), that he would shine on his servant (Ps.119.135). The psalmist also prayed for the LORD to arise and come to help his people (e.g. Pss 3.7; 7.6; 68.1), and he was certain that the LORD would appear (Ps.102.12). The Levites were appointed to serve before the ark, to invoke, to thank and the praise the LORD, the God of Israel (1 Chron.16.4), and there may have been a double meaning to the familiar cry ‘hallelujah’, since the first meaning of hll is ‘shine’. Was the cry ‘Make the LORD shine’, cause his presence to shine forth, as the psalmist had prayed?

The theurgical practices of pagan mysteries in the early years of Christianity are relatively well known. The Chaldean Oracles describe how to make an image of the goddess Hecate and how to draw her down into it. Certain words, materials and objects (symbols) were believed to have a special affinity with a particular deity. ‘The objects became receptacles of the gods because they had an intimate relationship with them and bore their signatures (sunthemata) in the manifest world.’[7] The gods gave instructions how the rites were to be performed and the ritual of invoking the deity was theourgia or hierourgia, divine or sacred work. ‘The body of the theurgist became the vehicle through which the gods appeared in the physical world and through which he received their communion.’[8] The theurgic acts were believed to unite the soul to the will and activity of the deity, but not to effect complete union. It was believed that the divine order was impressed on the world. The symbols of theurgy functioned in an manner similar to Plato’s forms in that both revealed the divine order. Plato had taught that the Demiurge completed the moulding of the world after the nature of the model (Timaeus 39e). He too had been moulded after the nature of the model (Gen. 1.27).

Now this correspondence of heaven and earth is familiar from the temple and its rites, and it was far older than Plato. There is much in the Timaeus, for example, which seems to be dependent on the teachings of the Jerusalem priesthood of the first temple. The high priest, too, ‘was’ the LORD on earth when he wore the sacred seal which enabled him to ‘bear’ the sins of the people (Exod.28.36-38). It has also been suggested that much of the Syrian Iamblichus’ theurgy, written early in the fourth century CE, derived directly from the practice of the Jewish temple mystics. Even his Semitic name invites speculation, deriving as it does from ‘ the LORD is King’.[9]

Dionysius used the language of theurgy when he described the Christian mysteries in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. The bread and wine were the symbols of Christ (437CD) whose original divine work had been to become a man. The bishop repeats the sacred work with the sacred symbols: ‘He uncovers the veiled gifts... he shows how Christ emerged from the hiddenness of his divinity to take on human form’ (444C).

The mystery at the very heart of the first temple has been lost, but some texts invite speculation. When Solomon was enthroned as king he became the LORD, although the Chronicler does not explain the process (1 Chron.29.20-23). Since the kapporet was the throne of the LORD, there must have been some link between the enthronement of the human king as the LORD and his being set on the place where the LORD used to appear. Origen implies that in the Day of Atonement ritual, the sacrificed goat was the LORD, the king (Celsus 6.43 PG XI 1364). The blood of this goat was sprinkled first on the ‘throne’ and then brought out from the holy of holies to effect the atonement by cleansing and healing the creation. In other words, the blood ‘carried’ the power of the divine life. In the bloodless sacrifice of the Christians, the wine was substituted for the blood of the goat (cf. Heb.9.12) , but the same process was believed to take place. The Christian altar, as we shall see, derived from the kapporet in the holy of holies, the place where the atonement blood was transformed and the LORD was present.

The royal psalms suggest that when the king entered the Holy of holies he was ‘born’ in the glory of the holy ones and became the Melchizedek priest, the LORD (Ps 110). He was raised up, that is, resurrected to the heavenly life (Ps.89.19; Heb.7.15-17). This must have been the moment when he became king and was declared to be the Son (Ps.2.7). Praying for the presence of the LORD in the holy of holies and in the person of the royal high priest at his inauguration, must have been the original context of the Maranatha prayer. Since, as the writer to the Hebrews knew, the high priest offered himself as the atonement sacrifice but was represented by the blood of the goat, the LORD must also have been invoked at every atonement sacrifice when the life of the royal high priest was represented by the blood of the goat. The first Christians, believing that they were seeing the ancient liturgy fulfilled in history, used the Maranatha prayer initially to pray for the Parousia in their own lifetime. After John’s vision of the angel in the cloud, however, the prayer returned to its original setting as they prayed for the LORD to come to the bread and wine of the Eucharist.

When the Day of Atonement is recognised as the original context of the Eucharist, other elements in the tradition fall into place. The epiklesis derived from the Maranatha prayer. The earliest forms do keep the word ‘come’ and are addressed to the Second Person whereas later forms are prayers to the First person to ‘send’. Serapion’s epiklesis preserves the older belief about the presence of the LORD dwelling in the holy of holies: ‘O God of truth, let thy holy Logos come and dwell (epidemesato) upon this bread, that the bread may become the body of the Logos and upon this cup that the cup may become the cup of the truth......’ There is a long epiklesis in the Acts of Thomas 27 which calls on Christ to ‘come’. All those who have been sealed with baptism perceive a human form and then receive the bread of the Eucharist. In the earlier period, the Spirit was understood to be the Logos (e.g. Justin, Apology 1.33: ‘It is wrong to understand the Spirit and the Power of God as anything else than the Word who is also the first-born of God’). It was not until Cyril of Jerusalem (mid-fourth century) that the Third Person Spirit epiklesis began to be used, the prayer for the Father to send the Spirit onto the bread and wine.

The form in Addai and Mari is addressed to the Son: ‘O my LORD, may thy Holy Spirit come and rest upon this offering’ but other unique features of this prayer invite speculation as to its ultimate origin. The original from has no mention of God the Father or of the Trinity, of the crucifixion or resurrection of Jesus, it does not mention bread, wine, cup, Body or Blood, or the name of Jesus. There is no reference to partaking or communion. Dix again: ‘All these things... are not of the framework of the prayer as they are the framework of the prayers that have been inspired by the systematic Greek theological tradition. Addai and Mari is a eucharistic prayer which is concentrated solely upon the experience of the Eucharist... Maranatha... The ecstatic cry of the first pre-Pauline Aramaic speaking disciples is the summary of what it has to say.’[10] Was this derived from a a temple prayer from the Day of Atonement? There were ‘a great many of the priests obedient to the faith’ in the earliest days in Jerusalem (Acts 6.7).

Several writers reveal that it was the Word which came into the bread and wine, but complications arise from the fact that logos can be understood to mean both the Word, the Second Person, or simply a prayer. Irenaeus, for example, argued ‘...if the cup which has been mixed and the bread which has been made receives the Word of God and becomes the Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ...’ (Against Heresies 5.2.3. PG 7. 1125 also 1127). Origen, commenting on the Eucharist, said that the consecration was ‘by the Word of God and prayer’ (quoting 1 Tim.4.5), where ‘word’ could be understood in either sense (On Matthew 11 PG 13 948-9), but his usage elsewhere suggests that he intended the Second Person. Athanasius taught that after great prayers and holy invocations, ‘the Word comes down into the bread and wine and it becomes his body’ (Sermon to the Baptised PG 26.1325). As late as the early sixth century, Jacob of Serug could write ‘Together with the priest, the whole people beseeches the Father that he will send his Son, that he may come down and dwell upon the oblation.’

The Traditions of the Priests

The mystery of the Eucharist was associated with Melchizedek. Eusebius wrote: ‘Our Saviour Jesus, the Christ of God, even now performs through his ministers today sacrifices after the manner of Melchizedek’ (Proof 5.3). Melchizedek is known in the Hebrew Scriptures only as the king of Salem, the priest of God Most High who brought out bread and wine to Abraham (Gen.14.18), and as the royal high priest, the divine Son who would bring the Day of Judgement (Ps.110). In the Qumran Melchizedek text, however, he is divine, the heavenly high priest, the anointed prince who comes to Jerusalem to perform the great Atonement at the end of the tenth Jubilee and to establish the Kingdom. In the New Testament, Jesus is identified as this Melchizedek (Heb.7.15), and the bread and wine of his sacrifice must have had some link to the bread and wine of Melchizedek.

What this was we can only guess, but the meal of bread and wine was associated with the vesting of the (high?)priest. The Testament of Levi describes how seven angels vested him and fed him ‘bread and wine, the most holy things’[11] (T.Levi 8.5), suggesting that consuming bread and wine was a part of the consecration process. In the Hebrew Scriptures ‘the most holy things’ are the priests’ portion of the offerings, and only the priests could consume them (e.g. Lev.6.29; Ezek.42.13; Ezra 2.63). The most holy was originally believed to communicate holiness (e.g. Exod.29.37), but at the beginning of the second temple period there was a new ruling from the priests and only uncleanness was held to be contagious (Hag.2.12). This is significant as it suggests that the communication of holiness through consuming sacrificial offerings was a characteristic of the ‘Melchizedek’ cult of the first temple but not of the second. It was, however, known to the author of the Testament of Levi, and so this may have been how the elements of the Eucharist were originally understood.

The Testament of Levi also describes the priestly service of the archangels in the highest heaven; they offer atonement sacrifices before the Great Glory and these offerings are described as bloodless and logike, literally ‘logical’ or ‘intellectual’ but commonly rendered ‘reasonable’, ‘the reasonable and bloodless sacrifice’ (T.Levi 3.6). It has been suggested, however, that logike in the context of liturgy indicates ‘belonging to the Logos’, just as it is used by Clement to describe the flock of the Good Shepherd who were not reasonable sheep, but sheep of the Logos (Instructor III 112i)[12]. The atonement sacrifice offered by the archangels in Levi’s vision would then be the bloodless sacrifice of the Logos. What we cannot tell is whether or not this was a pre-Christian text and whether or not other references to the ‘reasonable’ sacrifice should be understood in this way.

There is nothing in the Hebrew Scriptures or in any related text which describes or explains the mystery of the Holy of holies and how the presence of the LORD was believed to be present. This must, however, have been known to the priests who officiated there, and raises the question of what it was that Jesus the high priest is said to have transmitted secretly to a few of his disciples after his own experience of ‘resurrection’. The evidence is consistent from the earliest period. Ignatius of Antioch, wrote early in the second century, that our own high priest is greater (than those of old) for ‘he has been entrusted with the Holy of holies and to him alone are the secret things of God committed’ (Phil.9). Clement of Alexandria condemned people who were ‘making a perverse use of divine words... they do not enter in as we enter in, through the tradition of the LORD by drawing aside the curtain’ (Misc.7.17). The ‘true teachers preserved the tradition of blessed doctrine derived directly from the holy apostles(Misc.1.1) and this tradition had ‘been imparted unwritten by the apostles’ (Misc.6.7). There had been mysteries concealed in the Old Testament which the LORD revealed to the apostles and ‘there were certainly among the Hebrews some things delivered unwritten’ (Misc.5.10).

The most likely mysteries to have been concealed in the Old Testament and transmitted unwritten are those of the priests, especially the secrets of the Holy of holies. There is no known explanation of the rites of atonement; all that survive are the practical details of how the ritual was to be performed. The blood of the sacrifice had to be stirred by an attendant to prevent it clotting so that it could not be sprinkled (m.Yoma 4.3), but of the high priest’s prayer in the temple no detail is given (m.Yoma 5.1). Only the public prayer is recorded (m.Yoma 6.2). Gardeners could buy the surplus blood for their gardens (m.Yoma 5.6), but no ‘theology’ of the blood sprinkling is offered.

Fragments of sanctuary lore, apart from the evidence in the Book of Revelation itself, have survived in Daniel 7 and the Parables of Enoch. In Daniel’s vision, thought to be closely related to the royal rites of Psalm 2, the Man came in clouds (of incense?) before the One on the heavenly throne and ‘was offered in sacrifice to him’ (Dan’7.13.). The word usually rendered ‘was presented before him’ (qrb, literally ‘brought near’) is the term used for making a temple offering[13]. Given the temple context of this vision ‘offered as a sacrifice’ is the more likely meaning. The one offered is then enthroned and given power ‘over all peoples nations and languages.’ In the Parables of Enoch, the blood of the Righteous One was taken up before the LORD of Spirits, together with the prayers of the righteous ones. The holy ones in heaven ‘unite with one voice to pray and praise and give thanks and bless the name of the LORD of Spirits.’ This is the thanksgiving element of the Eucharist. Then the books of the living were opened and read, and the ‘number’ of the righteous whose blood ‘has been offered’ was brought near to the throne (1 En.47.4, where the Ethiopic implies the same word as in Dan.7.13). This corresponds to the reading of the diptychs in the liturgy, the names of the living and the names of the dead who were remembered at the Eucharist. Next, in the Parables, the Man was given the Name in the presence of the LORD of Spirits (i.e. he became the LORD), in the time and place before the stars and the heavens were created, (i.e. in the holy of holies, Day One of Creation). He became the staff of the righteous, the light of the Gentiles, and all on earth were to worship him. All these things were ‘hidden before the creation of the world and for eternity’, i.e. in the holy of holies (1 En 48). Then the kings of the earth were judged, and ‘the light of days;’ rested upon the holy and righteous ones. This is the establishing of the Kingdom, the place of divine light (Rev 22.5). The sequence is interesting and it must be related to the sequence in the Liturgy. It was certainly known to the early Christians: the anointed one in human form, (the Man) poured himself out, was raised up (into heaven), given the Name, and then worshipped (Phil. 2. 6-11).

Origen, who knew 1 Enoch, said that Jesus ‘beheld these weighty secrets and made them known to a few’ (Celsus 3.37). There were doctrines spoken in private to Jesus’ genuine disciples, but the words were not written down (Celsus 3.60; 6.6). ‘If anyone is worthy to know the ineffable things he will learn the wisdom hidden in the mystery which God established before the ages’ (On Matthew 7.2). ‘Before the ages’ in temple terminology means ‘in the holy of holies’. Origen had had contact with Jewish scholars when he lived in Caesarea and must have had good reason to write: ‘The Jews used to tell of many things in accordance with secret traditions reserved to a few, for they had other knowledge than that which was common and made public’ (On John 19.92).

Basil of Caesarea, writing in the mid-fourth century, emphasised that some teachings of the Church were drawn from written sources, but others were given secretly through apostolic tradition. If we attacked unwritten customs, he argued, claiming them to be of little importance, we would fatally mutilate the Gospel. There was no written authority for signing with cross, and none for praying facing towards the East, although Origen knew that this latter was linked to the Day of Atonement (On Leviticus 9.10). Above all Basil cited the words used in the Eucharist: ‘Have any saints left for us in writing the words used in the invocation over the Eucharistic bread and the cup of blessing? As everyone knows we are not content in the liturgy simply to recite the words recorded by St Paul or the Gospels, but we add other words both before and after, words of great importance for this mystery. We have received these words from unwritten teaching... which our fathers guarded in silence, safe from meddling and petty curiosity’. The uninitiated were not even allowed to be present at the mysteries, and this he linked to the custom of the temple: ‘Only one chosen from all the priests was admitted to the innermost sanctuary... so that he would be amazed by the novelty and strangeness of gazing on the holy of holies’. He went on to distinguish: ‘Dogma is one thing kerygma another; the first is observed in silence while the latter is proclaimed to the world.’ (On the Holy Spirit 66). Basil preserved the mystery he had received, but there are enough hints here to show he was speaking of the words of the epiklesis, and that these were associated with the holy of holies on the Day of Atonement.

Church and Temple

Later texts also indicate that the temple was the setting of the Eucharist, and the Day of Atonement its immediate model. Narsai (Homily XVII A) compared his contemplation of the mysteries of the Eucharist to Isaiah’s vision of the LORD enthroned in the holy of holies. Only those who bore the mark like the temple priests were permitted to participate. They were also described as clad in garments of glory, and, like the guest without a wedding garment at the great wedding feast, outsiders were cast out (Mat.22.13). The celebrating priest ‘bore in himself the image of our LORD in that hour’, and was warned to be worthy of that state, as were the temple priests who were warned not to bear the Name of the LORD in vain (Exod.20.7). The curious situation of the one who represents the LORD offering elements which also represent the LORD exactly parallels the temple custom, where the High Priest representing the LORD offered the blood of the goat which represented the LORD (Lev.16.8 lyhwh, ‘as the LORD’, cf. Heb.9.12 which implies this).

Narsai offers two sets of symbolism, one derived from the death and burial of Jesus, but the other from the temple. This may reflect the differing emphases of Antioch and Alexandria, but it could also be a memory of the early Church describing the earthly life of Jesus in terms of the high priestly traditions of the temple. There is evidence of this as early as Peter’s temple sermon, where he describes the Parousia as the heavenly high priest emerging from the Holy of holies to renew the creation (Acts 3.13-21). For ‘Narsai’ the sanctuary of the church is ‘a type of that Kingdom which our LORD entered and into which he will bring with him all his friends’ (c.f. the holy of holies as the heavenly city Rev. 22.16). The Christian altar is the symbol of the great and glorious throne (as was the kapporet above the ark in the Holy of holies, Exod.25.17-22). As on the Day of Atonement, so now, the priest ‘trembles with fear for himself and for his people at that dread hour.’ The people are exhorted to contemplate the Messiah enthroned in heaven who is also the one lying slain on the altar (c.f. John’s word play on the themes of crucifixion and exaltation: ‘the Son of Man is lifted up’ John 3.14; 8.28; 12.32,34).

There follows a description of the scene in the sanctuary that evokes the descriptions of heavenly worship in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and the moment of silence which preceded the appearance of the great high priest (Rev.8): ‘The priests are still and the deacons stand in silence, the whole people is quiet and still, subdued and calm. ... the mysteries are set in order, the censers are smoking, the lamps are shining, and the deacons are hovering and brandishing (fans) in the likeness of the Watchers. Deep silence and peaceful calm settles on that place; it is filled and overflows with brightness and splendour, beauty and power.’ The people join in the Sanctus, the song of the angels in Isaiah’s throne vision and John’s (Isa.6.3; Rev.4.8), and the priest speaks the words which ‘the chosen apostles have not made known to us in the Gospels.’ The Spirit comes to the bread and wine and ‘the Spirit which raised him from the dead comes down now and celebrates the Mysteries of the resurrection of his body.’ The consecration is the moment of resurrection, another remarkable link to the royal traditions of Israel, for the king was deemed to be resurrected (translated ‘raised up’, 2 Sam. 23.1) and he too became the LORD enthroned and he too was worshipped (1 Chron.29.20-23), the LORD with his people.

The Anthem of the Sanctuary in the Liturgy of Addai and Mari describes a similar setting: ‘Thy throne O God endureth for ever. The cherubim compass the terrible seat of thy majesty and with fear moving their wings cover their faces for that they cannot lift up their eyes and behold the fire of thy Godhead. Thus art Thou glorified and dwellest among men, not to burn them up but to enlighten them. Great O my LORD is Thy mercy and Thy grace which thou hast showed to our race.’ The ultimate source of this must be Isaiah 33.13-22, which contrasts the fear of sinners at the prospect of the everlasting fires, and the vision of the king in his beauty which awaits the upright. Compare also Enoch’s account of the flaming fire around the heavenly throne, that no angels could enter because of the brightness (i.e. no ordinary priests could enter the holy of holies), and that no flesh could gaze upon the Glory. Enoch lay prostrate and trembling until invited to enter (1 En.14.21.25).

Priests and deacons, ‘thousands of Watchers and ministers of fire and spirit go forth’ with the resurrected LORD, said Narsai, and the people ‘rejoice when they see the Body setting forth from the midst of the altar.’ This is exactly the procession described for the Day of the LORD, the Day of Judgement, when the LORD goes forth from his Holy Place with all his holy ones (Deut.32.43 expanded in Ass.Mos.10; Deut.33.2-5). The effect of receiving the Body of the risen LORD, was that of the Day of Atonement, when the high priest emerged from the Holy of holies, carrying the blood which cleansed and hallowed (Lev.16.19), healing and renewing the creation which the temple represented. The Body of the Risen LORD, wrote Narsai, ‘pardons debts, purifies blemishes, heals diseases, cleanses and purges stains with the hyssop of his mercy.’(c.f. Acts 3.19 ‘times of refreshing come from the presence of the LORD’ when the Anointed One returns).

Germanus of Constantinople (early eighth century) in his book On the Divine Liturgy presents the temple symbolism in great detail, alongside symbolism drawn from the life of Jesus. ‘The church is an earthly heaven’, he wrote, ‘in which the super-celestial God dwells and walks about’ (Liturgy 1). This must be the garden of Eden, which had been represented in the temple by the Great Hall. After comparing the apse to the cave of Christ’s birth and burial and the table to the place where his dead body rested, he continues: ‘The holy table is also the throne of God on which, borne by the cherubim, he rested in the body... The altar is and is called the heavenly and spiritual altar where the earthly and material priests who always assist and serve the LORD represent the spiritual, serving and hierarchical powers’ (Liturgy 4, 6, also 41). The holy table, the spiritual altar, corresponds to the kapporet over the ark, the cherub throne where the blood of the LORD was offered by the High Priest on the Day of Atonement. The chancel barriers correspond in function to the veil of the temple, separating ‘the Holy of holies accessible only to the priests’ (Liturgy 9). The twenty four presbyters are the seraphic powers (c.f. Rev.4.4) and the seven deacons are images of the angelic powers (c.f. Rev.4.5, Liturgy 16, but also the Qumran Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice which describe the seven angels who are the ruling princes of the sanctuary and the account by John Chrysostom of an old man - presumably himself - who saw angels in shining robes around the altar (On Priesthood 6.4.45-50).

The priest before the altar speaks to God, as did Moses in the tabernacle, when the LORD spoke to him from above the kapporet, between the cherubim (Exod.25. 22, Liturgy 41) and the priest sees the glory of the LORD. ‘God truly spoke invisibly to Moses and Moses to God; so now the priest, standing between the two cherubim in the sanctuary and bowing on account of the dreadful and uncontemplable glory and brightness of the Godhead and contemplating the heavenly liturgy, is initiated even into the splendour of the life-giving Trinity...’ (Liturgy 41). The heavenly host in the sanctuary is represented by the deacons holding fans ‘in the likeness of the six winged seraphim and the many eyed cherubim’ (Liturgy 41), exactly as in the Hebrew Scriptures, where the priests were the angels of the LORD (e.g. Mal.2.7), and in the Qumran Hymns and Blessings: e.g. ‘May you attend upon the service in the temple of the Kingdom and decree destiny in company with the angels of the presence... may he consecrate you to the holy of holies’ (1Q Sb IV); ‘...standing with the host of the holy ones...with the congregation of the sons of heaven’ (1QH XI formerly III). The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice speak of ‘the priests of the inner temple, ministers of the presence of the most holy king... their expiations shall obtain his goodwill for those who repent from sin...’ (4Q400), and of the wings of the cherubim falling silent as the they bless the heavenly throne (4Q405). As in the liturgy, there are processions through the doors of glory when the `elohim and the holy angels enter and leave, proclaiming the glory of the King (4Q405) c.f. ‘The Cherubic Hymn signified the entrance of all the saints and righteous ahead of the cherubic powers and the angelic hosts who run invisibly in advance of the Great King, Christ...’ (Liturgy 37). The Qumran Hymns and Blessings, and the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice must derive from the actual temple services which have survived as Christian liturgy.

The Sogitha on the Church of Edessa, composed in the mid-sixth century, mentions ‘the cherubim of its altar’, a description (late fifth century) of the church at Quartamin mentions a cherub over the altar and the account of the Muslim capture of the church of St Jacob in Aleppo alludes to the destruction of the cherubim above the altar, all three indicating that the earliest Christian altars derived from the kapporet. In Ethiopian churches, there is an ark in the sanctuary.

The Sacrifice

Perhaps the most striking parallel of all between the Day of Atonement and the Liturgy is the manner of preparing the bread. The central portion of the loaf is removed in the manner of a sacrifice, and is then known as the holy bread or the Lamb. An exactly similar procedure was used for the sin offering on the Day of Atonement in the first century CE, according to the Letter of Barnabas which differs at this point from the Mishnah. According to the latter, the high priest cut open the goat of the sin offering and removed the sacrificial portions, (the fat over the entrails, the kidneys and a part of the liver Lev.4.8-10) and then burned them on the altar before sending the rest of the carcase to be burned outside the temple (m. Yoma 6.7; the comparison in Heb.13.10-13 is confused). Barnabas, however, says that the goat was eaten: the people consumed the carcase, but the priests had the sacrificial portions, mixed with sour wine. ‘What does it say in the prophet?* Let them eat of the goat which is offered for their sins at the fast and, note this carefully, let all the priests but nobody else, eat of its inwards parts, unwashed and with vinegar. Why was this? Because ‘When I am about to give my body for the sins of this new people of mine, you will be giving me gall and vinegar to drink...’ (Barn. 7).[14] Barnabas, a Levite (Acts 4.36) interpreted the crucifixion as the sin offering and the vinegar which Jesus drank (John 19.29) as the vinegar of the sacrificial portion eaten by the priests. This must be the origin of the custom of removing the middle portion of the loaf and mixing it with wine.

The role of the bread in the temple is another mystery. Twelve loaves ‘the Bread of the Presence’ (literally ‘the Face’) were set on a golden table in the Great Hall of the temple, together with incense and flagons for drink offerings (Exod.25.29-30). The bread became holy while it was in the temple: before being taken in it was placed on a marble table but when it was brought out it was placed on a table of gold because it had become holy (m.Shekalim 6.4). The loaves were eaten by the high priests every Sabbath, perhaps the origin of the weekly celebration of the Eucharist. The prothesis prayer in the liturgy of the Coptic Jacbites preserves the tradition of the Bread of the Face: ‘LORD Jesus Christ... the living bread which came down from heaven... make thy face shine upon this bread and upon this cup which we have set upon this thy priestly table.’

The Older Testament?

There is much about the temple that is still unknown. There are also several texts in the Hebrew Scriptures which cannot be placed in any known context. Together, however, these texts have a certain consistency which at the very least invites speculation.
Melchizedek, the priest of God Most High brought out bread and wine (Gen.14.18). Until the discovery of the Melchizedek text at Qumran, Melchizedek was thought to be a relatively minor figure in the tradition; it is now clear that he was the Messiah, expected to make the final atonement sacrifice at the end of the tenth jubilee. Melchizedek was ‘born’ in the holy of holies among the holy ones (LXX Ps 110) and was the eternal priest, not by virtue of descent from Levi, but because he had been raised up i.e. resurrected (Heb.7.15-16).
Moses, the high priests and the elders who stood before the heavenly throne, saw the God of Israel and ate and drank before him. They suffered no harm (Exod.24. 9-11). What was this meal?
When Moses offered his own life for the sins of Israel he was told that such a sacrifice was not possible; each man bore his own sin (Exod.32.30-33). What older view of atonement was excluded from the Hebrew Scriptures?
The secret things belonged to the LORD and were no concern of humans (Deut.29.29). What mattered was keeping the Law, and nobody needed to go up to heaven to receive that (Deut.30.11-14). Who had formerly gone up to heaven to learn the secret things?
Aaron was only permitted to enter the Holy of holies once a year; had the earlier practice been different? (Lev.16.2).
Ezekiel knew that the mark of the LORD was a tau, at that period written as a diagonal cross (Ezek 9.4). This mark protected from the wrath.

When Eusebius described the re-establishment of the churches in the time of Constantine, he included an account of the oration delivered to Paulinus, Bishop of Tyre (History 10.4). The new building was compared to the tabernacle and the temple, its builder to Bezalel and Solomon. This could indicate that the church was deliberately adopting the temple as its model and that all temple elements in the later liturgies were a conscious imitation of the older rites. Origen, however, had known of the temple traditions a century earlier, and he had also known of the secret traditions of both Jews and Christians. It is more likely that there had been an unbroken tradition from the temple liturgies into the Church.

There is insufficient evidence for certainty, but such as there is indicates that the great high priest gave his followers a new way of offering the sacrifice of atonement. It was the very oldest understanding of the Day of Atonement, and it was perpetuated in the Eucharist.
Margaret Barker
Atonement: The Rite of Healing.[1]

There has recently been a number of books on the Christian understanding of atonement. What has been fascinating for me is the extent to which these books do, or more often do not, use the Old Testament material on atonement as the basis for what they have to say. The New Testament speaks in a variety of ways about atonement, and this has become the centre of Christian dogmatics; but this ‘atonement’ is only loosely related to its Old Testament roots. Did the first Christians, then radically alter what was understood by atonement, or was this radical alteration made by subsequent expositors of their ideas? The latter is more likely; in other words, the original model for New Testament theology has been lost.

George Steiner, in his book The Death of Tragedy, said this:
When the artist must be the architect of his own mythology, time is against him. He cannot live long enough to impose his special vision and the symbols he has devised for it on the habits of language and the feelings of his society. Without an orthodox or public frame to support it, it does not take root in the common soil.[2]

The death of Jesus was interpreted immediately in terms of atonement, even though the first Christians cannot have been, to use Steiner’s phrase, ‘architects of their own mythology’. That they had been just this, however, is the unacknowledged presupposition of much of the debate. We are given no explanation as to how the two goats of the Day of Atonement found their fulfilment in events which were interpreted as the Lord himself coming to his people as their Redeemer and the renewer of the creation.

In his book The Christian Understanding of Atonement, Dillistone made this observation: ‘From the New Testament there come hints, suggestions, even daring affirmations of a comprehensive cosmic reconciliation.’ He doubted that this was derived from Hebrew thought, but continued: It was not until early Christian witnesses found themselves confronted by pagan systems in which a full theory of cosmic redemption played a prominent part that the effect of the work of Christ upon the cosmos at large began to receive serious consideration’.[3]

I have reason to believe that this ‘cosmic’ theory of atonement does not originate in paganism but in the Jerusalem temple. Failure to understand this cult has led to some curious distortions in reading the New Testament, even by Old Testament scholars. Thus B.S.Childs in his volume on Exodus, could say of the tabernacle: ‘(the letter to the ) Hebrews offers a major reinterpretation of the Levitical system in the Christian gospel’. But does it? Elsewhere he seems not to recognise the importance of atonement; in his new book Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments, a work of over five hundred pages, only four deal with atonement in the Old Testament. [4]

I want to suggest in this paper that there was no influx of paganism into the concept of atonement as that was expressed and assumed in the New Testament, and no major reinterpretation. What was assumed by the New testament writers was a traditional understanding of the temple rituals and myths of atonement. When the rituals had ceased and the myths were no longer recognised for what they really were, the key to understanding the imagery of atonement was lost. It is recognised that certain concepts in the New testament such as covenant, righteousness, justification and grace must have been related to the central theme of atonement, but the overall pattern, it seems, has been lost.

Atonement translates the Hebrew kpr, but the meaning of kpr in a ritual context is not known. Investigations have uncovered only what actions were used in the rites of atonement, not what that action was believed to effect. The possibilities for its meaning are ‘cover’ or ‘smear’ or ‘wipe’[5], but these reveal no more than the exact meaning of ‘breaking bread’ reveals about the Christian Eucharist. What these actions were believed to effect in ritual have to be deduced by other means. To understand atonement we have to understand what the faith community believed was happening when the priests smeared and sprinkled blood, and when the high priest took blood into the holy of holies on the Day of Atonement and then brought it out again to smear and sprinkle around the holy places.

First, the rite of the Day of Atonement was ancient. Under the influence of T.K.Cheyne[6], it was fashionable for a long time to say that the Day of Atonement rituals were a late insertion into the Levitical legislation. He asserted, as one did in those days, that such a ritual showed the low spiritual state to which the Jews had sunk in the inter-testamental period! Opinion has shifted; the rite is now thought to be of ancient origin. Furthermore, according to the Jewish Encyclopaedia, it was ‘ the keystone of the sacrificial system of post-exilic Judaism’. In other words, it could be the link between the pre- and post-exilic cults, and the extent of our ignorance about the Day of Atonement is the extent of our ignorance about Israel’s religion[7] Much that is said or not said on this subject reveals unacknowledged presuppositions (e.g. that atonement counted for less than one percent of Israel’s theology!), but when these are challenged, interesting possibilities emerge.

What, for example, is the significance of Azazel, a name which appears in many forms? I quote again from the Jewish Encyclopaedia: ‘Azazel enjoys the distinction of being the most mysterious extra-human character in sacred literature’.[8] The best clue to his identity comes from the Talmud; the context is a discussion of Azazel, which by that time was generally assumed to refer to the rocky place to which the goat was sent. ‘Our rabbis taught: Azazel... it should be hard and rough... Another taught: Azazel the hardest of the mountains, thus also does it say: And the mighty (`ele) of the land he took away.’ Only one of the rabbis had a different view; he said that Azazel was a fallen angel aand not the name of place: ‘The school of R. Ishmael taught: Azazel because it obtains atonement for the affair of Uza and Aza`el (b.Yoma 67b),

The affair of Asael and its consequences is the major theme of 1 Enoch; how these fallen angels came to be associated with the Day of Atonement has been variously explained. Note the assumption; they cannot have been part of the original but must have been added. Hanson and Nickelsburg aired this issue in the JBL in 1977. There are two names of the leader of the fallen angels in 1 Enoch: Asael and Semihazah, and two versions of what happened. Hanson suggested that the Asael material in 1 Enoch had been joined to the Semihazah story by stages: the judgement of Semihazah was amplified by atonement motifs from Leviticus 16 because the Azazel of Leviticus and the Asael of 1 Enoch had similar names. Nickelsburg disagreed and thought the Semihazah material had been amplified by the Prometheus myth. I shall return to his observations at a later stage. [9]
In the Enochic account of the fallen angels, the Great Holy One comes forth from his dwelling place to bring the Judgement (1 En.1). This is very similar to temple traditions such as Micah 1.3: The Lord is coming forth out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth’; or Deuteronomy 33.2 where the Lord ‘dawns’ with ten thousand of his holy ones and becomes King; or Psalm 73 where the judgement of the wicked is perceived in the sanctuary. In the Enochic tradition, the sin of the fallen angels results in the breaking of the ‘cosmic’ covenant and the corruption of the earth. It is perhaps significant that the rabbi who linked Azazel to the fallen angels was Ishmael, the rabbi credited with knowledge of secret temple traditions which surfaced in the Merkavah texts.[10] It is not impossible that the banishing of Azazel in the atonement ritual came from the same stratum of temple tradition as did the Merkavah texts, namely that which had kept touch with the traditions from the time of the monarchy. The fallen angels would then have been associated with the Day of Atonement from the beginning.
Second we must note how the rite of atonement functioned in the Pentateuch. The action of kpr protected against the plague of divine wrath, an outbreak of destruction, an outbreak of destruction which signalled the breakdown of the created order. Thus the Levites were installed to kpr in case anyone should come too near the sanctuary and thus risk plague (Num.8.19). After the revolt of Korah, those who continued to support the rebels were threatened with wrath from the Lord. A plague began but was stopped by Aaron with his incense. He stood physically between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped (Num.16.47 English numbering). The best known example is that of Phineas, who killed the apostate Israelite and his Midianite wife (Num.25.10-13). He made ‘atonement’. As a result, he was given the covenant of priesthood, the covenant of peace. The significant point here, apart from atonement stopping the plague again, is that atonement was the ritual associated with covenant; here the covenant of peace, the covenant of the priesthood of eternity, elsewhere called the covenant of eternity or, more recently, the Cosmic Covenant[11]. Now covenant is the first of the concepts associated with atonement in the New Testament. The covenant in question must have been this priestly covenant, the eternal covenant.

The eternal covenant was the system of bonds which established and maintained the creation, ordering and binding the forces of chaos. There are several places in the Old Testament where this older view of the creation is implied at e.g. Job 38.8-10: ‘Who shut in the sea with doors and prescribed bounds for it?’; or Jeremiah 5.22: ‘I placed the sand as a boundary for the sea, the eternal rule which it may not transgress’; or Psalm 104.9: ‘You set a boundary that (the waters) should not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth’.[12] The eternal covenant is more prominent in the non-canonical texts such as 1 Enoch, which describes how this covenant was broken and then restored. The restoration of the covenant is described in terms we recognise as the Day of the Lord, the Judgement, as we shall see later. When the statutes and laws of the eternal covenant were broken, the fabric of the creation began to collapse and chaos set in. Total disregard for the statutes resulted in the return to chaos described in e.g. Isaiah 24.5: ‘The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant.’ Or Jeremiah 4.23: ‘I looked to the earth and lo it was waste and void; and to the heavens and they had no light’. Jeremiah sees the world returned to its pre-creation state. When the covenant was restored, the creation was renewed and returned to its original condition of salom and sedaqah/dikkaiosune[13], the second of the concepts associated with atonement in the New Testament.

I should like to quote here from an article by Mary Douglas published earlier this year in Jewish Studies Quarterly:
Terms derived from cleansing, washing and purging have imported into biblical scholarship distractions which have occluded Leviticus’ own very specific and clear description of atonement. According to the illustrative cases from Leviticus, to atone means to cover or recover, cover again, to repair a hole, cure a sickness, mend a rift, make good a torn or broken covering. As a noun, what is translated atonement, expiation or purgation means integument made good; conversely, the examples in the book indicate that defilement means integument torn. Atonement does not mean covering a sin so as to hide it from the sight of God; it means making good an outer layer which has rotted or been pierced. [14]

This sounds very like the cosmic covenant with its system of bonds maintaining the created order, broken by sin and repaired by ‘atonement’.

Third, we must consider the temple, the place where atonement was effected. The temple was the meeting place of heaven and earth, time and eternity. The holy of holies, the place of the throne of the Lord, was simultaneously heaven and earth. The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven’ (Ps.11.4) wrote the psalmist, and we must believe what he said. ‘A glorious throne set on high from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary’ are the words of Jeremiah (Jer.17.12). The traditions say that it was an exact replica of the service of heaven. Moses had been given the plan of the tabernacle, not just its construction, but the details for the vestments, the incense, the oils, the priesthood and the sacrifices (Exod.25-30). Or David had given Solomon a comprehensive plan of the temple which he had received from the Lord (1 Chron.28.11-19 c.f. 11QT) the furnishings of the temple were those of heaven; Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord (1Chron.29.23). That is what the Chronicler wrote and presumably that is what he and the Jerusalem temple personnel of his time believed. Such a belief can be deduced from the Qumran texts such as the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice or the Blessings: ‘ May you be as an angel of the presence in the abode of holiness to the glory of the God of [hosts]’ (1QSb 4).

The implication of this belief must be that what was performed in the temple ‘was’ the service of heaven and so the rite of atonement must have had a heavenly counterpart, for want of better words. The association of atonement and covenant of creation in the texts cited above suggests that atonement rituals were creation and covenant rituals.
Further, the role of the priests is significant. According to the Qumran texts they were angels, and there is enough evidence elsewhere to suggest that the high priest was the Lord. The tradition recorded in Deuteronomy 32.8 (using the Qumran and LXX reading rather than the MT) is that the lord was the first among the sons of El Elyon, in other words, the chief of the angels[15]. His counterpart, the high priest, would have been the first among the priests. Further, the high priest wore the sacred name YHWH on his forehead when he was officiating in the temple. This is obscured in the canonical texts, but is quite clear in Philo who says the high priest wore a golden plate showing a name that only the purified may speak, and ‘that Name has four letters’; and in the Letter of Aristeas which reads ‘On the front of the hallowed diadem... in holy letters on a leaf of gold (the high priest) wears the Name of God’[16].

That creation rituals should be performed by the Lord is hardly surprising. If the Lord had bound the creation at the beginning with the great covenant which kept the forces of chaos in their place and gave security to his people, any covenant renewal ceremony must have involved the Lord performing these acts. Atonement rituals repaired the damage to the created order caused by sin through which ‘wrath’ could have broken in with such disastrous consequences. Again the Jewish Encyclopaedia makes an interesting observation: ‘But while, according to Scripture, the high priest made atonement, tradition transferred the atoning power to God’[17].

Fourth, we must consider the remainder of the temple. The debir, the holy of holies, was the place of the Lord’s throne, but the hekal, the great hall of the temple, was the Garden of Eden. The decorations of the temple were those of Eden (trees, pomegranates, lilies, cherubim), the seven branched lamp was described in later tradition as the tree of life, a bronze serpent was removed from the temple by Hezekiah, and Ezekiel saw the river of life flowing from the temple[18]. Just as the debir represented heaven (represented is a concession to our way of thinking), so the hekal represented the completed creation. This again suggests that the rituals of the temple were creation rituals.

Fifth, we note that in temple atonement symbolism, blood was life. Texts which deal with cultic matters are notoriously difficult to translate; the RSV gives Leviticus 17.11 as: ‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it for you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement by reason of the life’. The life of the flesh is in the blood, and that blood on the altar serves to kpr ‘al the lives of the people.

We come now to the sixth and last preliminary observation. When the action kpr was performed, the object was a place or a thing not a person. Often there was an impersonal form: ‘It shall be kpr for you’. On the Day of Atonement according to Leviticus 16, the high priest sprinkled the blood on the kapporet (‘the mercy seat’) and in front of it, to kpr ‘al the holy of holies, then he performed a similar ritual for the tent of meeting and then again for the altar. In the Mishnah these actions are prescribed for the holy of holies, the curtain, the incense altar in the temple, and the altar of sacrifce outside. Places were sprinkled to cleanse, consecrate and kpr them from all the uncleannesses of the people (m.Yoma 5.4-5). The Jewish Encyclopaedia again: ‘In the prophetic language, however, the original idea of the atonement offering had become lost, and instead of the offended person (God) the offence or guilt became the object of atonement[19]. The assumption here is that the prophets altered the original meaning of atonement. Milgrom says something similar[20]:
‘Outside the cult kipper undergoes a vast change which is immediately apparent from its new grammar and syntax. Whereas in rituals the subject of kipper is usually a priest and the direct object is a contaminated thing, in non-ritual literature, the subject is usually the deity and the direct object is sin (Isa. 6.7; Jer.18.23; Ezek.16.63; Pss 65.4; 78.38; 79.9)’. Actually this represents no rupture. This is very important; the ritual texts describe the actions done by the priests, whilst the non-ritual texts give the meaning of those actions. A priest smearing blood in the temple ‘was’ God removing sin.[21]

These six are the bases for any investigation of atonement: first, that it could be illuminated by the Enoch texts; second, that atonement was associated with the eternal covenant; third, that the temple service was the service of heaven; fourth, that the temple represented the entire system of heaven and earth; fifth that blood was life; and sixth, that it was places with the temple complex that were ‘repaired’ to remove the effects of sin.

The result of kpr was that the ‘iniquity’ was *** and here there is another problem with the meaning of the Hebrew word. The literal meaning of nasa` is ‘bear’ or ‘carry’ but in certain contexts it seems more appropriate to translate it by ‘forgive’. There are cases when a person is said to ‘bear’ his own guilt when he has deliberately broken a law (e.g.Lev.19.8). The priests are said to ‘bear’ the guilt of the sinner after they have performed the atonement ritual for inadvertent offences (e.g.Lev.10.17), and yet the Lord, with the same verb, is said to ‘forgive’. ‘Who’, asked Micah, ‘is a God like you bearing i.e. forgiving sin?’ (Mic.7.18) Job asked (again, reading literally): Why do you not bear my transgression and cause my guilt to pass away? (Job 7.21) There are many examples. What emerges is that ‘carrying’ iniquity was the role of the priests, of the Lord and of the scapegoat. If the temple rituals were the rituals of heaven and the Lord was part of the rituals, it is unlikely that a distinction would have been made between the role of the lord ‘forgiving’ and the high priest ‘bearing’ the iniquities. We then have to ask what aspect of the ritual could have depicted this ‘bearing’ of sins, and the obvious answer is the scapegoat.

The priests were enabled to ‘bear’ the guilt in two ways: ordinary priests ate the flesh of the sin offering whose blood had been used for kpr. They were then said to ‘bear’ the iniquity (Lev.10.17). The implication is that by eating the flesh of the victim the priests absorbed the impurity and made it possible for the offender to be reintegrated into the community. If the offerings were not eaten by the priests, then the people continued to bear their own guilt (Lev.22.15, but this text is obscure). The high priest himself ‘bears’ the iniquity of gifts consecrated to the Lord and thus they become acceptable (Exod.28.38), but to do so, the high priest has to wear the on his forehead the sacred Name. This seems to suggest that when the high priest functioned as the Lord, he absorbed the impurities of others. This understanding of atonement is well illustrated by Ps.32.1, which, whilst not using kpr, says exactly what was done in that ritual. Again, rendering literally: ‘Blessed is the man borne in respect of his transgressions and covered in respect of his sin’. This is quoted in Romans 4.7-8. Is it possible, then, that underlying the metaphorical use of nasa` there lies the memory of an older ritual when the Lord (or his representative, the high priest) literally bore away the guilt, sin, and transgression of his people which would otherwise have laid them open to the dangers of sickness, enemies, plague and other consequences of the broken covenant?[22]

I return now to Mary Douglas’ article: she notes that what is unusual about biblical purity laws is that they do not serve to set members of the congregation apart from one another. The rituals are for keeping the community together. ‘The more closely we look at the biblical rules of sacred contagion, the more strongly marked appears the difference between the Bible system and other systems of contagious impurity. We cannot avoid asking why the priests defined laws of purity that did not make parts of the congregation separate from or defined as higher or lower than the rest’[23] This implies that the role of the priest/the Lord was to hold hid people together; this would have been done by the priest absorbing the effects of sin and repairing the covenant bonds.

The blood ritual was performed in the temple. For some offences the ritual was performed by the priests in the outer part of the temple, but for the transgressions, (pesa`im, literally rebellions) the high priest took the blood into the holy of holies and then brought it out again. Jacob Milgrom has compared the long distance effect of sin upon the temple to the portrait of Dorian Grey[24]; sins committed elsewhere had the effect of polluting the temple. Whilst I think that Milgrom is broadly correct in this comparison, there is room for refinement. If the temple represented, ‘was’ the creation, then when any offence was committed, the cosmic covenant was breached and the people were exposed to danger. It was not simply the case that the temple was polluted by sinners , as they themselves would not have been allowed into those parts of the temple complex which their sins had damaged. It was the land or the creation which had been polluted and the temple ‘was’ the creation. Thus Isaiah 24.5: ‘The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant.’ The damage was restored by ritual in the temple. ‘Life’ i.e. blood was applied to the damaged parts and the impurity was absorbed, ‘borne’ by the priest who performed the kpr . It was the ritual of restoration and healing.

For the great atonement a greater ritual was demanded. The high priest took blood into the holy of holies and when he emerged, he smeared and sprinkled it on various parts of the temple. Then he placed both his hands on the scapegoat, loaded the animal with the sins of the people, and sent it into the desert. Translated into temple terms this means: The Lord emerged from heaven carrying life which was given to all parts of the created order as the effects of sin were absorbed and wounds healed. The Lord then transferred the sins of the people, which he had been carrying, onto the goat, which was then driven away carrying the sins. The question which must be asked is: ‘Whose life did the |Lord use to restore the creation?’ or ‘Whose life did the blood represent?’

Before that question can be answered, we need to look for the ‘myth’ which corresponded to the high priest coming out of the holy of holies carrying blood. I suggest that the Day of the Lord texts belong with the Day of Atonement ritual. They describe how the Lord came forth from his dwelling i.e. from the holy of holies. The Qumran Hebrew of Deuteronomy 32.43 is very similar to the LXX (but different form the MT) and reads:
Heavens praise his people, all `elohim bow down to him
For he avenges the blood of his sons and takes vengeance on his adversaries
And requites those who hate him and kpr the land of his people.
The one who performs the kpr of the land here in this text is the Lord.

Further, the Assumption of Moses[25], which is widely held to be an expansion of this part of Deuteronomy, has significant additional detail where it corresponds to Deuteronomy 32.43.
Then his kingdom will appear throughout his whole creation
Then the evil one will have an end.
Sorrow will be led away with him[26]
Then will be filled the hands[27] of the angel who is in the highest place appointed
He will at once avenge them of their enemies.
The heavenly one will go forth from his kingly throne
He will go forth from his holy habitation with indignation and wrath on behalf of his sons (Ass.Mos 10)
The Assumption, dated towards the end of the second temple period, shows how this texts was then understood; the figure emerging from his holy habitation was an angel priest, coming to bring judgement and establish his kingdom. The evil one was led away.

The Qumran Melchizedek text (11 QMelch) provides a third piece of evidence. It describes the day of Judgement which is also the Day of Atonement at the end of the tenth Jubilee. A heavenly deliverer, Melchizedek, the great high priest and leader of the sons of heaven, comes to deliver the sons of light from the hand of Satan. The accompanying texts are Psalm 82.1, where the `elohim are judged, Isaiah 52.7, where the messenger brings peace and proclaims the reign of God in Zion, Daniel 9.25, where the anointed prince comes to Jerusalem, and Isaiah 61.2-3, the day of the Lord’s favour and vengeance. The text describes judgement on the fallen angels as the people are rescued from Satan, peace for Jerusalem, the advent of the Messiah and the Day of the Lord. These three extracts, from Deuteronomy, the Assumption of Moses and the Melchizedek Text are mutually consistent, and show that the heavenly high priest was the Lord who came from his holy place on the Day of Atonement in order to save his people from the power of the fallen angels, to punish their enemies and to kpr the land. I suggest, in the light of this, that kpr has to mean restore, recreate or heal.

The most detailed description of the Day of the Lord (and indeed of the cosmic covenant), is found in 1 Enoch (the Ethiopic Enoch). The text begins with the Great Holy One coming from his dwelling place to bring judgement on the fallen angels. You will recall the minority opinion of R.Ishmael, that the Day of Atonement was necessitated by the fallen angels and their deeds. In 1 Enoch their leader Asael is bound by the archangel Raphael (the healer!) and then imprisoned in the desert in a place called Dudael. The purpose of this judgement, we are told, is to give life to the earth. ‘And he will proclaim life for the earth, that he is giving life to her’ (1 En.10.7)[28]. This was the blood ritual, the life giving ritual.

We now have to attend to some details in the ritual in the light of the underlying myth. First, there were tow goats and, according to the Mishnah, they had to be identical (m.Yoma 6.1). Between them, they carried the ritual. The is important; the two goats were two aspects of one ritual and cannot be separated. This was known to the first Christians who had no difficulty in comparing Jesus to both goats; he was both the sacrifice and the scapegoat.[29]

The two goats were distinguished by lot: one was ‘for Azazel’ and the other was ‘for the Lord’. That is how we usually translate. The scapegoat was driven into the desert to a place whose name appears in a variety of forms[30]. Origen (Celsus 6.43) , writing early in the third century CE, implies that the goat sent out into the desert was not ‘for Azazel’ but was called Azazel. This is quite clear in both the Greek and Latin texts; the evil one was identified with the snake in Eden and with the goat named Azazel sent out into the desert. Such an identification would be quite in accord with the system of counterparts which characterised temple ritual. The animal chosen was also appropriate; in Hebrew, the words ‘goat’ and ‘demon’ look identical (sa`yr)[31]. The high priest would have put the sins of Israel on to Azazel before he was taken to the desert. If the one goat chosen ‘was’ Azazel, then the other must have been the Lord. The construction in the Hebrew is identical, and the sequence in the ritual confirms this. The goat offered as the sin offering does not in fact take away the sin. Instead this is somehow collected by the high priest, presumably as he performs the atonement rite, ‘carried’ and then transferred from the high priest on to the head of the Azazel goat (Lev.16.21)[32].

Nickelsburg drew very different conclusions. In summing up his disagreement with Hanson, he discussed first the names of the desert place to which the goat was sent, and then offered this decisive conclusion as to why Enoch cannot have been related to Leviticus 16:
‘In Enoch all sin is written over Asael the demon. In the Targum (and the Bible) all of the people’s sins are placed on the head of the goat (Lev.16.21)... In Enoch the demon is destroyed. In the Targum it is the goat that perishes (Lev.16.22)... On the basis of this comparison we must ask whether 1 Enoch has been amplified by a Leviticus tradition which is represented by Targum Pseudo Jonathan. Indeed we shall ask, does 1 Enoch reflect Leviticus 16 at all?’
The evidence which Nickelsburg use as ‘proof’ that 1 Enoch and Leviticus 16 were unrelated is in fact the most crucial evidence for understanding the ritual of atonement, namely that the goat ‘was’ the demon. Nickelsburg continued his disagreement thus:
‘If (Hanson’s proposed) reviser (of the Semihazah and Asael traditions to form 1 Enoch) has used the Day of Atonement motif, he has made some radical revisions in his biblical tradition. 1. In the biblical text and the Targum, a ritual is prescribed which involves the sending out of a goat into the wilderness ‘to Azazel’ ( a demon? That is already out there) in consequence of which atonement is effected. In 1 Enoch, Asael, clearly a demon, is himself led out into the wilderness and buried there, in consequence of which the earth is healed. 2. Not only is Asael identified (in Hanson’s thesis) with the Azazel in the wilderness, he is also identified with the goat which is led out to Azazel. He has all sin written ver him and he is destroyed like th goat in the Targum...’
Such an identification of goat and demon was clearly impossible, and so he continued:
‘Although (Hanson’s proposed) reviser is dependent on Leviticus 16, he has used none of the specific atonement language of that chapter. Instead Raphael’s action is derived from his name; he heals the earth...
In summary, if the reviser is dependent on Leviticus 16, he has changed the nature of the biblical tradition, he has confused the cast of characters, and he has failed to introduce the central concept of Leviticus 16, viz. atonement... In view of these difficulties, a primary dependence on the Prometheus myth appears more tenable’.[33]
Can we be so certain that an ancient author changed the nature of the tradition, confused the cast of characters and failed to understand the atonement when the tradition, the characters and the nature of atonement are the very things we are trying to discover?

When lesser offences were kpr, the priest ‘carried’ the sin by virtue of eating the flesh of the animal whose life had effected the kpr. He identified with it. For the great kpr, the blood/life of the goat ‘as the Lord’ was a substitute for the blood/life of the high priest (also the Lord) who thus carried the sin of the people himself as he performed the act of kpr throughout the temple/creation. Thus, having collected the sins, he it was who was able to transfer them onto the goat who ‘carried’ them (ns`, Lev.16.22) and took them to the desert[34]. The role of the high priest, the Lord, was to remove the damaging effect of sin from the community and the creation, and thus to restore the bonds which held together the community and the creation. This is consistent with Mary Douglas’s observation about the peculiarity of biblical purity laws; many of the rituals were for reintegration not expulsion.
I must now offer some corroborating evidence. First, from 1 Enoch again, chapter 47 which is part of the first Similitude. Each of the three Similitudes is a vision of the heavenly throne and the judgement, and it is easy enough to establish the identity of the central Man figure. He is called Son of Man (whatever that means), the Anointed One, and the Chosen One, and the simple process of matching phrases and descriptions shows that he was identical to Isaiah’s enigmatic Servant. The scene in chapter 47 is this: the Man figure has ascended to the throne, as in Daniel 7; then we learn that the blood of the Righteous One has been brought up to the Lord of Spirits, together with the prayers of the righteous ones. Then the judgement begins. The Righteous One elsewhere in the Similitudes (1 En.38.2; 53.6) is the Anointed One. M Black suggested that the Righteous One whose blood was brought before the Lord could be a reference to Isaiah 53, where the Servant, who makes righteous, pours out his life as an `asam. [35]

Second, we see that Isaiah 53 could have been inspired by the Day of Atonement ritual. A few points must suffice.
‘He shall startle many nations’ (Isai.52.15); yazzeh, the apparently untranslatable verb means ‘sprinkle’ in the atonement ritual (Lev.16.19). The Servant figure does not ‘startle’ many peoples; the original Hebrew says he ‘sprinkles’[36].
The Servant ‘carries’ the people’s sicknesses or weaknesses (Isa.53.4).
The Servant has been wounded for their transgressions. Wounded, hll, is a word which carries both the meanings required by Mary Douglas’s theory of atonement, viz. to pierce or to defile.
‘Upon him was the chastisement that made us whole’ (Isa.53.5b) can also be translated ‘The covenant bond of our peace was his responsibility’[37]. ‘With his stripes, hbrt, [38]we are healed’ would then become ‘By his joining us together we are healed’, forming a parallel to mwsr, covenant bond. The primary meaning of hbr is to unite, join together.
The Servant pours out his soul/life as a sin offering, `sm (Isa.53.19). the `sm is, according to Milgrom, the sacrifice which redresses the m`l, which is either sacrilege against holy things or violation of the covenant.[39] The soul/life was in the blood of the sacrifice, hence it was poured out.

All this suggests that the Servant figure was modelled on the one who performed the atonement rites in the first temple. This figure appears in Enoch’s Similitudes in his heavenly aspect as the Man, the Anointed, the Chosen One. In the ritual of the second temple, the figure became two goats: one bearing the sins away and the life/blood of the other being taken into the holy of holies where the ark, the throne had been[40].

Third, there is additional information about the scapegoat in the Mishnah; people pulled out the goat’s hair as it was led away (m.Yoma 6.4). In the Epistle of Barnabas[41] there is a quotation from an unknown source about the scapegoat: ‘Spit on it, all of you, thrust your goads into it, wreathe its head with scarlet wool and let it be driven into the desert’ (Barn.7). The goat suffered the fate of the Servant: ‘I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard. I hid not my face from shame and spitting (Isa.50.6); and ‘He was pierced for our transgressions’ (Isa.53.5). Barnabas continues: ‘When they see him (Jesus) coming on the Day, they are going to be struck with terror at the manifest parallel between him and the goat.’ The reference is to the future coming of the Lord to his people. This is another Servant motif; the recognition of who the Servant is[42]. Barnabas, too, associates the scapegoat with the Day of the Lord: ‘They shall see him on that Day, clad to the ankles in his red woollen robe, and will say, ‘Is this not he whom we once crucified and mocked and pierced and spat upon?’ (Barn.7).

To conclude. I must return to the question with which I began: what was the understanding of atonement which gave rise to the Christian claims about cosmic reconciliation, which Dillistone thought must have derived from pagan systems? What I have proposed would explain why the Lord himself was the atonement sacrifice[43]. The whole point of the argument in the Epistle to the Hebrews is that it was Jesus the high priest who took his own blood into the heavenly sanctuary and thereby became the mediator of a new covenant (Heb.9.11-15). What I propose would explain the cosmic unity described in Ephesians 1.10: ‘to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth...’ and in Colossians 1.17,20: ‘In him all things hold together,... through him to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven...’ It would explain Matthew’s use of the Servant text ‘he took our infirmities and bore our diseases’ in the context of healing miracles (Mat.8.17). It would explain why a sermon in Acts refers to Jesus as the Righteous One and the Servant but also as the Author of Life (Acts 3.13-15). It would explain all the new life and new creation imagery in the New Testament. Above all it would explain the so-called kenotic hymn in Philippians2.6-11; the self-emptying of the Servant would have been the symbolic life giving when the blood, the life, was poured out by the high priest on the Day of Atonement to heal and restore the creation.[44]

Priestly and Liturgical Roles of Metatron
[an excerpt from A. Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition (TSAJ, 107; Tuebingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2005), pp. xii+383. ISBN 3-16-148544-0.]
…. In one of his recent publications, Philip Alexander traces the development of Enoch’s image in Jewish literature from the Second Temple period to the early Middle Ages. He notes that these developments point to a genuine, ongoing tradition that demonstrates the astonishing persistence of certain motifs. As an example of the consistency of some themes and concepts, Alexander points to the evolution of Enoch’s priestly role, already prominent in the early Second Temple materials, which later receives its second embodiment in Metatron’s sacerdotal duties. He observes that “Enoch in Jubilees in the second century B.C.E. is a high priest. Almost a thousand years later he retains this role in the Heikhalot texts, though in a rather different setting.”[1] Pointing to one possible example of the long-lasting association of Enoch-Metatron with the sacerdotal office, Alexander directs attention to the priestly role of this exalted angel attested in 3 Enoch 15B where Metatron is put in charge of the heavenly tabernacle.[2] The passage from Sefer Hekhalot reads:
Metatron is the Prince over all princes, and stands before him who is exalted above all gods. He goes beneath the throne of glory, where he has a great heavenly tabernacle of light, and brings out the deafening fire, and puts it in the ears of the holy creatures, so that they should not hear the sound of the utterance that issues from the mouth of the Almighty.[3]
The first significant detail of this description is that the tabernacle is placed in the immediate proximity of the Throne, below the Seat of Glory. This tradition does not appear to be peculiar to 3 Enoch’s description since Hekhalot writings depict the Youth, who is often identified there with Metatron, as the one who emerges from beneath the Throne.[4] The proximity of the tabernacle to the Kavod also recalls early Enochic materials, specifically 1 Enoch 14, in which the patriarch’s visitation of the celestial sanctuary is described as his approach to the Kavod. Both traditions (Enochic and Merkabah) appear to stress Enoch-Metatron’s role as the celestial high priest, since he approaches the realm where ordinary creatures, angelic or human, are not allowed to enter. This realm of the immediate presence of the Deity, the Holy of Holies, is situated behind the veil represented by heavenly (dwgrp) or terrestrial (tkrp) curtains.[5]
Another important sacerdotal function mentioned in 3 Enoch 15B and other materials includes the duties of preparation and arrangement of the angelic hosts who participate in the liturgical praise of the Deity. In this respect Metatron is also responsible for the protection of the celestial singers: he guards their ears so that the mighty voice of God would not harm them.[6]
The traditions about Metatron’s liturgical duties inside and near the heavenly tabernacle are not limited to the aforementioned description from Sefer Hekhalot. Thus, one Mandean bowl speaks about Metatron as the one “who serves before the Curtain ()dwgrp).”[7] Alexander proposes that this description “may be linked to the Hekhalot tradition about Metatron as the heavenly High Priest (3 Enoch 15B:1), and certainly alludes to his status as ‘Prince of the Divine Presence.’”[8]
Gershom Scholem draws attention to the passage found in Merkabah Shelemah in which the heavenly tabernacle is called the tabernacle of Metatron (Nwr++m Nk#m). In the tradition preserved in Numbers Rabbah 12:12, the heavenly sanctuary again is associated with one of Metatron’s titles and is called the tabernacle of the Youth (r(nh Nk#m):[9]
R. Simon expounded: When the Holy One, blessed be He, told Israel to set up the Tabernacle He intimated to the ministering angels that they also should make a Tabernacle, and when the one below was erected the other was erected on high. The latter was the tabernacle of the youth (r(nh Nk#m) whose name was Metatron, and therein he offers up the souls of the righteous to atone for Israel in the days of their exile.[10]
The intriguing detail in this description of the tabernacle is that it mentions the souls of the righteous offered by Metatron. This reference might allude to the imagery often found in early Enochic materials which refer to the daily sacrifice of the angelic hosts bathing themselves in the river of fire streaming beneath the Throne of Glory, the exact location of the tabernacle of the Youth.
The priestly functions of Metatron were not forgotten in later Jewish mysticism. The materials associated with the Zoharic tradition also attest to Metatron’s duties in the heavenly tabernacle. Zohar II, 159a reads:
We have learned that the Holy One, blessed be He, told Moses all the regulations and the patterns of the Tabernacle, each one with its own prescription, and [Moses] saw Metatron ministering as High Priest within. … he saw Metatron ministering…. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: Look at the tabernacle, and look at the boy….[11]
The significant detail of this passage from the Zohar is that it refers to Metatron as the High Priest. It should be noted that not only this relatively late composition, but also the earlier materials associated with the Hekhalot tradition, directly identify the exalted angels with the office and the title of the celestial High Priest. Rachel Elior observes that Metatron appears in the Genizah documents as a High Priest who offers sacrifices on the heavenly altar.[12] She calls attention to the important witness of one Cairo Genizah text which explicitly labels Metatron as the High Priest and the chief of the priests:
I adjure you [Metatron], more beloved and dear than all heavenly beings, [Faithful servant] of the God of Israel, the High Priest (lwdg Nhk), chief of [the priest]s (M[ynhkh] #)r), you who poss[ess seven]ty names; and whose name[is like your Master’s] … Great Prince, who is appointed over the great princes, who is the head of all the camps.[13]
As has been already mentioned, Metatron’s service behind the heavenly Curtain, Pargod, recalls the unique function of the earthly high priest, who alone was allowed to enter behind the veil of the terrestrial sanctuary.[14] It was previously explained that the possible background for this unique role of Metatron can be traced to 1 Enoch 14; in this text, the patriarch alone appears in the celestial Holy of Holies while the other angels are barred from the inner house.[15] This depiction also agrees with the Hekhalot evidence according to which only the Youth, videlicet Metatron, is allowed to serve behind the heavenly veil.
It appears that Metatron’s role as the heavenly High Priest is supported in the Hekhalot materials by the motif of the particular sacerdotal duties of the terrestrial protagonist of the Hekhalot literature, Rabbi Ishmael b. Elisha, to whom Metatron serves as an angelus interpres. In view of Enoch-Metatron’s sacerdotal affiliations it is not coincidental that Rabbi Ishmael himself is the tanna who is attested in b. Ber. 7a as a High Priest.[16] Rachel Elior indicates that in Hekhalot Rabbati, this rabbinic authority is portrayed in terms similar to those used in the Talmud, as a priest burning an offering on the altar.[17] Other Hekhalot materials, including 3 Enoch, also often refer to R. Ishmael’s priestly origins.[18] The priestly features of this visionary might not only reflect the heavenly priesthood of Metatron,[19] but also allude to the former priestly duties of the patriarch Enoch known from 1 Enoch and Jubilees, since some scholars observe that “3 Enoch presents a significant parallelism between the ascension of Ishmael and the ascension of Enoch.”[20]
The possible parallel between R. Ishmael and Enoch leads again to the question of the hypothetical roots of Metatron’s role as the priest and the servant in the heavenly tabernacle. Previous parts of this study have demonstrated that already in the Book of the Watchers and Jubilees, the seventh antediluvian hero was portrayed as a priest in the heavenly sanctuary. In another Enochic text, 2 Enoch, the descendants of the seventh antediluvian patriarch, including his son Methuselah, are depicted as builders of an altar on the place where Enoch was taken up to heaven. The choice of the place might underscore the peculiar role of the patriarch in relation to the heavenly prototype of this earthly sanctuary. The same pseudepigraphon portrays Enoch in the sacerdotal office as the one who delivers the sacrificial instructions to his children. These connections will be closely examined later in this study.
Although the prototypes of Metatron’s sacerdotal duties can be traced with relative ease to the early Enochic traditions, some scholars argue that other early traditions might have also contributed to this development. Scholem suggests that Metatron’s priestly duties in the heavenly tabernacle might be influenced by Michael’s role as the heavenly priest.[21] He observes that “according to the traditions of certain Merkabah mystics, Metatron takes the place of Michael as the high priest who serves in the heavenly Temple.…”[22] Scholem’s insights are important since some talmudic materials, including b. H9ag. 12b, b. Menah. 110a, and b. Zebah. 62a, suggest that the view of Michael’s role as the heavenly priest was widespread in the rabbinic literature and might constitute one of the significant contributing factors to Metatron’s sacerdotal image.
Finally, one more element of Metatron’s priestly role must be highlighted. The passage from 3 Enoch 15B introduced in the beginning of this section shows that one of the aspects of Metatron’s service in the heavenly tabernacle involves his leadership over the angelic hosts singing their heavenly praise to the Deity.[23] Metatron can thus be seen as not only the servant in the celestial tabernacle or the heavenly High Priest, but also as the leader of the divine worship. Martin Cohen notes that in the Shi(ur Qomah materials, Metatron’s service in the heavenly tabernacle appears to be “entirely liturgical;” he “is more the heavenly choirmaster and beadle than the celestial high priest.”[24]
The descriptions of Metatron’s functions in directing angelic hosts in the presence of the Deity occur several times in the Hekhalot materials. One such description can be found in Hekhalot Zutarti (Synopse §390) where one can find the following tradition:
One hayyah rises above the seraphim and descends upon the tabernacle of the youth (r(nh Nk#m) whose name is Metatron, and speaks with a loud voice. A voice of sheer silence…. Suddenly the angels fall silent. The watchers and holy ones become quiet. They are silent, and are pushed into the river of fire. The hayyot put their faces on the ground, and this youth whose name is Metatron brings the fire of deafness and puts it into their ears so that they could not hear the sound of God’s speech or the ineffable name. The youth whose name is Metatron then invokes, in seven voices, his living, pure, honored, awesome… name.…[25]
Metatron is portrayed in this account not only as a servant in the celestial tabernacle or the heavenly High Priest, but also as the leader of the heavenly liturgy. The evidence unfolding Metatron’s liturgical role is not confined solely to the Hekhalot corpus, but can also be detected in another prominent literary stream associated with early Jewish mysticism, represented by the Shi(ur Qomah materials. The passages found in the Shi(ur Qomah texts attest to a familiar tradition in which Metatron is posited as a liturgical servant. Sefer Haqomah 155–164 reads:
And (the) angels who are with him come and encircle the Throne of Glory. They are on one side and the (celestial) creatures are on the other side, and the Shekhinah is on the Throne of Glory in the center. And one creature goes up over the seraphim and descends on the tabernacle of the lad whose name is Metatron and says in a great voice, a thin voice of silence, “The Throne of Glory is glistening!” Immediately, the angels fall silent and the (irin and the qadushin are still. They hurry and hasten into the river of fire. And the celestial creatures turn their faces towards the earth, and this lad, whose name is Metatron, brings the fire of deafness … and puts (it) in the ears of the celestial creatures so that they do not hear the sound of the speech of the Holy One, blessed be He, and the explicit name that the lad, whose name is Metatron, utters at that time in seven voices, in seventy voices, in his living, pure, honored, holy, awesome, worthy, brave, strong and holy name.[26]
A similar tradition can be found in Siddur Rabbah 37–46, another text associated with the Shi(ur Qomah tradition where the angelic Youth, however, is not identified with the angel Metatron:
The angels who are with him come and encircle the (Throne of) Glory; they are on one side and the celestial creatures are on the other side, and the Shekhinah is in the center. And one creature ascends above the Throne of Glory and touches the seraphim and descends on the Tabernacle of the lad and declares in a great voice, (which is also) a voice of silence, “The throne alone shall I exalt over him.” The ofanim become silent (and) the seraphim are still. The platoons of (irin and qadushin are shoved into the River of Fire and the celestial creatures turn their faces downward, and the lad brings the fire silently and puts it in their ears so that they do not hear the spoken voice; he remains (thereupon) alone. And the lad calls Him, “the great, mighty and awesome, noble, strong, powerful, pure and holy, and the strong and precious and worthy, shining and innocent, beloved and wondrous and exalted and supernal and resplendent God.[27]
These passages indicate that Metatron is understood not just as a being who protects and prepares the heavenly hosts for praise of the Deity, but also as the one who leads and participates in the liturgical ceremony by invoking the divine name. The passage underlines the extraordinary scope of Metatron’s vocal abilities, allowing him to sing the Deity’s name in seven voices.
It is evident that the tradition preserved in Sefer Haqomah cannot be separated from the microforms found in Synopse §390 and 3 Enoch 15B since all these narratives are unified by a similar structure and terminology. All of them also emphasize the Youth’s leading role in the course of the celestial service.
It is also significant that Metatron’s role as the one responsible for protecting and leading the servants in praise of the Deity is not restricted only to the aforementioned passages, but finds expression in the broader context of the Hekhalot and Sh(iur Qomah materials.[28] Another similar depiction, which appears earlier in the same text (Synopse §385), again refers to Metatron’s leading role in the celestial praise, noting that it occurs three times a day:
When the youth enters below the throne of glory, God embraces him with a shining face. All the angels gather and address God as “the great, mighty, awesome God,” and they praise God three times a day by means of the youth ….[29]
It also appears that Metatron’s duties as the choirmaster or the celestial liturgical director are applied to his leadership not only over the angelic hosts but also over humans, specifically the visionaries admitted to the heavenly realm. In Synopse §2, Enoch-Metatron appears to be preparing Rabbi Ishmael for singing praise to the Holy One: “At once Metatron, Prince of the Divine Presence, came and revived me and raised me to my feet, but still I had not strength enough to sing a hymn before the glorious throne of the glorious King….”[30]
It has already been noted that the priestly duties of Metatron might plausibly find their early counterparts in the seventh antediluvian hero’s affiliations with the sacerdotal office. This background suggests that Metatron’s liturgical role as the celestial choirmaster might also have its origins in early Enochic materials. Entertaining this possibility of the Enochic origins of Metatron’s role as the leader of the divine worship, one must turn to the passage from 2 Enoch 18 in which the patriarch is depicted as the one who encourages the celestial Watchers to start the liturgy before the Face of God. The longer recension of 2 Enoch 18:8 relates:
And I [Enoch] said, “Why are you waiting for your brothers? And why don’t you perform the liturgy before the face of the Lord? Start up your liturgy, and perform the liturgy before the face of the Lord, so that you do not enrage your Lord to the limit.”[31]
It is significant that, although Enoch gives advice to the angels situated in the fifth heaven, he encourages them to start the liturgy “before the Face of the Lord,” that is, in front of the divine Kavod, the exact location where Metatron conducts the heavenly worship of the angelic hosts in the later rabbinic and Hekhalot materials. In view of the aforementioned conceptual developments, the tradition found in 2 Enoch 18 might represent an important step towards the defining and shaping of Enoch-Metatron’s sacerdotal office as the servant of the heavenly tabernacle and the celestial choirmaster…...[32]