The Legacy of Solomon

by John Francis Kinsella

The day had been long and with the time difference between Paris and Tel-Aviv O’Connelly had overrun his biological clock. Unable to sleep he turned the pages of de Lussac’s manuscript and stopped at a chapter entitled ‘Purification’ and started to read.

  The key person in the Temple of Jerusalem was the high priest who applied the rules of purity and impurity defined in the Torah, which were based on the notion of moral purification. Other than different physical or organic impurities, all individuals who commit a breach of the moral laws prescribed by the Eternal to Moses are impure.

  However, the moral impurity of the whole population of Israel was absolved by the purification ritual celebrated in the Temple on the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur, the greatest feast day in the Jewish calendar.

  During this ceremony, performed under the strictest and most rigid rules, the High Priest, in the name of the entire Jewish community of Israel, solicited the benevolence of the Eternal and pardon for all the sins committed, or that persons or members of the community could have committed in the course of the year ended.

  Because of the global responsibility the High Priest assumed, the Torah first of all defines the purity and purification specific to the sacerdotal class, that is to say to the High Priest, the priests and by extension the Levites in exercise in the Temple.

  This concept of purity and purification, specific to the the Temple, was extended to a certain degree to all persons exercising an activity in the Temple.

  In addition to the rules of purity imposed on all Jews were several specific and complementary conditions, imposed on all priests in general and more particularly on the High Priest, to enable them to exercise their sacerdotal offices.

  Amongst these rules specific to the sacerdotal corps figured physical integrity as described in Leviticus:

  Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron, saying, 'No man of your offspring throughout their generations who has a defect shall approach to offer the food of his God.

  For no one who has a defect shall approach: a blind man, or a lame man, or he who has a disfigured face, or any deformed limb, or a man who has a broken foot or broken hand, or a hunchback or a dwarf, or who has a defect in his eye or eczema or scabs or crushed testicles.

  and

  He shall take a wife in her virginity. A widow, or a divorced woman, or one who is profaned by harlotry, these he may not take; but rather he is to marry a virgin of his own people, so that he will not profane his offspring among his people; for I am the Lord who sanctifies him.

  Also the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by harlotry, she profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire.

  Sacerdotal purification by complete immersion of the body in the living waters of a bath within the Sanctuary itself, was to be carried out for the consecration of the High Priest, each time the High Priest entered into the Tent of Meeting and in particular on the Day of Atonement, and in addition the washing of hands and feet was to be carried out before all sacrificial offerings at the altar.

  The purification of the High Priest was made by complete immersion in the living waters of a bath situated inside of the Sanctuary that a supreme act of purification and having immediate effect, whereas, in general the purification in the living waters did not take effect until after sunset.

  The worship in the Temple and the precepts of purity and purification at their origin and without any other consideration were uniquely attributed to the priests, principally the Sadducees.

  The sacerdotal class and the Sadducees were obliged to establish a system for all the rites of purifications, extending the different obligations of the Torah over time by constantly by applying the most extreme of the prescribed conditions. This included the washing of hands and feet, for the High Priest, his sons and hereditary successors, in the bath near the altar, a bath for complete immersion in living waters, for the High Priest and his sons and hereditary successors, in the Sanctuary, in a sacred place near the altar

  Progressively, the sacerdotal class, the Sadducees, then the Pharisees, relayed by the rabbis, had therefore extended to all the priests of the Temple, this obligation of supreme purification in the Sanctuary, as demanded in the Torah.

  The Pharisees, in their constant struggle for the conquest of ideological power, fought this interpretation of the Scriptures, and on different occasions, as transmitted by rabbinic literature, succeeded in imposing their views by obliging the High Priest and the priests to submit to their demands.

  An example is the ceremony of the sacrifice of the Red Heifer. The sacrifice and burning of the Red Heifer, whose ashes were necessary for certain rites of purification, had to take place outside of the Temple. The Pharisees took advantage of this obligation by questioning the principal of instant and lasting purification of the High Priest, imposing the principle of a renewed purification whenever the High Priest left the inner Temple.

  Another example is on the Day of Atonement, for which the Pharisees progressively imposed not one but five successive baths of purification for the High Priest in the course of the ceremony, in order to be sure that no breach could have been made in the complex laws of purification on the Day of Atonement for all Israel.

  It was this day once a year the High Priest asked pardon from the Eternal for all the sins committed by the Jews, which is to say asked for the purification for all Israel. It was the only day when the High Priest alone could enter into the Holy of Holies and in a state of total purity, to ask the Eternal for for forgiveness of all Israel.

  It is also to say to which point this capital ceremony that aspired to the quintessence of purification should be executed, respecting the laws down to the least detail, and in strict compliance with the spirit of the Torah, as the purification of all

  Once a year, the Day of Atonement, a complex ritual is imposed on the High Priest, who is dressed in special robes of pure cotton, to offer an exceptional sacrifice to the eternal and to cast all the sins of Israel onto a ram that is then sent into the desert to an entity of evil doing named Azazel. This is described in Leviticus:

  Aaron shall enter the holy place with this: with a bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He shall put on the holy linen tunic, and the linen undergarments shall be next to his body, and he shall be girded with the linen sash and attired with the linen turban (these are holy garments). Then he shall bathe his body in water and put them on.

  He shall take from the congregation of the sons of Israel two male goats for a sin offering and one ram for a burnt offering.

  Then Aaron shall offer the bull for the sin offering which is for himself, that he may make atonement for himself and for his household.

  He shall take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the doorway of the tent of meeting.

  Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scapegoat.

  Then Aaron shall offer the goat on which the lot for the Lord fell, and make it a sin offering. But the goat on which the lot for the scapegoat fell shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make atonement upon it, to send it into the wilderness as the scapegoat.

  Then Aaron shall offer the bull of the sin offering which is for himself and make atonement for himself and for his household, and he shall slaughter the bull of the sin offering which is for himself.

  He shall take a fire pan full of coals of fire from upon the altar before the Lord and two handfuls of finely ground sweet incense, and bring it inside the veil. He shall put the incense on the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the ark of the testimony, otherwise he will die.

  Aaron then purifies the Tent of Meeting by sprinkling blood from the sacrifice on the Altar.

  Moreover, he shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat on the east side; also in front of the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times.

  Then he shall slaughter the g
oat of the sin offering which is for the people, and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat.

  He shall make atonement for the holy place, because of the impurities of the sons of Israel and because of their transgressions in regard to all their sins; and thus he shall do for the tent of meeting which abides with them in the midst of their impurities.

  When he goes in to make atonement in the holy place, no one shall be in the tent of meeting until he comes out, that he may make atonement for himself and for his household and for all the assembly of Israel.

  Then he shall go out to the altar that is before the Lord and make atonement for it, and shall take some of the blood of the bull and of the blood of the goat and put it on the horns of the altar on all sides.

  With his finger he shall sprinkle some of the blood on it seven times and cleanse it, and from the impurities of the sons of Israel consecrate it.

  When he finishes atoning for the holy place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall offer the live goat.

  Then Aaron shall lay both of his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins; and he shall lay them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who stands in readiness.

  The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness.

  Then Aaron shall come into the tent of meeting and take off the linen garments which he put on when he went into the holy place, and shall leave them there.

  He shall bathe his body with water in a holy place and put on his clothes, and come forth and offer his burnt offering and the burnt offering of the people and make atonement for himself and for the people.

  Then he shall offer up in smoke the fat of the sin offering on the altar. The one who released the goat as the scapegoat shall wash his clothes and bathe his body with water; then afterwards he shall come into the camp.

  To avoid running the slightest risk of not fulfilling the whole of the Levitic prescriptions during the annual purification of all Israel, the priests demanded that the High Priest underwent not two purification baths as indicated in the Torah, but five baths with complete immersion.

  In the Temple there were six chambers in the Priests Court – three to the north and three to the south. The Salt Chamber, where salt was stored; the Parvah Chamber, where meat was salted for the High Priest and hides were salted; the Rinsing Chamber, where the innards of the animals sacrificed were washed; the Wood Chamber for the High Priest; the Diaspora Chamber and the Hewn Stone Chamber where the Grand Sanhedrin formally gathered in meeting.

  Baths or mikvehs were situated in the Court of the Lepers, which was in reality not for lepers, at least those unhealed, but for those who had been cured from skin disease and had to go through purification according to the prescribed rules before being admitted into the Sanctuary.

  The Court of the Women was thus called because it was where the women gathered, separated from the men, on a balcony that surrounded and overlooked the court.

  The bronze bath – called the Sea of Bronze – was intended for the High Priest’s purification bath and for the washing of hands and feet during the different phases of the ceremony.

  When Solomon constructed the First Temple in Jerusalem, the sacerdotal hierarchy no doubt ensured that the Sanctuary was designed as it had been in the Meeting Tent, faithfully transposing its form into the architecture of the new Sanctuary.

  The biblical legend recounts that Solomon asked King Hiram of Tyre, for a specialist in bronze to cast the monumental bath that sat on twelve bronze bulls, symbolising both the twelve tribes of Israel and the years of wandering in the desert. Therefore it was supposed that the bath installed in the magnificent Temple rebuilt by Herod was both in weight and dimensions at least as big as that in the First Temple, and once filled would have weighed around one hundred tons.

  The use of this great bronze bathn, which would have measured more than five metres in diameter, twenty metres in circumference and five metres high, filled with water two and a half metres deep, posed different problems of accessibility and use. The bath would have certainly required a series of steps inside and outside – with a curtain to hide the priests as they undressed – since they could not have been completely immersed without danger in water two and a half metres deep.

  This type of awkward situation that occurred in the utilization of this bronze purification bath was referred to in the Qumran texts, which proposed a solution for the practical problems in the priest’s purification area that was situated between the altar and the Temple.

  The small community of Qumran, which lived on the shores of the Dead Sea, were probably an extremely purist branch of the Essene sect, who at the outset may have been led by a dissident high priest following opposition with the sacerdotal authority and the royal court of Jerusalem at the time of Hasmonean kings.

  The first leader of the Qumran community, a high priest, had either refused the principal that the power of the royal court and the sacerdotal authorities be combined in a single person, which was the case for the Hasmonean dynasty, or the leader was in conflict with Queen Salome at the time when she favoured the power of Rabbis and the Pharisees to the detriment of the hereditary priests and the Sadducee party.

  Archaeological vestiges bear witness to this as seen by a stream of running water from a spring in the cliffs overlooking the Dead Sea that had twisted through the small town of the Qumran community, pouring in gentle cascades from one purification bath to another.

  One of the baths – the largest – was destined to the purification of one of the meeting rooms, the floor of which was slightly sloped, and where the community ate meals together, in place of the sacrificial ceremonies that took place in Jerusalem. And if the community could not sacrifice animals, the purifications obligation with living water was nevertheless transposed with the greatest fidelity for the strict worship that was practised within the Qumran community.

  Amongst the writings of Qumran that have come down to us, one, called the Temple Scroll, establishes the rules that would be applied when the concepts of community would at last prevail when the new age arrived and the community would be at last be able to take charge of the Temple and its rituals.

  The Temple Scroll describes a Temple with a new architecture, completely idealised, in the manner of the visionary Temple described by Ezekiel. Amongst these different descriptions and prophetic prescriptions figured extremely pragmatic directives concerning the bath for the purification of the priests.

  It seemed that this specific part of the text of the Temple Scroll had been established taking into account the real difficulties caused by the position and relatively empirical use of this purification bath in the second and perhaps the third Temple of Jerusalem.

  The solutions proposed by the Temple Scroll were according to all evidence aimed at rationalising and sanctifying the use of the bath-mikveh for the supreme purification of the priesthood by protecting its dignity and magnifying its exemplarity.

  With this in mind a special edifice would have been built around the purification bath. This would have also served as a vestry for the priests, where they could undress away from the regards of others, to proceed to their purification by total immersion in the living waters of the bath, and then dress themselves with the ritual vestments for worship in the Temple.

  The Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls of the Temple give these instructions:

  You will construct to the south-east of the Temple a square building around the bath 21 cubits by 21 cubits.

  This building will be 50 cubits from the Altar.

  The wall of this building will measure 3 cubits thick and 20 cubits high.

  You will make doors to the east, north and west 4 cubits wide and 7 cubits high…

  In
the wall of this building you will make boxes 1 cubit wide.

  These boxes will be position 4 cubits above the floor and covered with gold.

  The priests will put their cloths they wear in them…when they officiate in the Sanctuary.

  You will build a channel around the the bath inside of the building.

  This channel will will discharge into the bath and leave the building by an opening cut in the floor, the water could pour into this opening, to be evacuated and disappear into the ground.

  No person should touch this water, because blood from the sacrifices could be mixed with it.

  During the great annual religious feasts it is estimated that about one thousand priests officiated in the Temple and that all these priests had to be purified by immersion in the mikvehs, washing their hands and feet a continuous flow of water to ensure the necessary purification.

  The cistern that Warren of Palestine Survey Fund designated as N°8, could contain more than twelve million litres of water was considered by its form to be one of the most ancient and was called the ‘Great Sea’ in the Septuagint was directly connected to another later cistern called the ‘Sea’ these were thought to supply the Bronze Sea with running water.

  Aristeas the Greek, who wrote between the third and first centuries BC, described the functioning of rituals in either the Hasmonean Temple or the Herodian Temple. Whichever the case, Aristeas had more than likely witnessed the ceremonies in the Temple during a pilgrimage on the occasion of one the great annual religious feasts, indicating a figure of seven hundred priests officiating in the Temple of Jerusalem.

  The great number of officiating priests implied a great number of permanent installations for purification, for complete bodily immersion, or for washing hands and feet in running waters within the Sanctuary.

  Aristeas wrote in his letter to Philocrates:

  The ministration of the priests is in every way unsurpassed both for its physical endurance and for its orderly and silent service. For they all work spontaneously, though it entails much painful exertion, and each one has a special task allotted to him. The service is carried on without interruption - some provide the wood, others the oil, others the fine wheat flour, others the spices; others again bring the pieces of flesh for the burnt offering, exhibiting a wonderful degree of strength. For they take up with both hands the limbs of a calf, each of them weighing more than two talents, and throw them with each hand in a wonderful way on to the high place of the altar and never miss placing them on the proper spot. In the same way the pieces of the sheep and also of the goats are wonderful both for their weight and their fatness. For those, whose business it is, always select the beasts which are without blemish and specially fat, and thus the sacrifice which I have described, is carried out. There is a special place set apart for them to rest in, where those who are relieved from duty sit. When this takes place, those who have already rested and are ready to assume their duties rise up spontaneously since there is no one to give orders with regard to the arrangement of the sacrifices. The most complete silence reigns so that one might imagine that there was not a single person present, though there are actually seven hundred men engaged in the work, besides the vast number of those who are occupied in bringing up the sacrifices.

  As to Flavius Josephus, who was himself from a family of priests, he also described the functioning of rituals that took place in the Temple of Herod, and confirmed indirectly that more than one thousand priests officiated in the Temple.

  And this was the speech Herod made to them: but still this speech frightened many of the people, as being unexpected by them, and because it seemed incredible, it did not encourage them, for they were afraid he would pull down the whole edifice, and be able to bring his intentions to perfection for its rebuilding; and this danger appeared to them to be very great, and the vastness of the undertaking to be such as could hardly be accomplished. But while they were in this disposition, the king encouraged them, and told them he would not pull down their Temple till all things were gotten ready for building it up entirely again. And he promised them this beforehand, so he did not break his word with them, but got ready a thousand wagons, that were to bring stones for the building, and chose out ten thousand of the most skilful workmen, and bought a thousand sacerdotal garments for the priests, and had some of them taught the art of stone cutting, and others of carpenters, and then began to build.

  Many strange ideas existed as to how purifying waters were brought to the Temple. A Babylonian rabbi, Ben Katin, who positioned the Temple at the level of the present day Haram, invented the idea whereby a system of mechanical winches raised the bronze bath, filled with water and weighing one hundred tons, every morning and then lowered it again every night through a vertical shaft from a depth of twelve meters beneath the ground. Certain rabbis even recounted that the noise of the winch could be heard from as far as Jericho.

  The problem was that all evidence was destroyed when the Romans razed the Temple and the city, obliterating it once and for all, leaving no vestige as to the functioning of the Temple and its water system. Except that is for the water storage system hewn into the bedrock of the Haram built by the ancient Hebrews

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  de Lussac