God's Gold (14 page)

All three of these animals through which God chose to appear to Ezekiel turn up in the Jewish necropolis of Beth Shearim and the eagle, of course, stars on the base of the Arch of Titus menorah. As the symbol of God, the heavens, and immortality, its existence in Second Temple Jewish art makes complete sense. For the same reason, the eagle remained popular in the Late Roman and Early Byzantine period above the door of the synagogue at Capernaum in the Galilee and standing behind the figure of Orpheus playing his lyre on a wall relief in the third-century AD synagogue of Dura-Europos in Syria.

So Judaism's allegedly strict ban on figurative decoration turned out to be a modern myth rooted in Orthodox Judaism's literal interpretation of the Old Testament. The view is understandably myopic; it is the belief of a group stuck in the shtetls of early modern Eastern Europe. When confronted by persecution, people typically gravitate toward the purist expression of religion, in this case the harsh words of Deuteronomy. Today, however, archaeology has exposed a very different truth, and even a careful reading of Late Roman rabbinical texts reveals all kinds of figures displayed in Jerusalem at the time of Herod (except human beings), including exactly the kind of sea monsters that turn up on the pedestal of the Arch of Titus menorah.

My underground research in the catacombs of Beth Shearim confirmed that the art on this base was authentic and didn't violate the Jewish sensitivities of two thousand years ago. The photolike scene of the emperor Vespasian's triumph of AD 71 on the Arch of Titus was thus a real snapshot in time, not the invention of a Roman artist. Finally, I had tangible proof that the arch's menorah, and hence the one plundered from the Temple by Titus, was the same antique crafted by Judah Maccabee in 164 BC. Now I had an accurate visual image of the most important part of the treasure for which I was hunting.

Idling against a wall in Beth Shearim's ruined Roman synagogue, I conjured up images of Jews sitting on the synagogue benches praying and chatting about the town's latest olive harvests and shiploads of raw glass sent to their Jewish brethren in Tyre. After all, the ancient synagogue wasn't just a pious house of worship, where reverent voices spoke in hushed tones. These places were also community centers where businessmen made deals, people congregated for social events, and children got into trouble out back.

Somewhere inside, Beth Shearim's synagogue may well have possessed a menorah like the Temple original. The town's Jews would have been aware of the object's historical symbolism. They would have incorrectly assumed that the seven-branched shape dated back to the days when Moses crafted the first Tabernacle menorah in the wilderness of Sinai. The fateful destruction of Solomon's lamp by King Nebuchadnezzar would have been imprinted on their memory. And Judah Maccabee would have been celebrated as a superhero who rekindled the Temple ritual in the second century BC, an event celebrated in the depths of winter as Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. Every time Vespasian and Titus were mentioned, their memories would have been cursed.

After studying the Arch of Titus menorah base, however, the realization dawned on me that modern history has forgotten by far the most primitive meaning of the ancient Jewish candelabrum. My walk in Beth Shearim's valley of the dead revealed that the pedestal symbols
were very specifically chosen to reflect God's control over the entire world. As a bird of the skies who soars closest to God's throne, at one level the eagle represented the heavens. Conversely, the sea monster or
ketos
stood for the depths of the sea. In this sense, the base designed for the Second Temple rather neatly advertised with one quick glance the extent of God's omnipotence. But this was just the veneer of a far deeper symbolic cosmology.

Other than evoking curiosity and amusement, the scene of the soldier “wearing” a menorah on his head in the ancient cemetery left me bemused. I felt I had missed a crucial clue in this composition, a small detail that held the key to unlock a completely different meaning of the ancient Jewish menorah. I replayed the images just taken on my digital camera without inspiration. What was I missing?

Straining to stir my imagination, I stared at the blue skies overhead. The answer was all around me, laughing in the light breeze—trees. What had registered in my subconscious beneath the ground was the central shaft of the soldier menorah, which had very clearly been designed to resemble a knotted tree trunk.

The Tree of Life is the central spine of all Near Eastern creation myths. It is perhaps the most powerful symbol of all time, an image that unites—rather than divides—world religions across time and place. The earliest human symbol of fertility, eternal life, salvation, and the divine presence, the sacred tree is a rarity that makes nonsense of supposed differences and hatred between religion. What remains is a startling truth: all religions evolved from the same trunk.

The Tree of Life is best known from Genesis, where it stood at the center of the Garden of Eden at the dawn of civilization. The same motif, however, is actually a far older primal image first known from the epic tale of Gilgamesh, an historical king of Uruk who lived in Babylonia along the River Euphrates (modern Iraq) around 2700 BC. In ancient Mesopotamia this divine tree grew in Dilmun, Paradise, at the source of the Water of Life. Here, the cosmic world tree is described as having its roots in the underworld and its crown in heaven. An almost identical corresponding myth prevails in Judaism, as is clear from a me
dieval record cherished by Jewish communities of the Diaspora:

All across the ancient Near East the sacral ruler responsible for temples and holy groves was also the traditional guardian and caretaker of the sacred tree. God's appearance to Moses in a burning bush on Mount Horeb in modern-day Jordan would have thus made complete sense to someone living in Bronze Age Palestine, where even cities were named after the sacred tree. The “lighting” of the bush symbolized life, in this case God's anticipated liberation of his people from Egypt. Especially famous was the Canaanite city of Luz, where Jacob dreamed about climbing a ladder to heaven. Luz translates as “City of Almond.” So perhaps the “ladder” on which Jacob dreamed he climbed to heaven was actually the branches of an almond tree.

Although this is little more than educated guesswork, the relation of the almond to the Tree of Life and Exodus's description of the menorah is definite and crucial to my investigation. From time immemorial the almond tree and its fruit have been blessed with great potency in early religion. Its modern botanical term,
Amygdalus communis,
incorporates the biblical term Luz, which also meant Great Mother in the ancient Near East. Not only was the insignia of the Bronze Age sacred ruler a rod or scepter made from a branch of the Tree of Life but, at least in the Bible, the most powerful staffs were cut from the almond tree.

Thus, during the power struggle between the twelve tribes of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai, Moses was instructed by God to take twelve staffs from the tribes, one for each ancestral house, and to inscribe them with the name of the head of each. Rather like drawing straws, only the
staff of Aaron of Levi “put forth buds, produced blossoms, and bore ripe almonds” as a sign of his leadership chosen by God (Numbers 17:23). It is with this deep history and symbolism in mind that the almond was chosen to be the central motif of the golden menorah in Temple worship, which had to possess “cups shaped like almond blossoms, each with calyx and petals” on each branch (Exodus 25:33).

So, what is so outstanding about the almond tree? Quite simply, it is the first tree to herald the arrival of spring in the Near East, when it blossoms in glorious white petals, and also the last to shed its leaves. For communities far more intimate with nature, and whose everyday existence was so precariously bound to the seasons, such a long-lived cycle provided an ideal model of life, stability, and resurrection. For this reason, according to Jewish rabbinical legend, Paradise could only be reached through a hole in an almond tree, where the angel of death's power was neutralized. For the same rather more scientific reason, as well as being a food delicacy and a product with potent medicinal qualities, the biblical term for the almond, Luz, was also in ancient pathology the indestructible bone where the neck meets the spinal column.

At its core, therefore, in shape and symbolism the Jewish menorah is inextricably linked to the Tree of Life in the ancient Near East. It is an object representing God's eternal dominance over the heavens, earth, and sea, and also the very life force of Judaism. The lamp's eagle and sea monster base merely strengthens this symbolism.

Nowadays, it is largely forgotten how profoundly the Tree of Life has inspired all world cultures. One of the earliest and most remarkable examples of organized religion in Britain also revolved around a tree: in 1998 a circular henge was exposed by coastal erosion at Holme next the Sea in Norfolk, consisting of fifty-five wooden posts enclosing the lower trunk and roots of a large oak tree weighing two and a half tons. Just before 2000 BC in the Early Bronze Age, the oak had deliberately been placed in the henge with its roots exposed upside down, as if it were protecting worshippers from the dark underworld beneath and channeling the life force from its roots into the realm of man.

Over time, the primitive memory of the Jewish menorah's sym
bolism was forgotten and replaced by more “scientific” interpretations. From the late Hellenistic period onward, many Jewish scholars focused instead on numerology. The lamp's magical seven branches replicated the seven planets known in antiquity as well as the seven days of creation, over which God's shining light literally ruled supreme. Thus, Philo of Alexandria equated the menorah's six side branches and position in the Temple to planetary inspiration:

Medieval Jewry took the kabbalistic mystical power of the number seven even further, claiming Solomon's ten menorahs furnished seventy burning lamps. This value symbolized the seventy nations over whom the great king held sway. Even today, Jewish brides encircle their husbands-to-be seven times in Jewish marriage ceremonies, to demonstrate a will to make a home as fine as the world God created in seven days.

The Jewish menorah's most potent inspiration, however, is not numerology, but the Tree of Life, a universal symbol that has touched all major world religions. When the True Cross of Christ was captured in Jerusalem by Sasanian forces in AD 614, Christian commentators compared their loss to the death of the Tree of Life. Even the modern Christmas tree and its electric lights is a faded memory of the Jewish Temple candelabrum and thus the Tree of Life. The most primeval of Near Eastern images is also the root of the Buddhist stupa cut in stone, Chinese wooden layered pagodas, South American totem poles, and the British maypole. There is no escaping the Tree of Life from where all
creation emanates. We may not notice it today, but the symbol continues to shine all around us.

Unlike the master philosopher Valter Juvelius, who excavated in vain around the Temple Mount in 1909, and treasure hunters seeking the Temple treasure of Jerusalem in Rennes-le-Château, I was now equipped with a thorough understanding of the most important part of God's gold plundered by Rome from Jerusalem in AD 70. Ever since 1991, when I first stumbled across Israel's accusation that the Vatican has secretly imprisoned the golden menorah, I had been obsessed with understanding what this object meant to Judaism and subsequent possessors. The image that we see on the Arch of Titus was saturated with layers of symbolism that gave the candelabrum a vast life force. If the menorah stood for the light of Israel and Judaism, what was the meaning of the Table of the Divine Presence that takes pride of place at the head of Vespasian's triumph of AD 71 on the arch's wall relief?

If it should ever surface at public auction, the priceless gold menorah from King Herod's Temple—the preeminent symbol of Judaism—would shatter all records for an antiquity. By comparison, the Table of the Divine Presence looted from Jerusalem in AD 70 and seen on the Arch of Titus is largely neglected today, a poorly understood object of worship in mainstream Judaism. Yet until the second century AD, it was actually venerated as the central symbol of faith.

After the Ark of the Covenant, the Divine Table was the second most important vessel created to God's command by Moses at the foot of Mount Sinai as an instrument of worship and offering. Since the Ark of the Covenant was destroyed by the forces of Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC, historically the Table became the most valuable piece of Temple furniture. Only from the fourth century AD onward did the menorah assume a central symbolic role in the Jewish Diaspora, largely as visual competition to the cross and the emerging dominance of Christianity as the official state religion of the Mediterranean basin.

As with the golden candelabrum, Moses's instructions about how to craft the Table were strict and precise:

Equally specific was the ritual of stocking the Table and its position within the Tabernacle sanctuary in the wilderness and later Temples. Twelve loaves were baked using choice flour, with two-tenths of an
ephah
allocated to each. The finished product was stacked on the gold table in two rows, six to a row, alongside pure frankincense. At least in the wilderness of Sinai, hot bread was placed on the Table every Sabbath by Aaron “before the Lord regularly as a commitment of the people of Israel, as a covenant for ever” (Leviticus 24:8). Table and bread stood in the Tabernacle tent to the north, immediately outside the Holy of Holies (Exodus 40:22–23).

By the Second Temple period, the Table of the Divine Presence had become far more elaborate and was most probably crafted entirely of pure gold. Cost was hardly an issue, and solid gold had the added advantage of being far easier to maintain than a decaying acacia wood table covered with cracked gold leaf. During the triumph in Rome of AD 71, Josephus described the Table simply as golden and weighing many talents (
JW
7.148). Elsewhere, he expanded on this description, labeling the object one of the “most wonderful works of art, universally renowned” and confirmed that the Herodian version was not entirely plain, but was like “those at Delphi” with feet “resembling those that the Dorians put to their bedsteads” (
AJ
3.139).

Measurements based on the comparative proportions of human figures visible on the Arch of Titus relief conjure up an image of a table measuring twenty inches in height, and the artwork reinforces the view of an elaborate piece of furniture. Despite the arch's false perspective (that fails to show the back of the Table in order to give pride of place to the silver trumpets tied across its front plane), the Table is clearly either hexagonal or, more probably, octagonal, with six to eight corresponding legs.

An extraordinary account of a Table of the Divine Presence crafted in Egypt by order of King Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–247 BC) is preserved in a letter allegedly written around 270 BC by Aristeas, an influential diplomat in Philadelphus's court. This letter, addressed to his brother, describes an Egyptian embassy dispatched to Eleazar, the High Priest of Jerusalem, to try to patch up relationships with the Jews following a generation of persecution in Egypt.

Ptolemy II Philadelphus is credited in this work as liberating 100,000 Jewish captives and ordering the Hebrew law to be translated into Greek to encourage racial equality in Alexandria. To this end the king sent a diplomatic treasure chest to Jerusalem containing 50 talents of gold, 100 talents of silver, 50 gold and silver bowls, and 5,000 blocks of stone for Temple renovations. In return, Egypt invited six elders from each of the tribes of Israel “who have led exemplary lives and are expert in their own law” to come to Alexandria and translate the Torah (Jewish teachings).

Aristeas specifically claimed that the Table crafted in Egypt was “of pure gold and solid on every side; I mean, gold was not overlaid upon other material, but a solid metal plate was put in place.” The border around the Table was a handbreadth wide with a rope, egg, and fruit design and a revolving rail, in which precious stones were secured with golden pins. An egg pattern with precious stones was set along the upward-slanting border.

The main plane of the Table was even more spectacular:

Toward the end of his letter, Aristeas concluded, “You have the story, my dear Philocrates, just as I promised. I believe such an account will afford you greater pleasure than the books of the romancers.” Despite Aristeas's protestations that his description was factual, and not a work of romance like so many doing the rounds in literary Alexandrian salons of the era, readers would have recognized the genre as a contemporary work of historical fiction written between 132 and 100 BC, some 150 years later than when the story is set. Regrettably, this testimony about the Table of the Divine Presence must be largely thrown out of court, although there is every reason to suspect it is based on contemporary records and thus contains a kernel of truth. In an era of wonderful, creative ability and skill, the Table of Jerusalem is far more likely to have resembled Aristeas's elaborate affair than the prototype of Exodus.

To increase the mystery swirling around this object, it is known that a series of tables actually served the Showbread ritual in Jerusalem. When freshly baked bread was initially carried into the sanctuary, it was placed on a marble table to the side of the porch. Opposite stood a gold table from which old bread was removed. With its gleaming white purity, marble was appropriate for fresh offerings; gold reflected the divine presence in which the bread had stood and been blessed by God. Both tables “promote what is holy to a higher status and do not bring it down,” according to the Mishnah. Finally, the actual gold Table of the Divine Presence stood inside the sanctuary with its bread offerings, according to the Mishnah baked and administered in the Second Temple period by the House of Garmu.

How can we be certain that the Table was venerated more highly
than the menorah? Between AD 132 and 135, at the height of the Second Jewish Revolt, the Jewish military leader, Simon Bar-Kokhba, struck silver coins showing the facade of the destroyed Temple sanctuary alongside the inscription
JERUSALEM
. The reverse of the coin displayed a
lulav
(palm branch) and
etrog
(citron) and the inscription
YEAR ONE OF THE REDEMPTION OF ISRAEL
. Four columns support a schematic view of the entrance to the Temple and at its center stands the Table of the Divine Presence visible from its narrow side, with raised and arched ends. None of these coins depicted the candelabrum.

The minting of this money had little to do with economics and everything to do with propaganda. Small and mobile, coins traveled swiftly across vast distances from pocket to pocket and were thus the perfect “advertisement” for promoting ideologies. With the silver series of AD 132–135, Bar-Kokhba was trying to stir up trouble and incite sedition against Rome. His highly potent message was the equivalent of dropping thousands of paper flyers over Iraq during the First and Second Gulf Wars as part of the softening-up process to create a sympathetic atmosphere and civil disobedience for toppling Saddam Hussein. Here, though, the Jews were expressing their intention of beating Rome and renewing sacred Temple service around the central symbol of the Table. The
lulav
and
etrog
reflected a desire to restore the three pilgrimage festivals, particularly Sukkoth, while the Table symbolized the restoration in perpetuity of the Temple ritual itself. Once again, Bar-Kokhba was informing Jews throughout the length and breadth of Israel to be brave and strong and to anticipate the renewal of Temple worship; God would continue to feed his people.

In Temple times the Table of the Divine Presence was an intensely symbolic religious apparatus, a divine message from God to his people. In one of the earliest and most important commentaries on the books of the Bible, Philo of Alexandria (c. 25 BC to c. AD 40) was intrigued by the Table. His enquiry in
Questions and Answers on Exodus
led to a simple explanation:

Philo correctly exposed an obvious message. Bread was the primary life force of antiquity. By demanding constant exposure to fresh bread, an eternal reminder was circulated for farmers to attend their fields “religiously.” By blessing the bread, God favored the fields of Israel and its farmers. While bread stood within the Temple sanctuary of Jerusalem, Israel's agricultural well-being was guaranteed and divinely protected. The importance of bread was etched into the Jewish psyche from the time of the Exodus, when, in the haste to escape the pharaoh, bread had insufficient time to rise. The Jews' lucky escape was later ritualized in the festival of Passover, when all bread is thrown out of homes and replaced with unleavened matzah.

When Titus plundered the Table of the Divine Presence in AD 70, he knew exactly what he was doing. The gold value or artistic brilliance of the object didn't concern him. What interested Rome was the message conveyed—once the empire possessed the Table of the Divine Presence, it also controlled the fields, farmers, crops, and economy of Israel. This was a statement of intent that spoke volumes to Jews across the world: now we are your masters and if you want protection and prosperity you must answer to Rome. The position of the Table at the head of the triumph of AD 71, as depicted on the Arch of Titus, is a perpetual reminder of these facts.

For these reasons bread retains particular significance in Judaism. Every Friday, Jewish families enthusiastically bake or buy challah, special Shabbat bread. After the genocide and starvation of the Second World War, many Jewish families adopted a private habit of buying fresh bread every day as a reminder of former atrocities and as a sign of a return to health and prosperity. And as bread remains a central symbol of Judaism, so the biblical ritual of the Showbread metamor
phosed over time into the Catholic communion. Today's grab-and-go society tends to take for granted just how important wheat remains to life, but it is around us every day as we fly from meeting to meeting in the buns of our burgers and the crusts of our pizzas. These are the messages that pass through my mind when I stand and stare at the unique artwork of Rome's Arch of Titus.