From the Tree to the Labyrinth (49 page)

If we reread the vision as the description of a sequence in motion (bearing in mind that Ezekiel said that “the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning”), all the contradictions disappear. What we have is a succession of movements and metamorphoses. The image of the dream would have been a help to Beatus in solving his quandaries, but Beatus thought in terms of synchronic images motionless in space with no passage of time to alter them.

Naturally, it is not just Beatus who attempts to translate biblical visions into representable images. Take what happens with the description of the Temple. The Temple does not appear in the Apocalypse, and Beatus does not mention it, but it certainly provides the inspiration for John’s vision of the Heavenly Jerusalem. Now, all of the medieval attempts to visualize the various biblical descriptions of the Temple suffer from the same failing as Beatus: their insistence on seeing as fixed images what were in fact oneiric and metamorphic visions.

The Old Testament offers two meticulous descriptions of the Temple of Jerusalem: one in 1 Kings and the other in Ezekiel. The description in 1 Kings is more precise, today we might say “user-friendly”:

And the house which king Solomon built for the LORD, the length thereof was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits. And the porch before the temple of the house, twenty cubits was the length thereof, according to the breadth of the house; and ten cubits was the breadth thereof before the house. And for the house he made windows of narrow lights. And against the wall of the house he built chambers round about, against the walls of the house round about, both of the temple and of the oracle: and he made chambers round about: The nethermost chamber was five cubits broad, and the middle was six cubits broad, and the third was seven cubits broad: for without in the wall of the house he made narrowed rests round about, that the beams should not be fastened in the walls of the house. And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building. The door for the middle chamber was in the right side of the house: and they went up with winding stairs into the middle chamber, and out of the middle into the third. So he built the house, and finished it; and covered the house with beams and boards of cedar. And then he built chambers against all the house, five cubits high: and they rested on the house with timber of cedar. (1 Kings 6:2–10)

Not so exact is the lengthy description in Ezekiel (40:5–49, 41:1–26, and 42:1–20), which, precisely because of its apparent incoherence, seems apt to challenge its exegetes to the most reckless feats of interpretation:

And behold a wall on the outside of the house round about, and in the man’s hand a measuring reed of six cubits long by the cubit and an hand breadth: so he measured the breadth of the building, one reed; and the height, one reed. Then came he unto the gate which looketh toward the east, and went up the stairs thereof, and measured the threshold of the gate, which was one reed broad; and the other threshold of the gate, which was one reed broad. And every little chamber was one reed long, and one reed broad; and between the little chambers were five cubits; and the threshold of the gate by the porch of the gate within was one reed. He measured also the porch of the gate within, one reed. Then measured he the porch of the gate, eight cubits; and the posts thereof, two cubits; and the porch of the gate was inward. And the little chambers of the gate eastward were three on this side, and three on that side; they three were of one measure: and the posts had one measure on this side and on that side. And he measured the breadth of the entry of the gate, ten cubits; and the length of the gate, thirteen cubits. The space also before the little chambers was one cubit on this side, and the space was one cubit on that side: and the little chambers were six cubits on this side, and six cubits on that side. He measured then the gate from the roof of one little chamber to the roof of another: the breadth was five and twenty cubits, door against door. He made also posts of threescore cubits, even unto the post of the court round about the gate. And from the face of the gate of the entrance unto the face of the porch of the inner gate were fifty cubits. And there were narrow windows to the little chambers, and to their posts within the gate round about, and likewise to the arches: and windows were round about inward: and upon each post were palm trees. (Ezek. 40:5–16)

And so on in the same vein. Imagine trying to reconstruct a model of the Temple based on this description with the aid of a measuring tape and a conversion table. In addition to which, medieval interpreters did not even have a conversion table for the measurements, to say nothing of the corruption of the data that would have occurred thanks to the manifold translations, and manuscript transcriptions of translations, that they had at their disposal. But, come to that, even a twenty-first-century architect would find it a challenge to translate these verbal instructions into a project drawing.

It is interesting to observe the pains the medieval allegorists go to in their determination to
see
the Temple as Ezekiel describes it (and in their efforts to picture it they attempt to provide instructions for its ideal reconstruction; see De Lubac 1959–1964, II, 7, 2). The Hebrew tradition itself admitted the impossibility of a coherent architectural reading: in the twelfth century Rabbi Solomon Ben Isaac agreed that no one could ever figure out the arrangement of the northern chambers, where they began to the east and how far they extended to the west, and where they began on the one side and how far they extended on the other (see Rosenau 1979). Furthermore, Ezekiel himself does not claim to have seen a real construction but a “
quasi
aedificium” (“
as
[
it were
] the frame of a city,” Ezek. 40:2, my emphasis), while the Fathers of the Church, just as they granted that the vision of the four living creatures defied literal explanation, also declared that the measurements of the building were inconceivable in physical terms, given, for example, that the gates would have to have been wider than the walls.

Thus, interpreters like Hugh of Fouilloy, in his
De claustro animae
(XII century), though he based himself on 1 Kings 6 (less confused and confusing than Ezekiel’s vision), confined himself to analyzing the mystical significance of the Temple. The Temple in fact stands for the body of Christ and that of every Christian (“nostrum spirituale templum” [“our spiritual temple”]), the cedars of Lebanon stand for the most glorious men of all times, and Hiram’s builders who hewed the stones are the good monks who know how to smooth the irregularities and imperfections of the rough stone (in other words, the souls of their brethren), making them even and harmoniously disposed. And the splendor of the precious metals and stones was the splendor of charity. Cutting the stones signified cutting away human vices. Solomon employed 30,000 workmen, and this number is a multiple of 3 and 10 and, setting aside the mystical meanings of the number 10, 3 is the number of the Trinity, of the three eminent good works (prayer, fasting, and alms deeds), the three virtues of reading, meditation, and preaching, and so on.

Confronted with the measurements of the Temple, rather than trying to interpret them literally, Hugh comments upon the spiritual significance of its dimensions (the length of the building means patience, its breadth means charity, its height means hope, etc.) (chapter XVII, PL 176, 1118).

Other commentators struggled instead to reconstruct the Temple because, if we buy into the idea (Augustinian in origin) that, when faced in Scripture with expressions that seem to convey an excess of basically superfluous information, such as numbers and measurements, we should be on the lookout for an allegorical meaning, bearing in mind that biblical allegory was
in factis
not
in verbis.
Therefore, that a reed was six cubits long was not a mere verbal affirmation or
flatus vocis,
but a fact that had actually occurred, and that God had so predisposed so that we could interpret it allegorically. Hence, a realistic reconstruction of the Temple
had
to be possible, otherwise it would mean Scripture had lied.

And so, in his
In visionem Ezechielis,
we find Richard of Saint Victor—in a polemical stance vis-à-vis the Fathers of the Church, who had advised interpreters to stick to a spiritual reading—laboring over his calculations and producing plans, elevations and cross sections, deciding, when two measurements are impossible to reconcile, that one of them must refer to the whole edifice and the other to one of its parts—in a desperate attempt (doomed, alas, to failure) to reduce the
quasi aedificium
to something a medieval master builder could really have constructed (see De Lubac 1959–1964: II, 5, 3).

As for the Heavenly Jerusalem, Christian thought had transformed the biblical Jerusalem into a theological image, idealizing and, so to speak, disincarnating the real historical city. The first transformation of Jerusalem occurs at the end of the Apocalypse, where it is said of the city that

her light was like unto that of a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal; and [she] had a great wall and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels … on the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb … And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs.… And he measured the wall thereof, a hundred and forty and four cubits.… And the building of the wall of it was of jasper; and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.… And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it, for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. (Apoc. 21:11–23)

Thus, Jerusalem ceases to be a geographical place in order to become the image of the Heavenly Jerusalem. Rather than urbanistic, John’s description is architectural, with special insistence on the aesthetic aspects. Moreover, his description is clearly inspired by that of Ezekiel, in which the construction is not rectangular, as it is in other biblical texts, by based upon squares.

The vision of the Heavenly Jerusalem could not fail to fascinate Beatus of Liébana and, centuries later, his illustrators. But more than anything else, he appears to be fascinated by three aspects: Jerusalem’s foursquare perfection, its measurements, and the splendor of its precious stones and its golden decorations. Beatus in fact is a forerunner of the aesthetics of the threefold criterion of beauty: integrity, proportion, and light, but he lacked the philosophical categories that would have allowed him to focus in on the reasons for his admiration. He therefore proceeds by confused interjections and inexact calculations.

The chief aspect of Jerusalem that strikes him seems to be the fact that the city shines like a gem without the need for an external light source. Jerusalem has no need of stellar illumination to shine; she radiates light from within herself like a soul internally illuminated by grace. The twelve gates are figures of the twelve apostles, the twelve prophets, and the twelve tribes of Israel. Twelve gates, twelve angels at the gates (a number John plucks out of nowhere, without any previous scriptural support), and twelve foundations, produce the number thirty-six, the number of hours Christ spent in the Sepulcher. The city is square as a reminder of the Four Evangelists, given that its breadth is the same as its length. Following the Vulgate that speaks of twelve thousand by twelve thousand cubits, Beatus decides to multiply twelve by ten to produce 120, which is (according to the Acts of the Apostles) the number of souls who have received the Holy Spirit. Then he adds to the 120 the 24 elders of the Apocalypse and comes up with 144, which is the measurement of the wall of Jerusalem in cubits. And we could go on and on, showing how every number, every detail of the city’s layout, permits Beatus to unearth ever newer and more prodigious allegorical allusions.
⁹

In order to obtain a “readable” result, Beatus has no qualms in having recourse to citations that he presents as faithful, but which are in fact altered ever so slightly, changing a word here, eliminating an aside there, or modifying an inflection.

What makes the Apocalypse fascinating for the Middle Ages is the substantial ambiguity of chapter 20, verses 1–15, which it will be useful to cite in full here. Here we can read it in the King James Version but we are obliged to put in a footnote the text as it was quoted by Beatus, which was lacunary at certain points with respect to the Vulgate:

And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.

And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years.

And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I
saw
the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received
his
mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.