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Volume 17 Article 8

1-1-1995

Baroque Visions of the Temple of

Michael Rabens

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Recommended Citation Rabens, Michael (1995) "Baroque Visions of the Temple of Jerusalem," Oz: Vol. 17. https://doi.org/ 10.4148/2378-5853.1274

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Baroque Visions of the Temple of Jerusalem

Michael Rabens

The ancient Jewish temple in Jerusalem in two courtyards. While the texts pro­ a man "whose appearance was like the temple. A school of modern Biblical has excited interest among artists, ar­ vide detailed descriptions of the tem­ appearance of brass" (Ezekiel 40:3), critics, which posits the existence of a chitects, and scholars for many cen­ ple building and its interior spaces, the measuring instrum ~ nts in hand, pro­ Pseudo-Ezekiel who wrote many parts turies. There has been a steady stream courtyards of the temple are barely ceeded to give him a guided tour of the of the prophet's book (including the of attempts to reconstruct its appear­ mentioned. There is a passing reference temple. Ezekiel is shown a temple chapters describing the temple) after ance, despite an overwhelming lack of to "the inner court" (I Kings 6:36), which seemingly resembles the Temple the returned from exile, has adopt­ physical evidence. Before 1800, the vast which implies the existence of an outer of as described in I Kings and ed a variation of this view. According majority of the restorers had never vis­ court; another passage (II Chronicles II Chronicles; it consists of a temple to their thesis, the Pseudo-Ezekiel ited the actual site of the temple; had 4:9) refers to "the court of the " building set within two courtyards. would naturally have described the re­ they journeyed to Jerusalem, they and "the great court." Neither text gives Unlike these two texts, Ezekiel's ac­ built temple as it existed at that time. 2 would have found little of any use. The any indication of their shape or size. count devotes much space to describing buildings were razed to the ground in the extensive courtyards. Ezekiel gives Others believe that the Temple of the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 The construction of the Second Tem­ precise dimensions for the plan of every Ezekiel does not correspond to any his­ A.D.; since the seventh century, the ple was undertaken as early as 537 part of the complex, but he gives no in­ torical version of the Temple of platform that housed the Jewish tem­ B.C., and completed by 515 B.C. Very formation on heights or elevations. The Jerusalem; Ezekiel's temple would be ple has been occupied by an ensemble little is known about the temple at this resulting image is one of a temple what he says it is: a prophetic vision. oflslamic structures which includes the stage; much more is known of the ex­ which is rigorously regular and sym­ When considered within the chrono­ and the El-Aqsa tensive improvements built under metrical in plan. logical order of Ezekiel's many visions, Mosque. As no graphic representations , beginning about 20 his vision of the temple could not be of the temple survive from the period B.C. describes Herod's It has never been conclusively deter­ connected to any of the real structures. before its destruction, the restorers have Temple in both of his major histories, mined which version of the historical In the text, Ezekiel's temple vision oc­ had to rely on textual evidence from the \Vtzrs ofthe jews and Antiquities ofthe Temple of Jerusalem (if any) Ezekiel's curs immediately after his prophecy of , the histories of Flavius jews. Josephus indicates that Herod en­ vision represents. One view holds that the "War of Gog and Magog," a war Josephus, and a smattering of other larged the temple building and sur­ Ezekiel's vision depicts the Temple of fought against the restored kingdom of sources. Yet these limitations have never rounded it by four courtyards, each Solomon as it appeared on the eve of Israel "in the end of days." These are restrained the imaginations of those ringed by several colonnades. Although its destruction in 586 B.C. Ezekiel is code words for the period which will who would restore the Temple of the was considerably believed to have been a in the precede the Messianic (for Jerusalem. larger and more magnificent than the temple until he was exiled in 597 B.C.; Jews) or the Second Coming of Christ Temple of Solomon, it is the earlier therefore he would have been familiar (for Christians). Most Jewish inter­ The Temple of Jerusalem was in fact structure that has always received the with its appearance. According to this preters hold that Ezekiel describes the two successive structures which stood lion's share of attention. view, the temple building had not form of the "" of the fu­ on the same site. 1 The original struc­ changed since the days of Solomon, but ture, followed by a description of the ture, the Temple of Solomon, was In the midst of this archaeological and the extensive apparatus of symmetrical ritual to be practiced there. 3 Christian begun in 960 B.C., the fourth year of textual profusion another text stands courtyards was the work of later kings interpretations have also focused on the Solomon's reign, and destroyed in 586 somewhat apart. Chapters 40-43 of the of Judah. visionary nature of the description.4 B.C. This structure is best known from contain a lengthy de­ parallel descriptions in the First Book of scription of the temple, which was im­ Other views hold that Ezekiel's vision Perhaps this is the reason why Ezekiel's Kings (Ch. 6-7) and the Second Book parted to the prophet in a vision. describes the earliest state of the Second description was rarely used in attempts of Chronicles (Ch. 3-4). It consisted Ezekiel states that in the year 572 B.C. Temple. In this case, Ezekiel could be to reconstruct the Temple of Jerusalem of the temple building proper, set with- he was transported to Jerusalem, where preparing a blueprint for rebuilding the made before 1600.5 Shortly thereafter 39 his text became very prominent, due to the Doric entablature. His only evi­ the efforts of a Spanish Jesuit, Juan dence for this came from his question­ Bautista Villalpando. Together with able interpretation of a passage in Hieronimo Prado he published an ex­ Josephus, who stated that the eastern haustive three-volume commentary on gate of the Second Temple was the Book of Ezekiel. Villalpando wrote sheathed in Corinthian bronze (Wars the second volume (1604) himself; it is 5.201). Villalpando's assertion that the devoted exclusively to Ezekiel's descrip­ temple's form was constant through ten tfon of the temple.6 Villalpando provid­ centuries allowed him to interpolate ed a more vivid and detailed presenta­ other details taken from Josephus, pre­ tion of the temple than any attempted sumably when Ezekiel neglected to earlier, and he had it sumptuously illus­ mention them. trated. Villalpando's version of Ezekiel's vision was conceived wholly within the Villalpando also played fast and loose formal language of Renaissance architec­ with Ezekiel's text. Where Ezekiel de­ ture; in certain respects it resembles the scribes two concentric square court­ Escorial, the most notable Renaissance yards adjacent to the temple building, monument in Spain_? The decision to Villalpando drew a grid of nine identi­ represent the temple in the architectural cal square courtyards. This decision style of the day was not unusual; this had was based on Ezekiel46:21: "Then he been done before. It was the unprece­ [Ezekiel's guide] brought me forth into dented claims he made for his recon­ the outer court, and caused me to pass struction which made Villalpando's pro­ by the four corners of the court; and johannes Coccejus, Temple ofEzekie~ 1669, Plan ject remarkable. behold, in every corner of the court there was a court." But Villalpando The most astonishing of Villalpando's simply ignored the modest dimensions these chambers to the upper floors and German-born theologian at the Univer­ claims was his declaration that Ezekiel's of these corner courts, given in the very provided many more than thirty. To sity of Leiden named Koch, who pub­ description represented the temple as next verse, and blew them up to a size top it all off, Villalpando placed the lished under the Latinized name of it had always existed in an unchanging that suited his designs. To this gridiron temple on a stupendous platform Johannes Coccejus. In 1669 he pub­ form from Solomon to Herod; he flat­ plan he added a further concentric whose retaining walls are lined with lished his own commentary on Ezekiel ly rejected the historical record, which courtyard ringed with a triple colon­ enormous flared buttresses. with nineteen plates depicting a tem­ included the inconvenient fact that nade. This last feature is the Court of ple pruned of Villalpando's interpola­ Herod had enlarged the temple. the Gentiles as described by Josephus Villalpando's reconstruction was ac­ tions.10 Coccejus restored the temple Villalpando also asserted that the tem­ (Wars 5.190); Ezekiel does not men­ cepted and imitated by many; Fischer with two large courts, one inside the ple had been designed by God, and he tion it. Although Ezekiel indicates no von Erlach gave it his imprimatur by other, and four smaller courts in the contended that on this occasion God columns, Villalpando garnished the placing it at the head of his pioneering corners, all of which conform to had invented the Classical Greek orders temple with over 1500 of them.8 history of architecture.9 Nonetheless, Ezekiel's dimensions. Coccejus re­ of architecture. To this end Villalpando Ezekiel does state that the outer court is others who used Ezekiel as their basic moved Villalpando's triple colonnades, devised a special "Temple order" that lined by thirty chambers "upon the text found Villalpando's work riddled and he replaced them with the thirty 40 combined the Corinthian capital with pavement" (40: 17); Villalpando moved with ·errors. One who did so was a chambers that Ezekiel prescribes. Lamy and Augustin Calmer, made im­ scription with alacrity. Nineteenth-cen­ portant contributions in this sense. 11 tury scholars repeatedly declared Calmer's project, published in 1722, is Ezekiel's text to be "useless" for serious part of a reasoned attempt to integrate archaeological reconstructions. 14 The Ezekiel's temple with accepted notions standard monograph of the period is of Biblical history. He explained that that of Count Melchior de Vogi.ie, Le Ezekiel's text could best be used to sup­ Temple de jerusalem (1864). He dis­ plement the parts missing from the missed Villalpando's work as "an im­ texts of I Kings and II Chronicles; that mense collection full of vast erudition, is, the courtyards. He admitted that this but a total loss." Nor did those who cor­ was valid only for the Temple of rected Villalpando merit much praise: Solomon; he refused to apply Ezekiel's description to the Second Temple in The profound erudition ofmen like any way. 12 Furthermore Calmet rejected Calmet and Lamy, very accurate for as anachronistic any attempt to clothe discussing texts or recovering descrip­ the temple in ancient or Renaissance ar­ tions ofsacred objects, despite obscu­ chitectural styles: rities, left them powerless when the time came to give form to their con­ He [Villalpando] included several em­ clusions and exchange the pen for the bellishments which are not expressed drawing pencil; following the tastes in the holy text, but which should be ofthe time and the fashionable styles, there according to the rules ofarchi­ they gave the Temple ofSolomon the Johannes Coccejus, Temple ofEzekie~ 1669, View tecture, which he supposed could not exterior appearance ofthe palace of have been unknown to Solomon: as if Versailles or that of Saint- Thomas architectural taste was the same d'Aquin [a Parisian church, facade Coccejus even included the one asym­ Boaz, which Villalpando had omitted. among all peoples and in all centuries, built 1769-1770]_15 metrical element in Ezekiel's text, a dor­ These columns figure prominently in and as ifSolomon, long before the first mitory block for the priests. the descriptions of Solomon's Temple architects ofGreece , was obliged to fol­ In light of the sweeping condemnations in I Kings and II Chronicles; although low the rules which they formulated which have relegated these efforts to re­ But Coccejus found nothing wrong they are not mentioned explicitly in afterwards. 13 construct Ezekiel's temple to the dust­ with the Renaissance style employed by Ezekiel's text, they do correspond to the bin of history, one wonders what mo­ Villalpando. He adopted Villalpando's two pillars he describes in front of the Calmer's elevations are severe indeed, tivated their creation in the first place. flared buttresses, although they are re­ porch of the temple building (Ezekiel but he could not refrain from inserting Scholarly curiosity, stimulated by piety, duced to diminutive decorative fea­ 40:49). long rows of columns as a lining around is one answer, but one thinks it is in­ tures. The temple building has a typi­ each court. sufficient to explain the phenomenon cal Baroque church facade based on Other Ezekiel scholars concurred with of two centuries of restorations which Vignola's Gesu. While Coccejus pre­ Coccejus's restoration in plan, while Calmer's project was among the last of privileged this text above all others. It ferred pilasters to free-standing co­ they abandoned the apparatus of its kind; after the middle of the eigh­ seems that Ezekiel's description satisfied lumns, he did reestablish the two mon­ Classical architecture in their eleva­ teenth century, restorers of the Temple the goals of another agenda, one with umental columns named Jachin and tions. Two French clerics, Bernard of Jerusalem abandoned Ezekiel's de- grander ambitions than simply supply- 41 ing views of another ancient monu­ tory is confirmed by a letter of one of ment. It seems that Ezekiel provided a his friends, William Stukeley: solution to a persistent problem that disturbed the philosophical underpin­ I discoursed with Newton this o' H""'H •<• •••···• •oOOooOO o ,:~ nings of Renaissance and post-Renais­ Christmas the twelvemonth about sance architecture. Solomon's Temple, having studyd that affoir. I find he had formerly drawn For the architects and scholars of this it out & considered it. .. He says it 1a time, it was an article of faith that the was older than any other great tem­ Classicizing architectural style of the ple, that Sesostris from this model la ~ Renaissance and the Baroque was the built his temple in , ... & that best available, for it was based on the from thence the Greeks borrowed models of architectural perfection pro­ their architecture, as they had their vided by ancient Greece and Rome. religious rites. 17 But the temples of Greece and Rome were pagan temples; the Temple of Such outlandish claims as these were Jerusalem was the only monument of difficult to sustain; the Temple of antiquity which held a tenuous link to Solomon's reputation for great beauty the Christian faith. If the Temple of was more secure. The Second Temple Jerusalem could be imagined as the inherited much of that reputation; Augustin Calmet, Temple ofEzekie4 1722. View equal or better of other ancient tem­ Josephus called it "the most marV-elous ples, then this would provide addition­ edifice we have ever seen or heard of" al justification for the Classical as­ (Wars §.267), while the sages of the sumptions underlying the architecture exclaimed, "He who has not of the Renaissance. seen the Temple of Herod has never seen a beautiful building." 18 But those If it could be demonstrated that the who returned to the texts with a critical temple was built in a Classical style ear­ eye found the temple inferior to what lier than any other famous monuments they knew of ancient Roman architec­ of antiquity, so much the better. This ture. Voltaire considered the Temple of message seems to be implicit in Solomon a "barbaric edifice," one whose Villalpando's work; it was restated in a proportions "would have surprised historical work of Isaac Newton's, The Michelangelo or Bramante." Nor could Chronology ofAncient Kingdoms Amend­ he admire the Second Temple: "This ed (1728). Here the renowned scientist temple was very holy, without a doubt; published three plates showing plans of but a sanctuary of20 cubits in length the temple, "principally taken from was not built by a Vitruvius." 19 Ezekiel's vision thereof." 16 Newton's no­ tion that the temple held a pivotal po­ Without Ezekiel's account to supple­ 42 sition in the course of architectural his- ment and ornament the other texts, the Augustin Calmet, Temple ofEzekie4 1722. View temple could easily appear disappoint­ nificent edifice. Ezekiel provided the es­ tory. Fischer von Erlach could place it cient art (1887) as a substitute for the ingly plain. When Claude Perrault sential requirement, an orderly and sym­ alongside the Seven Wonders of the actual Temple of Solomon. To justify made a particularly severe reconstruc­ metrical plan, while passing over the el­ Ancient World; Isaac Newton could pro­ their actions, Perrot and Chipiez ar­ tion project, based on the Talmudic evations in silence. Thus the plan was pose it as the forerunner of the greatest gued that Ezekiel's vision was the an­ tractate , he was criticized by a fixed; the architectural style was left to temples of antiquity. Because Ezekiel's cient Hebrew culture's "most beauti­ reviewer in these terms: "For us, this il­ the imaginations of the restorers. By ig­ text was consonant with Baroque ideals ful work of art, perhaps the only one lustration resembles a prison more than noring any evidence that Ezekiel's de­ of splendor, the temptation to substitute it ever produced. If this is so, should a temple as magnificent as was the scription might be ahistorical, restorers Ezekiel's vision for historical fact was too anyone be surprised that we have Temple of Jerusalem ... All descriptions from Villalpando to Newton were able powerful to resist. yielded to the temptation to undertake which give an idea of this temple which to recreate the Temple of Jerusalem as the restoration?"21 Should the reader is not in accord with its beauty and its they preferred to imagine it. No other Long after it was rejected as a legiti­ be surprised that scholars of the magnificence must be false." 20 textual source offered the restorers a vi­ mate source for the historical Temple Baroque did the same? sion so generous in scale, so unencum­ of Jerusalem, Ezekiel's description con­ Ezekiel's description did not have these bered by inconvenient details. No other tinued to generate interest. Georges drawbacks. With Ezekiel in hand, the textual source offered them the freedom Perrot and Charles Chipiez included temple could be reconstructed as a mag- to reevaluate the temple's position in his- it in their monumental history of an-

Notes Hierosolymitani, 3 vols. , Rome, 1596-1608. For l'Ecriture sainte, Lyon, 1697); idem., De 20. W. Goeree, La republique des Hebreux, 3 vols., 1. The most thorough study is T. Busink, Der reproductions of the plates and discussions of Tabernaculo foederis, de Sancta civitate jerusalem, Amsterdam, 1705, III, preface. Cited in W. Tempel von Jerusalem, 2 vols., Leiden, Villalpando's ideas, see H. Rosenau, Vision ofthe et de templo ejus, Paris, I 720; and A. Calmer, Herrmann, "Unknown Designs," 153 n. 73. 1970-1980. See also H. Rosenau, Vision ofthe Temple, 94ff., and especially W. Herrmann, Dictionnaire de Ia Bible, 2 vols., Paris, 1722. 21. G. Perrot and C. Chipiez, Histoire de /'art Temple, London, 1979. "Unknown Designs for the Temple ofJerusalem' 12. A. Calmer, Dictionnaire, II, 406. dans l'antiquite, 10 vols., Paris, 1882-1914, IV 2. The existence of a Pseudo-Ezekiel was suggest­ by Claude Perrault," Essays in the H istory of 13. A. Calmer, Dictionnaire, 4th ed., 4 vols., (1887), 242. ed in G. Holscher, Hesekiel. Der Dichter und das Architecture Presented to Rudolf Wittkower, Paris, 1845-1846, IV, 691. This passage first ap­ Buch, Giessen, 1924. The consequences of this London, 1967, 143-158. peared in the second edition of 1730. development for the temple description were first 7. G. Kubler, Building the Escorial, Princeton, 14. See A. L. Hirt, Der Tempel Salomon's, Berlin, explored in K. Mohlenbrink, Der Tempel Salomos, 1982, 43, stares that Villalpando's reconstruction 1809, 19; and L. de Saulcy, Histoire de /'art ju­ Stuttgart, 1932, 31-34. "shows rhe influence of rhe Escorial designs in daique, 2nd ed., Paris, 1864, 163. 3. See for example Ezekiel, ed. S. Fisch, London, many ways," bur adds that there is a wide gulf 15. M. de VogUe, Le Temple de jerusalem, Paris, 1960,265. separating them nonetheless. 1864, v. 4. One particular verse, Ezekiel44:2, which refers 8. This estimate is from W. Herrmann, 16. Isaac Newton, The Chronology of Ancient to a "shut gate," is traditionally viewed as a "Unknown Designs," 143. Kingdoms Amended, London, 1728, 343. prophecy of the Virgin Birth. See F. Hartt, History 9. J. B. Fischer von Erlach, Entwurffeiner his­ 17. William Srukeley to Dr. Richard Mead, 22 of Italian Renaissance Art, 3rd ed., New York, torischenArchitectur, Vienna, 1721, 10-15. July 1727. Cited in F. Manuel, Isaac Newton, Photo Credi rs 1987, 67. 10. J. Coccejus, Commentarium in Prophetiam Histo rian, Cambridge, Mass., 1963,265 n.4. Page 38. Courtesy of Department of Special 5. C. Krinsky, "Representations of the Temple of Ezechielis, Amsterdam, 1669; reprinted in vol. 18. Baba Barhra 4a. The Babylonian Talmud, 34 Collections, University of Chicago Library Jerusalem Before 1500," journal ofthe Warburg III of Coccejus's Opera omnia, 8 vols., vols., London, 1935-1948, pt. 4, III, 12. Page 39. Courtesry of Department of Special and Courtauld Institutes, XXXIII, 1970, 2 n.5. Amsterdam, 1673-1675. 19. Voltaire, La philosophie de l'histoire, ed. J. H . Collections, University of Chicago Library. 6. H . Prado and J. B. Villalpando, In Ezechielem II. Their works are B. Lamy, Apparatus Biblicus, Brumfirr, Geneva, 1969 (original ed. Amsterdam, Page 40. Courtesy of Department of Special Explanationes et Apparatus Urbis ac Templi Lyon, 1696 (French translation, Introduction ii 1765), 206-208. Collections, University of Chicago Library. 43