chapter 10

Leviathan’s Knot: The High Priest’s Sash as a

Cosmological Symbol

Andrei A. Orlov

Josephus in his Jewish Antiquities 3.154–156 unveils the following description of

the high priest’s sash:

This robe is a tunic descending to the ankles, enveloping the body and
with long sleeves tightly laced round the arms; they gird it at the breast,
winding to a little above the armpits the sash, which is of a breadth of
about four fingers and has an open texture giving it the appearance of
a serpent’s skin. Therein are interwoven flowers of divers hues, of crim-
son and purple, blue and fine linen, but the warp is purely of fine linen.
Wound a first time at the breast (καὶ λαβοῦσα τὴν ἀρχὴν τῆς ἑλίξεως κατὰ
στέρνον), after passing round it once again, it is tied and then hangs at
length, sweeping to the ankles, that is so long as the priest has no task
in hand, for so its beauty is displayed to the beholders’ advantage; but
when it behoves him to attend to the sacrifices and perform his ministry,
in order that the movements of the sash may not impede his actions, he
throws it back over his left shoulder. Moses gave it the name of abaneth,
but we have learnt from the Babylonians to call it hemian, for so is it des-
ignated among them.1

Several scholars have drawn attention to unusual features associated with the
sacerdotal girdle. Crispin Fletcher-Louis, for example, notices several peculiar
details in this description, including the comparison of the sash with the skin
of the serpent (ὄφις) and the language of “twisting” (ἕλιξ), further supporting
serpentine symbolism.2 Analyzing these features, he concludes that “the lan-

1 Henry Thackeray, Josephus, LCL. 10 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press/London:

Heinemann, 1967), 4.388–389.
2 Crispin Fletcher-Louis, “The High Priest as Divine Mediator in the Hebrew Bible: Dan 7:13 as a
Test Case,” SBLSP 36 (1997): 161–193 at 191. See also Crispin Fletcher-Louis, “Priests and Priest-
hood,” in Joel B. Green, Jeannine K. Brown, and Nicholas Perrin, eds., Dictionary of Jesus and
the Gospels, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2013), 698.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004429536_012

178 orlov

guage is reminiscent of that used of the ‘twisting’ serpent in Isa 27:1–23 and the
parallel passage in the Baal cycle (CTA 5.I.1–3) where, as we have seen, there is a
reference to an ephod.”4 He also draws attention to another description of the
sash in Ant. 3.185, in which Josephus again offers a novel interpretation of the
priestly sash, though this time comparing it to the ocean which encompasses
the earth:

The essen, again, he set in the midst of this garment, after the manner of
the earth, which occupies the midmost place; and by the girdle where-
with he encompassed it he signified the ocean (ὠκεανὸν), which holds the
whole in its embrace.5

In light of the sash’s associations with the serpent’s skin and with the watery
substance, which in some mythological traditions was understood to be the
traditional domain of the sea monster, Fletcher-Louis suggests that the sacer-
dotal sash might represent the defeated Leviathan. He also posits that Josephus
in his passage likens the high priest to a divine warrior who defeats the sea
monster, the sash here symbolizing victory over chaotic forces. Fletcher-Louis
finishes his examination by noting the possibility that “the high priest wears a
vanquished Leviathan: the sash hanging at his side evokes the image of a limp
and defeated serpent in the hand of its conqueror.”6 Several other scholars have
found Fletcher-Louis’ proposal plausible, agreeing that “the serpentine cloth
from which the sash is made and its identification as the ocean do suggest that
it is to be identified with the Leviathan.”7 Like Fletcher-Louis’ research, these
studies also attempt to interpret Josephus’ description of the sash through the
lenses of the divine warrior motif. Margaret Barker extends the use of this inter-

3 Isa 27:1 reads: “On that day the Lord with his cruel and great and strong sword will punish
Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will kill the dragon that
is in the sea.”
4 Fletcher-Louis, “The High Priest as Divine Mediator,” 191.
5 Thackeray, Josephus, 4.405.
6 Fletcher-Louis, “The High Priest as Divine Mediator,” 191. Elsewhere he reiterates the same the-
sis by arguing that “the high priest’s ephod is probably the same kind of garment which Baʿal
wears when he slays Leviathan (CTA 5.I.1–5). A passage in Josephus (Ant. 3.154–156) suggests
his sash was worn to evoke the image of a slain Leviathan hanging limp at its conqueror’s side.”
Crispin Fletcher-Louis, “Alexander the Great’s Worship of the High Priest,” in Loren T. Stuck-
enbruck and Wendy E. Sproston North, eds., Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism (London:
T&T Clark, 2004), 71–102 at 87.
7 Andrew Angel, Chaos and the Son of Man: The Hebrew Chaoskampf Tradition in the Period 515
bce to 200 CE, LSTS 60 (London: T&T Clark, 2006), 183.
the high priest’s sash as a cosmological symbol 179

pretive framework to her analysis of Christian developments, such as the motif

of the defeated waters found in the Book of Revelation. She notes that

the defeated waters occur, however, in two other places in Revelation: in

the vision of the new heaven and the new earth there is “no more sea”
(21.1) and in the vision of the risen Lord, when he is described as the heav-
enly high priest wearing a long robe with a golden girdle around his breast
(1.13). Josephus tells us the significance of the high priest’s girdle: “This
vestment reaches down to the feet and sits close to the body; … it is girded
to the breast a little above the elbows by a girdle often going round, four
fingers broad, but so loosely woven that you would think it the skin of a
serpent … And the girdle which encompassed the high priest round sig-
nified the ocean …” (Ant. 3.154, 185). The risen Lord wears the ocean like
the skin of a dead snake, the encircler with seven heads!8

While the images of the divine warrior and the defeated sea monster are impor-
tant for interpreting Josephus’ tradition regarding the high priest’s sash, other
possibilities, especially ones arising from the sacerdotal dimension of the nar-
rative, have been neglected. For example, there is good reason to think that
the enigmatic serpentine sash might be closely related to the traditions of the
cosmological temple, which loom large in the third book of Josephus’ Jewish
Antiquities. The sash’s association with the ocean suggests such a cosmologi-
cal significance; in fact, this item may be envisioned as a part of the Temple
of Creation. In the remainder of this essay, we will examine this cosmological
imagery in more detail.

1 The High Priest as the Microcosmic Temple

In order to better understand a possible cosmological meaning of the priestly

sash, we must examine its precise function in the broader context of Josephus’
description of the high priest’s accoutrement found in the third book of his
Jewish Antiquities. This task is not easy, since this portion of Jewish Antiquities
contains one of the most detailed descriptions of the high priestly vestments
in early Jewish extra-biblical sources. In this lengthy and elaborate account,
Josephus goes beyond the traditional biblical descriptions of the sacerdotal gar-

8 Margaret Barker, The Revelation of Jesus Christ: Which God Gave to Him to Show to His Servants
What Must Soon Take Place (Revelation 1.1) (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 220.
180 orlov

ments by unveiling the cosmological significance of the priestly accessories. It

is important for our study to note that in Josephus’ narrative, the garments of
the high priest are linked both to the imagery of the earthly Temple, and to
its cosmological counterpart in the form of the so-called “Temple of Creation.”
Ant. 3.178–187 provides the following interpretation of the sacred vestments:

Such is the apparel of the high priest. But one may well be astonished at
the hatred which men have for us and which they have so persistently
maintained, from an idea that we slight the divinity whom they them-
selves profess to venerate. For if one reflects on the construction of the
tabernacle and looks at the vestments of the priest and the vessels which
we use for the sacred ministry, he will discover that our lawgiver was a
man of God and that these blasphemous charges brought against us by
the rest of men are idle. In fact, every one of these objects is intended
to recall and represent the universe, as he will find if he will but con-
sent to examine them without prejudice and with understanding …. The
high priest’s tunic … signifies the earth, being of linen, and its blue the
arch of heaven, while it recalls the lightnings by its pomegranates, the
thunder by the sound of its bells. His upper garment, too, denotes univer-
sal nature, which it pleased God to make of four elements; being further
interwoven with gold in token, I imagine, of the all-pervading sunlight.
The essen, again, he set in the midst of this garment, after the manner of
the earth, which occupies the midmost place; and by the girdle where-
with he encompassed it he signified the ocean, which holds the whole in
its embrace. Sun and moon are indicated by the two sardonyxes where-
with he pinned the high priest’s robe. As for the twelve stones, whether
one would prefer to read in them the months or the constellations of like
number, which the Greeks call the circle of the zodiac, he will not mis-
take the lawgiver’s intention. Furthermore, the headdress appears to me
to symbolize heaven, being blue; else it would not have borne upon it the
name of God, blazoned upon the crown—a crown, moreover, of gold by
reason of that sheen in which the Deity most delights.9

9 Thackeray, Josephus, 4.403–407. In relation to Josephus’ interpretation of the Temple imagery,

Jon Levenson argues the following: “the affinity of Josephus’ method of interpreting the Tem-
ple with Hellenistic allegory, Jewish and Gentile, and ultimately with Platonic philosophy, is
unmistakable. This granted, however, it would be an error to see this allegory as the aberration
of a Jew writing in Greek largely for the benefit of a mixed Hellenistic intelligentsia. For this
sort of allegorical reading of the Tabernacle/Temple is also abundant in Rabbinic literature,
the high priest’s sash as a cosmological symbol 181

In this passage one finds at least three concepts of the sanctuary that are
closely intertwined: first, the earthly shrine represented by the Jerusalem Tem-
ple; second, the macrocosmic Temple, whose sacred chambers corresponded
to heaven, air/earth, and sea; and third, the microcosmic Temple embodied by
the high priest and his sacerdotal garments. When compared to the biblical
narratives, a distinctive feature of this description is Josephus’ attempt to inter-
pret the symbolism of the priestly garb not only through the prism of allusions
to the earthly tabernacle or Temple, but also through their connections with
cosmological realities. In this novel cosmological framework, each part of the
priestly accouterment is linked not only to particular portions of the tripartite
structure of the early sanctuary, but also with the respective sacred chambers
of the Temple of Creation, which in Josephus’ worldview correspond to heaven,
air/earth, and sea.
These striking connections between elements of the priestly attire and parts
of the earthly and cosmological sanctuaries have not gone unnoticed by schol-
ars. Reflecting on these cultic correspondences, for instance, Gregory Beale says
“it is, in fact, discernible that there are broadly three sections of the priest’s gar-
ment that resemble the three sections of the temple.”10 He further notes that,
“given all this symbolism, one can easily understand the assertion in the Let-
ter of Aristeas that anyone who saw the fully attired high priest ‘would think
he had come out of this world into another one.’ ”11 Beale has drawn attention
to the fact that these striking sacerdotal correspondences were not unique to
Josephus, but rather hinted or openly attested in a broad range of the ancient
Jewish sources, including the LXX, Philo,12 and the Wisdom of Solomon, among
others.13 Since the idea of the Temple of Creation is important for our investi-

written in Hebrew for a Jewish readership.” Jon Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of
Evil. The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 96.
10 Gregory Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, NSBT 15 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVar-
sity Press, 2004), 39.
11 Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 39–40.
12 Philo, Mos. II.117: “Such was the vesture of the high priest. But I must not leave untold its
meaning and that of its parts. We have in it as a whole and in its parts a typical repre-
sentation of the world and its particular parts.” Francis Henry Colson and George Herbert
Whitaker, eds., Philo, LCL. 10 vols. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,
1929–1964), 5.505; Spec. 1.84: “The high priest is bidden to put on a similar dress when he
enters the inner shrine to offer incense, because its fine linen is not, like wool, the prod-
uct of creatures subject to death, and also to wear another, the formation of which is very
complicated. In this it would seem to be a likeness and copy of the universe. This is clearly
shewn by the design.” Colson and Whitaker, Philo, 7.149.
13 Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 39.
182 orlov

gation of the high priest’s sash in Josephus, a short excursus into the traditions
of the cosmological temple is necessary.
Recent scholarship has demonstrated that the idea of the cosmological tem-
ple, or the so-called Temple of Creation is attested in a variety of early Jewish
and Christian sources.14 Such a macrocosmic sacred structure reflected the tri-
partite division of the earthly temple wherein heaven was conceived as the uni-
versal holy of holies, earth as the holy place, and the underworld (represented
by the sea) as the courtyard. This concept of the cosmological temple, connect-
ing creation and cult, is quite ancient, stemming from early Mesopotamian15
and Egyptian16 traditions. In early Jewish materials, this conceptual trend is
often associated with a cluster of protological motifs in which the Garden of
Eden functions as the celestial Holy of Holies17 where the first human minis-

14 On this see Margaret Barker, The Gate of Heaven: the History and Symbolism of the Tem-
ple in Jerusalem (London: SPCK, 1991), 104–132; Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mis-
sion, 29–79; Aldina A. de Silva, “A Comparison Between the Three-Levelled World of the
Old Testament Temple Building Narratives and the Three-Levelled World of the House
Building Motif in the Ugaritic Texts KTU 1.3 and 1.4,” in George J. Brooke, Adrian H.W. Cur-
tis, and John F. Healy, eds., Ugarit and the Bible (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1994), 11–23;
Crispin Fletcher-Louis, Luke-Acts: Angels, Christology and Soteriology, WUNT 2.94 (Tüb-
ingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 156–162; Richard Hayward, The Jewish Temple: A Non-Biblical
Sourcebook (London and New York: Routledge, 1996); Victor Hurowitz, I Have Built You
an Exalted House: Temple Building in the Bible in Light of Mesopotamian and North-West
Semitic Writings (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), 335–337; Craig Koester, The Dwelling of God:
the Tabernacle in the Old Testament, Intertestamental Jewish Literature, and the New Testa-
ment, CBQMS 22 (Washington: Catholic Biblical Association, 1989), 59–63; Jon Levenson,
“The Temple and the World,” JR 65 (1984): 283–298; idem, Sinai and Zion: An Entry into
Jewish Bible (Minneapolis: Winston, 1985), 111–184; idem, Creation and the Persistence of
Evil. The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 87–
88; Raphael Patai, Man and Temple in Ancient Jewish Myth and Ritual (2nd ed.; New York:
KTAV, 1967), 54–139; John Walton, Genesis, NIVAC (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 148.
15 Bernd Janowski, “Der Tempel als Kosmos—Zur kosmologischen Bedeutung des Tem-
pels in der Umwelt Israels,” in Sibylle Meyer, ed., Egypt—Temple of the Whole World—
Ägypten—Tempel der Gesamten Welt. Studies in Honour of Jan Assmann (Leiden: Brill,
2003), 163–186 at 165–175. Jon Levenson notes that “the association of the Temple in
Jerusalem with ‘heaven and earth’ is not without Near Eastern antecedents, nor is it lim-
ited in the Hebrew Bible to texts whose subject is creation. At Nippur and elsewhere in
ancient Sumer, the temple held the name Duranki, ‘bond of heaven and earth,’ and we
hear of a shrine in Babylon called Etemenanki, ‘the house where the foundation of heaven
and earth is.’ ” Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil, 90.
16 Janowski, “Der Tempel als Kosmos—Zur kosmologischen Bedeutung des Tempels in der
Umwelt Israels,” 175–184.
17 Cf. Jub. 8:19: “He knew that the Garden of Eden is the holy of holies and is the resi-
dence of the Lord.” James VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees, 2 vols. CSCO 510–511. Scrip-
tores Aethiopici 87–88 (Louvain: Peeters, 1989), 2.53. Regarding this tradition, Jacques van
the high priest’s sash as a cosmological symbol 183

tered as the high priest.18 Scholars have noted that a conception of the cosmo-
logical temple is already implicit in some biblical materials, including Ezekiel’s
formative depiction of the eschatological sanctuary which, paradoxically, jux-
taposes cosmological and paradisal imagery.19
As we have already learned in this study of Jewish lore, the chambers of the
macrocosmic temple were respectively associated with heaven, earth, and sea.

Ruiten notes that in Jubilees, “[T]he Garden of Eden is seen as a Temple, or, more precisely
as a part of the Temple: the room which is in the rear of the Temple, where the ark of the
covenant of the Lord is placed, and which is often called ‘Holy of Holies.’” Jacques van
Ruiten, “Eden and the Temple: The Rewriting of Genesis 2:4–3:24 in the Book of Jubilees,”
in Gerard P. Luttikhuizen, ed., Paradise Interpreted: Representations of Biblical Paradise in
Judaism and Christianity, TBN 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 76.
18 Understanding Eden as the temple presupposes the protoplast’s role as a sacerdotal ser-
vant. Van Ruiten suggests that the author of Jubilees sees Adam acting as a prototypical
priest who burns incense at the gate of the Garden of Eden. Van Ruiten draws a parallel
between this description and a tradition found in Exodus: “[T]he incense is burned in front
of the Holy of Holies. The burning of incense is a privilege given to the priests, namely the
sons of Aaron.” Van Ruiten also calls attention to another important detail related to the
function of Adam as priest, namely, the covering of nakedness. He reminds us that cov-
ering one’s nakedness is a condition for offering, since the priests are explicitly bidden to
cover their nakedness. The author of Jubilees likewise lays emphasis on covering naked-
ness. Van Ruiten, “Eden and the Temple,” 77–78. On sacerdotal Edenic traditions, see also
James Davila, “The Hodayot Hymnist and the Four Who Entered Paradise,” RevQ 17/65–
68 (1996): 457–478; Florentino García Martínez, “Man and Woman: Halakhah Based upon
Eden in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Gerard Luttikhuizen, ed., Paradise Interpreted: Represen-
tations of Biblical Paradise in Judaism and Christianity, TBN 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 95–115 at
112–113; Ed Noort, “Gan-Eden in the Context of the Mythology of the Hebrew Bible,” in Ger-
ard Luttikhuizen, ed., Paradise Interpreted: Representations of Biblical Paradise in Judaism
and Christianity, TBN 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 25; Donald Parry, “Garden of Eden: Prototype
Sanctuary,” in Donald W. Parry, ed., Temples of the Ancient World: Ritual and Symbolism
(Provo: Deseret, 1994), 126–151; Jacques van Ruiten, “Visions of the Temple in the Book of
Jubilees,” in Beato Ego et al., eds., Gemeinde ohne Tempel/Community without Temple: Zur
Substituierung und Transformation des Jerusalemer Tempels und seines Kults im Alten Tes-
tament, antiken Judentum und frühen Christentum, WUNT 118 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
1999), 215–228; Gordon Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of Eden Story,” in
Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Division A: The Period of the Bible
(Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1986), 19–25 at 21–22; Michael Wise, “4QFlori-
legium and the Temple of Adam,” RevQ 15 (1991): 103–132.
19 Beale notes that “Ezekiel 32 explicitly calls Eden the first sanctuary, which substantiates
that Eden is described as a temple because it is the first temple, albeit a ‘garden-temple.’”
Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 80. Some scholars argue that Solomon’s temple
was an intentional replication of the Garden of Eden, especially in its arboreal likeness.
For this see Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 72; Lawrence Stager, “Jerusalem
and the Garden of Eden,” in Festschrift for F.M. Cross. Eretz Israel 26. (Jerusalem: Israel
Exploration Society, 1999), 183–193; idem, “Jerusalem as Eden,” BAR 26 (2000): 36–34.
184 orlov

An early kabbalistic tradition that circulated in the name of Rabbi Pinhas ben
Yaʾir states that “the Tabernacle was made to correspond to the creation of the
world …. The house of the Holy of Holies was made to correspond to the highest
heaven. The outer Holy House was made to correspond to the earth. And the
courtyard was made to correspond to the sea.”20 This arcane cosmological spec-
ulation is not a late invention, but rather a tradition with ancient roots. Thus, in
Ant. 3.121–123, Josephus suggests that the tripartite division of the earthly sanc-
tuary was a reflection of the tripartite structure of the entire creation,21 with its
sacred chambers corresponding to heaven, earth, and sea:

Internally, dividing its length into three portions, at a measured distance

of ten cubits from the farther end he set up four pillars, constructed like
the rest and resting upon similar sockets, but placed slightly apart. The
area within these pillars was the sanctuary; the rest of the tabernacle was
open to the priests. Now this partitionment of the tabernacle was withal
an imitation of universal nature; for the third part of it, that within the
four pillars, which was inaccessible to the priests, was like heaven devoted
to God, while the twenty cubits’ space, even as earth and sea are accessi-
ble to men, was in like manner assigned to the priests alone.22

Likewise, Ant. 3.180–181 affirms a similar tradition:

For if one reflects on the construction of the tabernacle and looks at the
vestments of the priest and the vessels which we use for the sacred min-
istry, he will discover that our lawgiver was a man of God and that these
blasphemous charges brought against us by the rest of men are idle. In
fact, every one of these objects is intended to recall and represent the
universe, as he will find if he will but consent to examine them with-
out prejudice and with understanding. Thus, to take the tabernacle, thirty
cubits long, by dividing this into three parts and giving up two of them to
the priests, as a place approachable and open to all, Moses signifies the
earth and the sea, since these too are accessible to all; but the third portion
he reserved for God alone, because heaven also is inaccessible to men.23

20 Patai, Man and Temple in Ancient Jewish Myth and Ritual, 108–109.
21 Regarding the tripartite structure of the entire creation in the Jewish tradition, see Luis
Stadelmann, The Hebrew Conception of the World—A Philological and Literary Study
(Rome: Biblical Institute, 1970), 9.
22 Thackeray, Josephus, 4.373–375.
23 Thackeray, Josephus, 4.403.
the high priest’s sash as a cosmological symbol 185

The idea that cult and creation correspond is also found in another promi-
nent Jewish interpreter, Philo, who says that the holy temple of God represents
the whole universe in his Spec. 1.66.24 This belief that the earthly temple is a
replica of the entire creation is rooted in biblical texts: the creation of the world
in Gen 1–2 is set in conspicuous parallel with the building of the tabernacle in
Exod 39–40.25 According to Moshe Weinfeld, “Gen 1:1–2:3 and Ex 39:1–40:33 are
typologically identical. Both describe the satisfactory completion of the enter-
prise commanded by God, its inspection and approval, the blessing and the
sanctification which are connected with it. Most importantly, the expression
of these ideas in both accounts overlaps.”26 In view of these parallels, many

24 Spec. I.66 reads: “The highest, and in the truest sense the holy, temple of God is, as we
must believe, the whole universe, having for its sanctuary the most sacred part of all exis-
tence, even heaven ….” Colson and Whitaker, Philo, 7.137. Zohar II.149a conveys a similar
tradition: “Said R. Isaac: ‘We are aware that the structure of the Tabernacle corresponds to
the structure of heaven and earth.’” Harry Sperling and Maurice Simon, eds., The Zohar. 5
vols. (London and New York: Soncino, 1933), 4.22. Cf. also Zohar II.231a: “Now, the Taberna-
cle below was likewise made after the pattern of the supernal Tabernacle in all its details.
For the Tabernacle in all its works embraced all the works and achievements of the upper
world and the lower, whereby the Shekinah was made to abide in the world, both in the
higher spheres and the lower. Similarly, the Lower Paradise is made after the pattern of the
Upper Paradise, and the latter contains all the varieties of forms and images to be found in
the former. Hence the work of the Tabernacle, and that of heaven and earth, come under
one and the same mystery.” Sperling and Simon, The Zohar, 4.289; Zohar II.235b: “Now, the
lower and earthly Tabernacle was the counterpart of the upper Tabernacle, whilst the lat-
ter in its turn is the counterpart of a higher Tabernacle, the most high of all. All of them,
however, are implied within each other and form one complete whole, as it says: ‘that
the tabernacle may be one whole.’ The Tabernacle was erected by Moses, he alone being
allowed to raise it up, as only a husband may raise up his wife. With the erection of the
lower Tabernacle there was erected another Tabernacle on high. This is indicated in the
words ‘the tabernacle was reared up (hukam),’ reared up, that is, by the hand of no man,
but as out of the supernal undisclosed mystery in response to the mystical force indwelling
in Moses that it might be perfected with him.” Sperling and Simon, The Zohar, 4.303.
25 Levenson notes that “collectively, the function of these correspondences is to underscore
the depiction of the sanctuary as a world, that is, an ordered, supportive, and obedient
environment, and the depiction of the world as a sanctuary, that is, a place in which the
reign of God is visible and unchallenged, and his holiness is palpable, unthreatened, and
pervasive. Our examination of the two sets of Priestly texts, one at the beginning of Gene-
sis and the other at the end of Exodus, has developed powerful evidence that, as in many
cultures, the Temple was conceived as a microcosm, a miniature world.” Levenson, Cre-
ation and the Persistence of Evil, 86.
26 Moshe Weinfeld, “Sabbath, Temple and the Enthronement of the Lord—The Problem of
the Sitz im Leben of Genesis 1:1–2:3,” in André Caquot and Mathias Delcor, eds., Mélanges
bibliques et orientaux en l’ honneur de M. Henri Cazelles, AOAT 212 (Kevelaer: Butzer &
Bercker, 1981), 501–12.503. See Samuel Balentine, The Torah’s Vision of Worship (Minneapo-
186 orlov

scholars suggest that the earthly sanctuary is envisioned as a microcosm of the

world, imitating the sacerdotal structure of the entire creation.27

2 The Sea as the Cosmological Courtyard

Especially important for this study is that the tripartite structure of the cosmo-
logical temple includes the sea, which corresponds in these traditions to the
courtyard of the Temple of Creation. Numbers Rabbah 13.19 mentions the court
encompassing the sanctuary just as the sea surrounds the world.28 Likewise,
B. Sukkah 51b tells how the white and blue marble of the temple walls were rem-
iniscent of the waves of the sea.29 The association between the sacred chamber
and the sea may also be suggested by the symbolism of the bronze tank in the
courtyard of Israel’s temple, designated in some texts as the “molten sea.”30 It

lis: Fortress Press, 1999), 67–68; Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 60–61; Joseph
Blenkinsopp, “The Structure of P,” CBQ 38 (1976): 283–286; Michael Fishbane, Text and Tex-
ture (New York: Schocken, 1979), 12; Victor Hurowitz, “The Priestly Account of Building the
Tabernacle,” JAOS 105 (1985): 21–30; Peter Kearney, “Creation and Liturgy: The P Redac-
tion of Ex 25–40,” ZAW 89.3 (1977): 375–387 at 375; Jon Levenson, Sinai and Zion: An Entry
into the Jewish Bible (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1985), 143; idem, Creation and the Persis-
tence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988),
85–86; Christophe Nihan, From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the Composition of
the Book of Leviticus, FAT 25 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 54–58; Walton, Genesis, 149;
Peter Weimar, “Sinai und Schöpfung: Komposition und Theologie der priesterschriftlichen
Sinaigeschichte,” RB 95 (1988): 337–385; Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of
Eden Story,” 19–25.
27 Jon Levenson suggests that “World building and Temple building seem to be homologous
activities. In fact, some of the same language can be found in the description of ‘the estab-
lishment of the sanctuary in the land and the distribution of the land among the tribes’
in Joshua 18–19.” Jon Levenson, “The Jerusalem Temple in Devotional and Visionary Expe-
rience,” in Arthur Green, ed., Jewish Spirituality. Vol. I: From the Bible through the Middle
Ages (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 32–61 at 52.
28 “… His offering was one silver dish, etc. The dish was in allusion to the court which encom-
passed the Tabernacle as the sea encompasses the world.” Freedman and Simon, Midrash
Rabbah, 6.546. Concerning a similar tradition in Midrash Tadshe, see George MacRae,
Some Elements of Jewish Apocalyptic and Mystical Tradition and Their Relation to Gnostic
Literature. 2 vols. (Ph.D. diss.; University of Cambridge, 1966), 55.
29 “… The reference is to the building of Herod. Of what did he build it?—Rabbah replied,
Of yellow and white marble. Some there are who say, with yellow, blue and white marble.
The building rose in tiers in order to provide a hold for the plaster. He intended at first to
overlay it with gold, but the Rabbis told him, Leave it alone for it is more beautiful as it
is, since it has the appearance of the waves of the sea.” Isidor Epstein, ed., The Babylonian
Talmud (London: Soncino, 1935–1952), Sukkah, 51b.
30 1 Kgs 7:23–25 reads: “Then he made the molten sea; it was round, ten cubits from brim to
the high priest’s sash as a cosmological symbol 187

has been thought that “the great size of the tank … in conjunction with the fact
that no practical application is offered for the ‘sea’ during the time of Solomon,
supports the supposition that the tank served a symbolic purpose.31 Either the
‘cosmic waters,’ or the ‘waters of life,’ which emanated from below the garden
of Eden, or the ‘great deep’ of chaos is most often cited as the underlying sym-
bolism of the molten sea.”32
The depiction of the eschatological temple in the Book of Ezekiel also con-
tains similar imagery insofar as it connects the sacred courtyard to living water.
Viktor Hurowitz highlights the significance of this: “Ezekiel’s temple of the
future has a river flowing from under the threshold (Ezek 47:1) … The river envi-
sioned by Ezekiel seems to replace the basins in Solomon’s temple—basins that
may have symbolized the rivers of a divine garden.”33 Ezek 47:1–8 offers the fol-
lowing description of the sacred waters:

Then he brought me back to the entrance of the temple; there, water was
flowing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the
temple faced east); and the water was flowing down from below the south
end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar. Then he brought

brim, and five cubits high, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference. Under
its brim were gourds, for thirty cubits, compassing the sea round about; the gourds were
in two rows, cast with it when it was cast. It stood upon twelve oxen, three facing north,
three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east; the sea was set upon them, and
all their hinder parts were inward.” (NRSV). See also 2Kgs 16:17; 2Kgs 25:13; 1Chr 18:8; 2Chr
4:2; Jer 52:17.
31 Elizabeth Bloch-Smith observes that “the exaggerated size of the structures of the Solo-
monic Temple courtyard would suggest that they were not intended for human use, but
belonged to the realm of the divine.” Elizabeth Bloch-Smith “‘Who is the King of Glory?’
Solomon’s Temple and Its Symbolism,” in Michael David Coogan et al., eds., Scripture and
Other Artifacts. Essays on the Bible and Archeology in Honor of Philip J. King (Louisville:
Westminster, 1994), 19–31 at 21.
32 Bloch-Smith “ ‘Who is the King of Glory?’ Solomon’s Temple and Its Symbolism,” 20. See
also Carol Meyers, “Sea, Molten,” in David Noel Freedman, ed., Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6
vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 5.1061–1062.
33 Victor Hurowitz, “Inside Solomon’s Temple,” Bible Review 10.2 (1994): 24–36. Jon Leven-
son also draws attention to the creational symbolism of the molten sea by arguing that
“the metal ‘Sea’ ( yam) in its courtyard (1 Kgs 7:23–26) suggests the Mesopotamian apsu,
employed both as the name of the subterranean fresh-water ocean … and as the name of
a basin of holy water erected in the Temple. As the god of the subterranean freshwater
ocean, apsu played an important role in some Mesopotamian cosmogonies, just as the
Sea ( yam) did in some Israelite creation stories (e.g., Ps 74:12–17; Isa 51:9–11). This suggests
that the metal Sea in the Temple courtyard served as a continual testimony to the act of
creation.” Levenson, “The Jerusalem Temple in Devotional and Visionary Experience,” 51.
188 orlov

me out by way of the north gate, and led me around on the outside to
the outer gate that faces toward the east; and the water was coming out
on the south side. Going on eastward with a cord in his hand, the man
measured one thousand cubits, and then led me through the water; and
it was ankle-deep. Again he measured one thousand, and led me through
the water; and it was knee-deep. Again he measured one thousand, and
led me through the water; and it was up to the waist. Again he measured
one thousand, and it was a river that I could not cross, for the water had
risen; it was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be crossed. He
said to me, “Mortal, have you seen this?” Then he led me back along the
bank of the river. As I came back, I saw on the bank of the river a great
many trees on the one side and on the other. He said to me, “This water
flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah; and when
it enters the sea, the sea of stagnant waters, the water will become fresh.”
NRSV

The flowing rivers of this passage echo another account of the cosmologi-
cal temple found in the Apocalypse of Abraham in which the sea is depicted
alongside rivers and their circles.34 Like the great prophetic account, the Apoc-
alypse is familiar with the paradisal provenance of the sacred waters, connect-
ing the Edenic tree to “the spring, the river flowing from it.” In both passages,
the waters of Paradise are portrayed as “flowing.”35 The origin of the paradisal
imagery of the circulating waters appears already in Gen 2:10,36 where a river
flows from Eden to water the garden.37 In Ezekiel, however, the image of flow-
ing Edenic waters receives a further cultic meaning. Yet, such an emphasis
is not unique to Ezekiel. Gregory Beale points out38 that similar sacerdotal
imagery involving “rivers” can be found in the description of Israel’s Temple

34 On the Temple of Creation in the Apocalypse of Abraham see Andrei A. Orlov, “The Cos-
mological Temple in the Apocalypse of Abraham,” in idem, Divine Scapegoats: Demonic
Mimesis in Early Jewish Mysticism (Albany: SUNY, 2016), 37–54.
35 Apoc. Ab. 21:5: “I saw there the rivers and their overflows, and their circles;” Ezek 47:1: “water
was flowing from below the threshold of the temple.”
36 Regarding this biblical passage, Wenham observes that “the brief account of the geogra-
phy of the garden in 2:10–14 also makes many links with later sanctuary design. ‘A river
flows out of Eden to water the garden.’ … Ps 46:5 speaks of ‘a river whose streams make
glad the city of God’ and Ezekiel 47 describes a great river flowing out of the new Jerusalem
temple to sweeten the Dead Sea.” Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of Eden
Story,” 22.
37 “A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four
branches.” (NRSV). Regarding the rivers of paradise, see also 2 En. 8, 1QH 14 and 16.
38 Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 72.
the high priest’s sash as a cosmological symbol 189

in Psalm 36:8–9.39 Scholars have additionally discerned40 a similar sacerdotal

motif of sacred waters associated with the temple settings in various Jewish
extra-biblical accounts, including the Let. Aris. 89–9141 and Jos. Asen. 2.42 Chris-
tian sources also display acquaintance with the sacerdotal tradition of flowing
waters. Rev 22:1–2, for example, portrays a river of the water of life flowing from
the throne of God.43
All these testimonies demonstrate that in early biblical and extra-biblical
Jewish accounts, rivers, seas, and oceans have often received a cosmological
significance being envisioned as a watery courtyard of the Temple of Creation
which encompasses other, more sacred chambers of the cosmological sanctu-
ary. It is in light of these traditions that the passage from Ant. 3.185, in which
the high priest’s girdle encompassed the priest as “the ocean, which holds
the whole in its embrace,”44 should be understood. Earlier we had noted how
various parts of the high priest’s accoutrement symbolically corresponded to
various chambers in both the earthly and cosmological temples. The middle
part of his multilayered attire, composed of several garments and undergar-
ments, represented the Holy Place; this, in turn symbolized in cosmological lan-

39 “They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of
your delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.” (NRSV).
40 Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 74.
41 “There is an uninterrupted supply not only of water, just as if there were a plentiful spring
rising naturally from within, but also of indescribably wonderful underground reservoirs,
which within a radius of five stades from the foundation of the Temple revealed innu-
merable channels for each of them, the streams joining together on each side. All these
were covered with lead down to the foundation of the wall; on top of them a thick layer
of pitch, all done very effectively. There were many mouths at the base, which were com-
pletely invisible except for those responsible for the ministry, so that the large amounts of
blood which collected from the sacrifices were all cleansed by the downward pressure and
momentum. Being personally convinced, I will describe the building plan of the reservoirs
just as I understood it. They conducted me more than four stades outside the city, and told
me to bend down at a certain spot and listen to the noise at the meeting of the waters. The
result was that the size of the conduits became clear to me, as has been demonstrated.”
Robert Shutt, “Letter of Aristeas,” in James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseude-
pigrapha, 2 vols (New York: Doubleday, 1983–1985), 2.7–34 at 18–19.
42 An image of overflowing water surrounding the Temple courtyard is found also in Jos.
Asen. 2:17–20: “And there was in the court, on the right hand, a spring of abundant liv-
ing water ….” Scholars have noted that “detailed description of [Aseneth’s] garden clearly
echoes Ezekiel’s account of what he saw in his celebrated temple-vision (Ezek. 40–48).”
Gideon Bohak, Joseph and Aseneth and the Jewish Temple in Heliopolis (Atlanta: Scholars,
1996), 68.
43 “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from
the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.” (NRSV).
44 Thackeray, Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 4.405.
190 orlov

guage of the Temple of Creation as the “earth.” Here we should recall Josephus’
description of the priestly vestments:

The high priest’s tunic … signifies the earth, being of linen, and its blue
the arch of heaven, while it recalls the lightnings by its pomegranates, the
thunder by the sound of its bells …. The essen, again, he set in the midst
of this garment, after the manner of the earth, which occupies the mid-
most place; and by the girdle wherewith he encompassed it he signified
the ocean, which holds the whole in its embrace.45

Akin to the earthly and cosmological sanctuaries, where the watery court-
yards (represented respectively by the molten sea or the actual sea) surrounded
the Holy Place (represented in the Temple of Creation by earth), in Josephus’
description, the belt-ocean encompasses the part of the high priest’s attire des-
ignated as the “earth.” How, though, does the Leviathan imagery fit into this set
of sacerdotal traditions?

3 Leviathan as the Circuitus Mundi

As we noted at the beginning of this study, scholars are aware of the peculiar
parallelism in which Josephus associated the priestly sash first with serpentine
imagery and then with the ocean. This juxtaposition led scholars to believe that
the serpent is in fact the sea monster—the Leviathan.46 Both entities are said
to encompass the part of the high priest’s accoutrement which, in Josephus’
description, was associated with the earth. Our study already demonstrated
that the ocean, symbolized by the sash, encompasses here the microcosmic
temple embodied by the high priest’s figure. But could the Leviathan imagery
also be part of this sacerdotal symbolic framework? In this respect it is impor-
tant that in Jewish lore not only the sea or ocean, but also its enigmatic inhab-
itant, Leviathan himself, was envisioned as the sacred courtyard that encom-
passes the Temple of Creation. In these traditions, the Leviathan is depicted as
the one who encompasses the earth, acting as “Circuitus Mundi.”47
William Whitney’s exhaustive research on the Leviathan legends demon-
strates that in later Jewish materials, this idea is most clearly represented by

45 Ibid.
46 Fletcher-Louis, “The High Priest as Divine Mediator,” 698.
47 William Whitney, Two Strange Beasts: Leviathan and Behemoth in Second Temple and Early
Rabbinic Judaism, HSM 63 (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 118.
the high priest’s sash as a cosmological symbol 191

Rashbam in his commentary on b. Bava Batra 74b. In his interpretation of the

famous talmudic passage dealing with the monsters, Rashbam reveals knowl-
edge of a tradition about a female Leviathan who surrounds the earth.48 Whit-
ney draws attention to another specimen of this motif, found in Midrash ʿAseret
Had-dibberot (ca. tenth century CE), which transmits the following portrayal of
the Leviathan:

The Holy One (Blessed be He) wished to create the world. Immediately
its length was a journey of five hundred years and its breadth a journey
of five hundred years. And the great sea surrounded the whole world like
an arch of a great pillar. And the whole world was encircled by the fins of
Leviathan, who dwells in the lower waters. In them he was like a little fish
in the sea.49

The presence of this idea in relatively late Jewish materials does not necessar-
ily mean that the tradition of the Leviathan as the Circuitus Mundi represents
merely a rabbinic invention. Whitney notes that “the image of a serpent which
encircles the cosmos, the ouroboros (tail-devourer), so named because it is usu-
ally represented with its tail in its mouth, is an ancient iconographic motif in
the Mediterranean world occurring frequently in magical amulets and certain
texts of the Greco-Roman period.”50
Alexander Kulik’s research on the Leviathan tradition in 3 Baruch demon-
strates that the idea of the primordial reptile as the Circuitus Mundi has ancient
roots.51 A passage from Philo of Byblos’ work On Snakes, preserved in Eusebius’s
Pr. Ev. 1.10.45–53, contains such a concept:

Moreover the Egyptians, describing the world from the same idea, engrave
the circumference of a circle of the color of the sky and of fire, and a hawk-
shaped serpent stretched across the middle of it, and the whole shape like
our Theta, representing the circle as the world, and signifying by the ser-
pent which connects it in the middle the good daemon.52

48 Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 118.

49 Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 117; BHM I:63.
50 Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 119. Whitney points out that an early example of the ouro-
boros motif appears in a silver Phoenician bowl found in an Etruscan warrior burial of ca.
ninth-eighth century BCE at Praeneste in Italy. Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 119.
51 Alexander Kulik, “The Mysteries of Behemoth and Leviathan and the Celestial Bestiary of
3 Baruch,” Le Muséon 122 (2009): 291–329 at 299.
52 Edwin Hamilton Gifford, ed., Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica (Preparation for the Gospel),
5 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1903; repr.: 2 vols.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981), 1.43.
192 orlov

Pistis Sophia 3.126 also attests to this motif of the cosmic serpent that encom-
pass the entire world: “The outer darkness is a great dragon whose tail is in its
mouth, and it is outside the whole world and it surrounds the whole world.”53
Kulik identifies yet another reference to a cosmic reptile who encompasses
the world and is associated with the ocean, found in the Acts of Thomas
32:54

The snake says to him: I am a reptile, the son of reptile, and harmer, the
son of harmer: I am the son of him, to whom power was given over (all)
creatures, and he troubled them. I am the son of him, who makes him-
self like to God to those who obey him, that they may do his will. I am
the son of him, who is ruler over everything that is created under heaven.
I am the son of him, who is outside of the ocean, and whose mouth is
closed.55

A crucial early testimony to the Leviathan as the Circuitus Mundi is found in

Origen’s work, Contra Celsum VI.25:

It contained a drawing of ten circles, which were separated from one

another and held together by a single circle, which was said to be the soul of
the universe and was called Leviathan. The Jewish scriptures, with a hidden
meaning in mind, said that this Leviathan was formed by God as a play-
thing. For in the Psalms we find: “Thou hast made all things in wisdom; the
earth is filled with thy creation. This is the sea great and wide; there go the
ships, small animals and great, this serpent which thou didst form to play
with him.” Instead of the word “serpent” the Hebrew text read “Leviathan.”
The impious diagram said that the Leviathan, which was clearly so objec-
tionable to the prophet, is the soul that has permeated the universe. We
also found that Behemoth is mentioned in it as if it were some being fixed
below the lowest circle. The inventor of this horrible diagram depicted
Leviathan upon the circumference of the circle and at its centre, putting
in the name twice.56

53 Carl Schmidt and Violet MacDermot, eds., Pistis Sophia, NHS 9 (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 317.
54 Kulik, “The Mysteries of Behemoth and Leviathan,” 299.
55 Albertus Frederik Johannes Klijn, The Acts of Thomas: Introduction, Text, and Commentary,
2nd ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 92–93.
56 Henry Chadwick, Origen, Contra Celsum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953),
340.
the high priest’s sash as a cosmological symbol 193

Whitney’s research underscores the complexity of the Leviathan imagery in

this presentation of the Ophite diagram. In his judgment, the “circled” serpent
(ouroboros) is portrayed as surrounding another “axial” serpent.57
Finally, the most important passage suggesting the Leviathan’s role as Cir-
cuitus Mundi can be found in the Apocalypse of Abraham, a text usually dated
to the second century C.E.58 In this text Abraham is given a vision of the lower
regions of creation where he is able to behold the domain of the Leviathan.
Apoc. Ab. 21:1–5 reads:

And he said to me, “Look now beneath your feet at the expanse and con-
template the creation which was previously covered over. On this level
there is the creation and those who inhabit it and the age that has been
prepared to follow it.” And I looked beneath the expanse at my feet and
I saw the likeness of heaven and what was therein. And I saw there the
earth and its fruits, and its moving ones, and its spiritual ones, and its host
of men and their spiritual impieties, and their justifications, and the pur-
suits of their works, and the abyss and its torment, and its lower depths,
and the perdition which is in it. And I saw there the sea and its islands,
and its animals and its fishes, and Leviathan and his domain, and his lair,
and his dens, and the world which lies upon him, and his motions and the
destruction of the world because of him. I saw there the rivers and their
overflows, and their circles (кругы ихъ).59

Two details of this description are important for our study. First is the associ-
ation of the Leviathan’s domain with the water symbolism, including the sea

57 Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 122.

58 On the date of the Apocalypse of Abraham, see George Herbert Box and Joseph Lands-
man, The Apocalypse of Abraham. Edited, with a Translation from the Slavonic Text and
Notes, TED 1.10 (London, New York: Macmillan, 1918), xv–xix; Belkis Philonenko-Sayar and
Marc Philonenko, L’ Apocalypse d’ Abraham. Introduction, texte slave, traduction et notes,
Semitica 31 (Paris: Librairie Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1981), 34–35; Ryszard Rubinkiewicz and
Horace Lunt, “Apocalypse of Abraham,” in James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testa-
ment Pseudepigrapha. 2 vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1983–1985), 1.681–705 at 683; Ryszard
Rubinkiewicz, L’ Apocalypse d’Abraham en vieux slave. Introduction, texte critique, traduc-
tion et commentaire, ŹM 129 (Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu
Lubelskiego, 1987), 70–73; Alexander Kulik, “К датировке ‘Откровения Авраама,’” in
N.M. Botvinnik and Je. I. Vaneeva, eds., In Memoriam of Ja. S. Lur’e (St. Petersburg: Fenix,
1997), 189–195; idem, Retroverting Slavonic Pseudepigrapha: Toward the Original of the
Apocalypse of Abraham, TCS 3 (Atlanta: Scholars, 2004), 2–3.
59 Kulik, Retroverting Slavonic Pseudepigrapha, 26; Philonenko-Sayar and Philonenko, L’Apo-
calypse d’ Abraham, 82–84.
194 orlov

and the rivers. Connecting the Leviathan to the rivers will become a promi-
nent motif in later Jewish mysticism.60 The second feature is the reference
to the rivers’ circles (Slav. кругы).61 Such a reference might indicate the mon-
ster’s role as the Circuitus Mundi in view of his association with these watery
streams.

4 The High Priest as the Eschatological Adam

It is interesting that Josephus describes the high priest’s sash as being some-
what different from the belts of ordinary priests, since it had a mixture of gold
interwoven into it. In Ant. 3.159 he says:

The high priest is arrayed in like manner, omitting none of the things
already mentioned, but over and above these he puts on a tunic of blue
material. This too reaches to the feet, and is called in our tongue meeir; it
is girt about him with a sash decked with the same gay hues as adorned
the first, with gold ( χρυσοῦ) interwoven into its texture.62

This description represents a departure from the biblical patterns, where the
sash is not associated with gold.63 However, the golden sash appears in the
portrayal of Christ in Rev 1:13,64 where some argue he is being depicted as the
heavenly high priest.65
If for Josephus the sash is associated with the symbolism of the protologi-
cal monster, the golden nature of this priestly item brings to mind some Jewish
traditions about the luminosity of the Leviathan’s skin. Pesiqta de Rav Kahana,
for example, describes the Leviathan’s skin with the symbolism of shining gold
that surpasses the splendor of the sun:

60 See, for example, Zohar I.52a.

61 Philonenko-Sayar and Philonenko, L’ Apocalypse d’ Abraham, 84.
62 Thackeray, Josephus. Jewish Antiquities, 4.390–391.
63 Ex 39:29: “and the sash of fine twisted linen, and of blue, purple, and crimson yarns,
embroidered with needlework; as the Lord had commanded Moses.”
64 Rev 1:13: “and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with
a long robe and with a golden sash (ζώνην χρυσᾶν) across his chest.”
65 See Ross Winkle, “ ‘You Are What You Wear’: The Dress and Identity of Jesus as High Priest
in John’s Apocalypse,” in Henrietta L. Wiley and Christian A. Eberhart, eds., Sacrifice, Cult,
and Atonement in Early Judaism and Christianity: Constituents and Critique (Atlanta: SBL
Press, 2017), 344–345.
the high priest’s sash as a cosmological symbol 195

Lest you suppose that the skin of the Leviathan is not something extraor-
dinary, consider what R. Phinehas the Priest ben Hama and R. Jeremiah
citing R. Samuel bar R. Isaac said of it: The reflection of the Leviathan’s
fins makes the disk of the sun dim by comparison, so that it is said of
each of the fins “It telleth the sun that it shines weakly” (Job 9:7). For The
[Leviathan’s] underparts, the reflections thereof, [surpass] the sun: where it
lieth upon the mire, there is a shining of yellow gold (Job 41:22). It is said,
moreover, that the words Where it lieth upon the mire, there is a shining
of yellow gold (harus) mean [not only that the Leviathan’s underparts
shine, but] that the very place it lies upon is harus—that is, golden. Hence
Where it lieth upon the mire, there is a shining of yellow gold. Still further
it is said: Ordinarily, there is no place more filthy than the one where a
fish lies. But the place where the Leviathan lies is purer even than yellow
gold. Hence Where it lieth upon the mire, there is a shining of yellow gold
(Job 41:22).66

This depiction of the Leviathan’s skin with the imagery of “shining of yellow
gold” is important for our study, since the high priest’s sash in Josephus and
Rev 1 is also described with gold symbolism.
Furthermore, Pesiqta de Rav Kahana speaks more specifically about the
“glory” of the Leviathan:

On account of its glory, he [God] brings forth his defenders. (Job 41:7).
Because he possesses a celestial glory, the Holy One (Blessed be He) says
to the ministering angels, “Go down and wage war with it.”67

Reflecting on this striking narrative about the glory of the primordial reptile,
Irving Jacobs notes that

the imagery and language employed in the opening lines of this passage
require further evaluation, particularly the phrase “celestial glory.” This

66 William Braude and Israel Kapstein, eds., Pesikta de-Rab Kahana. R. Kahana’s Compila-
tion of Discourses for Sabbaths and Festal Days (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society
of America, 1975), 467.
67 While Irving and Whitney render this passage with the formulae of “glory,” Braude and
Kapstein prefer use the term “pride” by rendering the passage in the following way:
“The rows of his shields are his pride (Job 41:7). The Leviathan has the pride which
is proper only to Him who is on high, and so the Holy One says to the ministering
angels: Go down and wage war against him.” Braude and Kapstein, Pesikta de-Rab Kahana,
468.
196 orlov

unusual formulation occurs, apparently, only in the above context, from

which it is difficult to determine its precise significance. We may assume,
however, that our unknown aggadist is alluding to an ancient tradition—
possibly biblical in origin—that Leviathan is endowed with a supernat-
ural splendour. According to an early tannaitic source, Leviathan’s eyes
are great orbs of light illuminating the depths of the sea. Pesiqta d’Rav
Kahana, from which the quotation is taken, also records the tradition that
Leviathan’s fins alone could dim the light of the sun with their brilliance.
In this respect, the splendour of Leviathan is comparable with that of the
primordial light, which, according to rabbinic tradition, emanated from
the mantle donned by God at the time of creation. Thus Leviathan radi-
ates a heavenly splendour.68

68 Irving Jacobs, The Midrashic Process: Tradition and Interpretation in Rabbinic Judaism
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 160–162. Jacobs traces this attribute of
glory to some Mesopotamian traditions, noting that the “interpretation of this obscure
phrase is supported by a much older source, which may preserve the prototype for the
awesome, luminous monster of Jewish tradition. The Babylonian creation epic contains
a description of the dreadful dragons provided for Tiamat’s army by Mother Hubur.
These monsters are garbed with a pulhu, the awesome, fiery garment of the gods, and
are crowned with a melammu, a dazzling, divine aureole, so that when they rear up—
like Leviathan—none can withstand them.” Jacobs, The Midrashic Process, 162. Cf. Enuma
Elish 1, lines 136–139; 11, lines 23–26; 111, lines 27–30, also lines 85–88 (J.B. Pritchard, ANET,
pp. 62): “Roaring dragons she has clothed with terror, Has crowned them with haloes, mak-
ing them like gods, So that he who beholds them shall perish abjectly, (And) that, with
their bodies reared up, none might turn them back.” Jacobs, The Midrashic Process, 160–
162. In a recent study, Shawn Zelig Aster defines melammu as “a quality of overwhelming
and overpowering strength, and it can be defined as ‘the covering, outer layer, or outward
appearance of a person, being, or object, or rays emanating from a person or being, that
demonstrate the irresistible or supreme power of that person, being, or object.’ A god who
possesses melammu is sovereign, a person who possesses melammu is unbeatable, and a
force which possesses melammu cannot successfully be stopped. In second-millennium
mythic texts the melammu is portrayed as a cloak or covering, which is often radiant. But
many texts ascribe melammu to objects that are not radiant, and radiance is not an intrin-
sic element of melammu in most periods. Beginning in the Sargonid period (late eight
century BCE), melammu can be used as a synonym for terms meaning ‘radiance,’ but it can
also be used in its more traditional meaning. When used with this traditional meaning (the
standard definition of which is given above), melammu does not necessarily indicate a
radiant phenomenon.” Shawn Zelig Aster, The Phenomenon of Divine and Human Radiance
in the Hebrew Bible and in Northwest Semitic and Mesopotamian Literature: A Philological
and Comparative Study (Ph.D. diss.; University of Pennsylvania, 2006), 512–513. On the ter-
minology of melammu and its application to the monsters and other antagonists, see Leo
Oppenheim, “Akkadian pul(u)h(t)u and melammu,” JAOS 63 (1943): 31–34; Elena Cassin,
La splendeur divine: Introduction à l’ étude de la mentalité mésopotamienne, Civilisations
the high priest’s sash as a cosmological symbol 197

The legends about the glory of the Leviathan in rabbinic literature are not
confined solely to these excerpts from Pesiqta de Rav Kahana, but also can
be found in the talmudic passages. B. Baba Batra 74a, when describing the
Leviathan’s skin, also portrays it as a luminous entity: “The Holy One, blessed
be He, will in time to come make a tabernacle for the righteous from the skin
of Leviathan … The rest [of Leviathan] will be spread by the Holy One, blessed
be He, upon the walls of Jerusalem, and its splendour will shine from one end
of the world to the other; as it is said: And nations shall walk at thy light, and
kings at the brightness of thy rising.”69 A reference to the Leviathan’s “glory”
also appears in Qalliri’s description of this primordial reptile: “Great fish dance
about beneath him. Angels sing above him. They proclaim his splendor and his
glory.”70 Scholars often equate “Leviathan’s glory to the celestial splendor of the
pulhu, the divine garment, and the melammu, the divine aureole, in which the
dragons of Tiamat’s army are garbed in Enuma Elish.”71
One interesting detail which emerges from the aforementioned testimonies
about the Leviathan’s glory is the comparison of its radiance to the sun. Recall
that Pesiqta de Rav Kahana informs us how “the reflection of the Leviathan’s
fins makes the disk of the sun dim by comparison.” Irving Jacobs noted that
the same association is frequently present in rabbinic descriptions of Adam’s
glory.72 Indeed, from b. Baba Batra 58a we learn that “his [Adam’s] two heels …
were like two orbs of the sun.” Midrashim are also familiar with such compar-
isons. According to Leviticus Rabbah 20.2, “the apple of Adam’s heel outshone
the globe of the sun; how much more so the brightness of his face!”73 Something
similar is found in Ecclesiastes Rabbah 8:1: “the ball of Adam’s heel outshone the
sun … so was it not right that the ball of his heel should outshine the sun, and
how much more so the beauty of his face!”74

et Sociétés 8 (Paris and La Haye: Mouton, 1968); Shawn Zelig Aster, The Phenomenon of
Divine and Human Radiance, 80–82; idem, The Unbeatable Light: Melammu and Its Bibli-
cal Parallels, AOAT 384 (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2012).
69 Epstein, The Babylonian Talmud. Baba Bathra, 75a.
70 Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 134–135.
71 Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 137. Enuma Elish (ANET, 62–65) I. 136–139; 2.23–26; 3.27–30,
85–88.
72 Irving, The Midrashic Process, 162.
73 Harry Freedman and Maurice Simon, eds., Midrash Rabbah, 10 vols. (London: Soncino,
1961), 4.252.
74 Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 8.213–214. See also Zohar I.142b: “Said R. Jose: ‘Can
it really be so, that Jacob’s beauty equaled that of Adam, seeing that, according to tradi-
tion, the fleshy part of Adam’s heel outshone the orb of the sun? Would you, then, say the
same of Jacob?’ ” Sperling and Simon, The Zohar, 2.57.
198 orlov

Such a juxtaposition of the motifs of the luminosity of the Leviathan and

the protoplast is relevant for our study of the high priest’s sash. In Jewish sac-
erdotal traditions, the high priest was often envisioned as the eschatological
Adam who restores the cultic role of the protoplast, he who once was the high
priest of the Garden of Eden. Interestingly, some Jewish traditions suggest the
garments of the high priest were literally the protoplast’s garments transmitted
through successive generations until they reached Aaron.75
The link between the high priestly attire and Adam’s clothes is significant
for our study of the cultic servant wearing the Leviathan’s luminous skin, since
it echoes some Jewish traditions in which the first humans were portrayed
as God’s creatures endowed with the glorious garments of demoted antago-
nists.76 The transference of the glory of the demoted antagonist can be found,
for example, in the Primary Adam Books, where Satan’s lament about his lost
glory is juxtaposed with the traditions about the glorious garments of the first
humans. Of even greater importance for our study, however, is that some of
these narratives convey how God made the luminous garments for his beloved
protoplasts from the skin of the serpent. This is depicted, for instance, in the

75 Numbers Rabbah 4.8: “… Adam was the world’s firstborn. When he offered his sacrifice, as
it says: And it pleased the Lord better than a bullock that hath horns and hoofs (Ps. LXIX,
32)—he donned high priestly garments; as it says: And the Lord God made for Adam and
for his wife garments of skin, and clothed them (Gen. III, 21). They were robes of honor
which subsequent firstborn used. When Adam died he transmitted them to Seth. Seth
transmitted them to Methusaleh. When Methusaleh died he transmitted them to Noah.”
Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 5.101. A similar tradition is also found in Pirke de
Rabbi Eliezer 24: “Rabbi Jehudah said: The coats which the Holy One, blessed be He, made
for Adam and his wife, were with Noah in the ark.” Gerald Friedlander, ed., Pirke de Rabbi
Eliezer (London: Bloch, 1916), 175.
76 For discussions about the luminous garments of the protoplasts, see David Aaron, “Shed-
ding Light on God’s Body in Rabbinic Midrashim: Reflections on the Theory of a Luminous
Adam,” HTR 90 (1997): 299–314; Sebastian Brock, “Clothing Metaphors as a Means of The-
ological Expression in Syriac Tradition,” in Margot Schmidt, ed., Typus, Symbol, Allegorie
bei den östlichen Vätern und ihren Parallelen im Mittelalter, EB 4 (Regensburg: Friedrich
Pustet, 1982), 11–40; April D. DeConick and Jarl Fossum, “Stripped before God: A New
Interpretation of Logion 37 in the Gospel of Thomas,” VC 45 (1991): 123–150 at 141; Nils
Alstrup Dahl and David Hellholm, “Garment-Metaphors: The Old and the New Human
Being,” in Adela Yarbro Collins and Margaret M. Mitchell, eds., Antiquity and Humanity:
Essays on Ancient Religion and Philosophy: Presented to Hans Dieter Betz on his 70th Birth-
day (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 139–158; Alon Goshen-Gottstein, “The Body as Image
of God in Rabbinic Literature,” HTR 87 (1994): 171–195; Benjamin Murmelstein, “Adam,
ein Beitrag zur Messiaslehre,” WZKM 35 (1928): 242–275 at 255; Nissan Rubin and Admiel
Kosman, “The Clothing of the Primordial Adam as a Symbol of Apocalyptic Time in the
Midrashic Sources,” HTR 90 (1997): 155–174; Jonathan Z. Smith, “The Garments of Shame,”
HR 5 (1965/1966): 217–238.
the high priest’s sash as a cosmological symbol 199

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Gen 3:21, a passage which treats the etiology of the
first humans’ glorious attire. According to this text, the original humans were
endowed with luminous garments that had been stripped from the serpent:

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.77

Later midrashim are also cognizant of the enigmatic provenance of the proto-
plasts’ luminous garments. Thus, for example, Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer 20 reads:

Rabbi Eliezer said: From skins which the serpent sloughed off, the Holy
One, blessed be He, took and made coats of glory for Adam and his wife,
as it is said, “And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife coats of skin,
and clothed them.”78

Still, other interpretive lines postulate that the clothing was made from the skin
of the Leviathan.79 In relation to this interpretive trajectory, William Whitney
notes that “two late texts (Minhat Yehuda and Sefer Hadar-Zeqenim, both on

77 Michael Maher, ed., Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Genesis, ArBib 1B (Collegeville: Liturgical

Press, 1992), 29. Later rabbinic traditions also hold that the glorious garments of Adam
and Eve were made from the skin of the female Leviathan.
78 Friedlander, Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, 144.
79 In relation to this tradition, Lambden notes that “in his Legends of the Jews, V, p. 103, n. 93
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1955) Ginzberg drew attention to a
probably early and ‘unknown Midrash’ recorded in mediaeval Jewish sources to the effect
that the first couple’s garments were made from the skin of Leviathan, a creature which
figures in a rich variety of myths and traditions recorded in ancient Near Eastern and
biblical texts as well as in certain rabbinic, Christian, Gnostic, magical and other ancient
literatures. This tradition is of considerable interest in the light of Leviathan’s being pic-
tured in rabbinic sources as a creature of great glory (see for example Pes. K. [1876 on Job
41.7]; b. B. Bat. 74b) and the possibility that there existed an early (tannaitic [?]) branch of
Jewish mysticism surrounding Behemoth and Leviathan (reflected in such Gnostic texts
as the cosmological Diagram of the Ophians mentioned in Origen’s Contra Celsum [6.25]
[?]) There appears to be some connection between rabbinic Adam speculation and the
traditions about Leviathan. Garment imagery and eschatological themes are connected
with this complex of traditions.” Stephen Lambden, “From Fig Leaves to Fingernails: Some
Notes on the Garments of Adam and Eve in the Hebrew Bible and Select Early Postbiblical
Jewish Writings,” in Paul Morris and Deborah Sawyer, eds., A Walk in the Garden: Bibli-
cal, Iconographical and Literary Images of Eden, JSOTSS 136 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic
Press, 1992), 74–90 at 87–88.
200 orlov

Gen 3:21) also record a tradition in which the skin of the female Leviathan (pre-
served for the righteous in the world to come) was used to clothe Adam and
Eve.”80
In light of these traditions, the luminous skin of the Leviathan on the high
priest may have additional eschatological and anthropological significance—
namely, the re-clothing of the eschatological Adam in the form of the sacerdo-
tal servant with the garment of light stripped from the Leviathan.

5 Conclusion

Finally, we need to draw attention to the eschatological significance of Levia-

than’s skin, which again, is curiously linked to its function as the cosmological
shell of the Temple. Thus, from the Babylonian Talmud, we learn that in the last
times the luminous skin of the Leviathan will be used in the building material
for the eschatological tabernacle:

Rabbah in the name of R. Johanan further stated: The Holy One, blessed
be He, will in time to come make a tabernacle for the righteous from the
skin of Leviathan; for it is said: Canst thou fill tabernacles with his skin. If
a man is worthy, a tabernacle is made for him; if he is not worthy [of this]
a [mere] covering is made for him, for it is said: And his head with a fish
covering. If a man is [sufficiently] worthy a covering is made for him; if
he is not worthy [even of this], a necklace is made for him, for it is said:
And necklaces about thy neck. If he is worthy [of it] a necklace is made
for him; if he is not worthy [even of this] an amulet is made for him; as it is
said: And thou wilt bind him for thy maidens. The rest [of Leviathan] will
be spread by the Holy One, blessed be He, upon the walls of Jerusalem,
and its splendor will shine from one end of the world to the other; as it is
said: And nations shall walk at thy light, and kings at the brightness of thy
rising.81

Here, the already familiar motif of Leviathan’s skin is used as the outer shell of
the tabernacle of the righteous in the time to come. And not only the taberna-
cle, but even the wall of the Holy City itself will be covered with the skin of the
cosmological reptile.

80 Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 137. On this see also Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews,
7 vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1909–1938), 5.42, note 123.
81 Epstein, The Babylonian Talmud. Baba Bathra, 75a.
the high priest’s sash as a cosmological symbol 201

What is particular curious in this talmudic excerpt, and something not often
noticed by students of the Leviathan tradition, is the comparison between the
covering for the worthy and the necklace around the neck for the unworthy.
This difference might hint at two functions of the Leviathan’s skin: one that
surrounds the sacred structure akin to the necklace during the normal time,
and one that will become its covering in the messianic time.
This eschatological tradition is important, because it reveals how the sac-
erdotal role of the Leviathan—which was a threating force that surrounded
and constantly jeopardized the Temple during the course of history—is finally
affirmed positively in messianic times.