Temple and Contemplation brings together for the first ... - ImagoMundi

THE IMAGO TEMPLI IN CONFRONTATION
III. Ezekiel and the New Temple as a cosmic restoration
The Book of Ezekiel appears indeed to be that which, more than any other,
offers us the perfect Imago Templi. This is further confirmed by the fact that
it was the book on which the Essene Community of Qumran modelled its
own conception of the Temple, in relation to which its ethos was determined
in the face of secular norms and of the catastrophe of a profaned Temple.
Our first task must therefore be to compare the theology of the Temple in
Ezekiel with that professed by the Essence of Qumran. In this we will be
guided by the remarkable piece of research undertaken by a Japanese
theologian, Shozo Fujita. 42 Although this work is unfortunately unedited,
it is truly a model of Temple phenomenology.
For Ezekiel, as for the Community of Qumran, the vision of the Temple
unfolds into a drama whose starting-point is the ruin of the Temple and
the reasons for it, and whose culmination is a vision of the New Temple,
the building of which is the prelude to the apotheosis of a cosmic restoration.
Here is disclosed the perspective of an eschatology which is already
realized in and through the celestial liturgy, a liturgy in which the members
of the Qumran Community participate.
The theology of the Temple in Ezekiel comprises four major phases: I..
The ruin of the Temple deserted by the Shekhinah and by the Glory of
Yahveh; 2. The spiritual Temple of the exile: God himself is now the
Temple; 3. The return of the Glory and of the Shekhinah: the restoration of
the Temple; 4. The vision of the New Temple on the high mountain as the
visionary perception of a cosmic restoration.
1. The ruin of the Temple deserted by the Shekhinah. The sin of Israel, which led
to the destruction of the Temple built of old by Solomon, was its apostasy
to other gods. Thus it was essentially a sin against the Temple, and the
Temple was the place of this apostasy: "... .and behold northward at the
42 Shozo Fujita, The Temple Theology of the Qumran Sect and the Book of Ezekiel: their
relationship to Jewish Literature of the last two centuries B.C., (Princeton University Dissertation,
Ann Arbor, 1970, Xerox University Microfilms); henceforth abbrev. to Temple Theology.
As this thesis has unfortunately remained unpublished, we are glad of the present
opportunity to make its content and its outstanding quality known.—Ezekiel, we
may remember, was among the first group of exiles deported to Babylon. Thus,
exile creates the background to his vision of the destruction and the final restoration
of the Temple, a vision which confers a unique character on Ezekelian Temple
theology.
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THE IMAGO TEMPLI IN CONFRONTATION
gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry . . . Son of man, seest
thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel
committeth here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary?" (Ezek.
8:5—6). This is why the condemnation of Israel is symbolically described
as the departure of the Glory of the Lord (Kevodh Yahveh) from the
Temple, 43 and why Ezekiel has the vision of the Glory leaving Jerusalem.
This Presence of Glory signified the personal presence of Yahveh, and that
was why the Temple constituted an area which was completely consecrated,
separated, closed in upon itself: nothing profane of any description was to
be associated with it. This ideal Imago Templi is the basis of Ezekiel's
theology of the Temple. Its profanation cannot but induce the divine
Presence—the Shekhinah—to depart from it; and this desertion is the real
catastrophe in the destruction of the Temple, because the Shekhinah, the
mysterious divine Presence, is what makes the Temple the "representative"
of the kingdom of God on earth. Its departure is thus what brings about
the destruction of the Temple: "I no longer have a dwelling upon earth".
This destruction implied, together with the exile of the Shekhinah, the
suspension or cessation of the activity relating to the realization of the
Kingdom (the cessation of the activity of the divine Right Hand), 44 for the
Temple, as the ideal centre of the world, was the centre from which God
ruled over the world, the centre of the cosmic theocracy.
Furthermore, just as the divine condemnation began with the Temple,
so the work of divine restoration had to begin with the Temple. The vision
of the New Temple fills the last chapters (40-48) of the Book of Ezekiel.
"Thou son of man, shew the house to the house of Israel, that they may be
ashamed of their iniquities: and let them measure the pattern" (Ezek.
43:10). In the course of these long visionary chapters Ezekiel's Imago
Templi is defined: the image of a supernatural Temple beyond our time
43 For what follows, cf. ibid., pp. 19—26.
44 Cf. H. Odeberg, 3 Enoch or the Hebrew Book of Enoch (Cambridge, 1928), chap.
XLVII1, p. 154, note 1. The real catastrophe in the destruction of the Temple was
the departure of the Shekhinah and its absentation from the earth, because its
presence in the Temple had made it the "representation" of the kingdom of God on
earth. God withdraws his Shekhinah from the Temple and this is why the Temple is
destroyed. "God no longer possesses any dwelling-place on the earth". We spoke
above of the comparison to be made in the work of Suhravardi between the Arabic
Sakinah, the Hebrew Shekhinah, the Persian Khurrah (Avestan Xvarnah, Light of
Glory), and the Hebrew kavodh. This should form the subject of a phenomenological
(we do not say historical) inquiry.
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