Leviathan

Beast of The Abyss

Guardian Demon

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“What is Below?” Mysteries of Leviathan in the Early Jewish Accounts and Mishnah Hagigah 2:1

By Andrei A. Orlov Department of Theology, Marquette University Milwaukee, WI

Source: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1341&context=theo_fac 

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In chapter 9 of the Apocalypse of Abraham, a Jewish work composed in the early centuries of the Common Era, God promises Abraham that He will reveal to him the utmost secrets of the universe.

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The following chapter unveils Abraham’s encounter with his angelic guide, a celestial creature named Yahoel. The great angel introduces himself to the patriarch by explaining his roles and functions. While some of the angel’s offices look familiar, others are not. Yahoel’s enigmatic responsibilities include not only guardianship over angelic or human beings, but also over dwellers of the demonic realm.

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In Apoc. Ab. 10:9–10, Yahoel says that God appointed him to rule not only over the living creatures of the divine throne but also over the Leviathans. This association of the angelic bearers of the chariot with the creatures of the underworld has long puzzled students of the Slavonic apocalypse. This juxtaposition of the domain of the Chariot with the domain of the Leviathans that occurs in the beginning of Abraham’s initiation into the heavenly secrets is invoked again later at the pivotal point of the text when Abraham receives a vision of the underworld while standing near the divine throne.

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Thus in chapter 21 of the text, the patriarch, brought by the angel Yahoel to the deity’s throne room, is given a vision of the “likeness of heaven,” a puzzling disclosure portraying the domain of the Leviathans. Several words must be said about the peculiar arrangement of the patriarch’s vision during which the exalted hero of the faith literally gazes into the abyss from the heights of his most exalted position near the theophanic abode of the deity.

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In this ultimate revelation of the divine mysteries, the patriarch’s vision of the divine chariot paradoxically is conflated with his vision of the realm of the Leviathan. This setting seems to provide important evidence for a correspondence between the lower and upper realms, a parallelism that is already hinted at in the double duties of the great angels in chapter 10 of the Slavonic apocalypse.

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It is worthwhile to examine Abraham’s vision in closer detail. In the beginning of this mysterious disclosure, the deity orders the seer to look beneath his feet and “contemplate the creation.” Abraham looks down the expanse and beholds what the text calls the “likeness of heaven.”

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The reference to the “likeness of heaven” has baffled many scholars because the authors of the text include as part of the “resemblance of heaven” the lower domain resting on Leviathan. The focal point of this puzzling depiction is Leviathan, depicted here as the cosmic foundation of the lower realm.

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Reference to the idea that “the created world (universe) … lies upon him [Leviathan]” is especially important. It portrays Leviathan as the “holder” and “the foundation” of the lower created order. From the highest point of heavens the throne of the deity, sustained by the efforts of the Living Creatures, the hero of the faith beholds another mysterious “holder” of cosmic dimensions in the lowest point of creation, the abyss.

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This curious correspondence between the upper and lower points of creation with their respective “sustainers” or “holders” does not appear coincidental. Similar to the Hayyot, the living creatures that sustain the upper foundation of the deity’s throne, Leviathan, too, can be seen as the pivotal holder of the lower foundation. In light of these correspondences, it become clear why earlier in the text, in the introduction of Yahoel’s duties, the Leviathans are mysteriously paired with the Hayyot.

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It suggests that the Leviathans might fulfill the same function in the lower realms as do the Hayyot in the upper realm. The parallelism between the Hayyot and the Leviathans in the Apocalypse of Abraham is also reinforced in the aforementioned terminology of “likeness” when the seer beholds the realm of Leviathan as “likeness of heaven.”

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The positioning of the enigmatic conjunction of the realms of the Chariot and the realm of the Leviathan(s) at the starting and final points of the patriarch’s initiation into the heavenly secrets appears to be deliberate and might be of special significance to the writers or editors of the text. This combination appears to reveal some similarities with the Jewish understanding of esoteric subjects in some early Jewish and rabbinic materials.

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This correspondence, therefore, should be explored more closely in the light of relevant early Jewish and rabbinic sources.

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Secrets of the Hayyot and Secrets of Behemoth and Leviathan

It is possible that the juxtaposition of the Hayyot and the Leviathans amid the revelation of secrets is intended to identify two subjects of esoteric knowledge, one of which is tied to the vision of the Chariot and other to the vision of the Creation. An important question arises, however: how unusual is this conjunction of the secrets of the realms of the Merkavah and the realm of the Leviathans in early Jewish writings and rabbinic literature?

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A well-known tradition in Mishnah Hagigah 2 outlines several fields of esoteric knowledge, delimiting strict boundaries for their study.

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The mishnaic passage specifically mentions the Account of Creation and the Account of the Chariot, saying that “the forbidden degrees may not be expounded before three persons, nor the Story of Creation before two, nor the Chariot before one alone, unless he is a Sage that understands of his own knowledge.”

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These two important esoteric subjects, one consisting of Ma’ase Merkavah and the other - Ma’ase Bereshit, will eventually give rise to prominent interpretive traditions in later Jewish mystical speculation. It is intriguing that in later rabbinic materials the theme of the great primordial monsters, Leviathan and Behemoth, became very important and is often developed in the course of Ma’ase Bereshit speculation.

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Further, the great monsters became an emblematic feature of the Account of Creation to the point that some rabbinic passages even speak, not about Ma’ase Merkavah and Ma’ase Bereshit, but about the secrets of the Chariot and the secrets of the Monsters. One of the examples of this peculiar juxtaposition is – Song of Songs Rabbah 1:28 where the revelation of the secrets of the Chariot is conflated with the revelation of the secrets of Behemoth and Leviathan. The text reads:

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“For whence was Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite to know how to reveal to Israel the secrets of Behemoth and Leviathan, and whence was Ezekiel to know how to reveal to them the secrets of the Chariot. Hence it is written: The King hath brought me into his [secret] chambers.”

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In his analysis of the first part of this passage about the secrets of Leviathan and Behemoth, Michael Fishbane suggests that “we are not informed just what this disclosure consists of; but it undoubtedly involves the esoteric nature of these monsters as part of the work of creation, since this instruction is mentioned together with the fact that Ezekiel will reveal to them the secrets of the Chariot.”

Read More Behemoth Beast of The Land Guardian Demon click

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Fishbane argues convincingly that the lore about the great monsters often serves in the rabbinic materials as an important marker of the subject of the Ma’ase Bereshit that is juxtaposed there with the subject of the Ma’ase Merkavah. It might be tempting to view these later rabbinic testimonies about the Hayyot and the Leviathans as inventions that have little to do with the early Jewish traditions about the great monsters.

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A close analysis of the early sources, however, demonstrates that already even in some Second Temple materials esoteric knowledge about the Leviathans became juxtaposed with the secrets of the Chariot. These important developments should be explored in detail. We will begin our investigation of this early evidence by returning to the aforementioned tradition from Mishnah Hagigah.

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There one can find a cryptic warning about the study of esoteric subjects: “Whosoever gives his mind to four things it was better for him if he had not come into the world – what is above? what is beneath? what was beforetime? and what will be hereafter.”

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What this formula means has long been debated among scholars. Some argue that this mishnaic formulation of esoteric subjects encompasses two dimensions, first spatial, realms above and beneath, and second, temporal, which includes protological and eschatological markers (what was beforetime and what will be hereafter.)

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Others recognize in the formula only one dimension, spatial, suggesting, for example, that the mishnaic expression might intend to describe the dimension of the divine Body. The provenance of the formula has also been debated in an attempt to trace the roots of the mishnaic tradition to biblical, pseudepigraphical or gnostic materials.

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It has also been suggested that mishnaic formulae might stem from the Mesopotamian materials. In this study I would like to focus only on several early Jewish traditions in an attempt to clarify possible roots of the mishnaic formula. It appears that the mishnaic formula reflects some settings found in early Jewish visionary accounts. If so, the formula found in m. Hag. might serve as the crucial link between the early visionary traditions contemplating the subjects of the Account of Creation and the Account of the Chariot and later rabbinic developments.

(The Article was cut short, to read the complete version go to the link provided above)

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