4 min read

Aristeas Saw Jerusalem Working in Holy Silence

An Egyptian envoy walks through Judea and the Temple, where walls, water, blood, guards, and silence turn holiness into visible order.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Mountain Lifted the Temple Into Sight
  2. The Curtain Moved Like Breath
  3. Water Ran Under the Mountain Without Stopping
  4. Seven Hundred Worked in Silence

The Mountain Lifted the Temple Into Sight

Aristeas came looking for translators. Jerusalem made him look at geography first. The city stood in the middle of Judea on a high mountain, the Temple built at the summit in all its splendor, surrounded by three walls more than seventy cubits high. Everything about the approach taught the body before the mind could form a sentence: the ascent, the walls, the scale of the gates, the sense that this ground was not like other ground.

The farms of the surrounding country surprised him too. They were dense and well-managed, irrigated through natural channels, with the land bearing everything in abundance. Aristeas had expected a provincial outpost. He found a place that looked as if it had been designed to sustain itself across centuries without needing help from any larger power.

The Curtain Moved Like Breath

Inside the Temple precincts, the details became physical. The door, the fastenings, the lintel, the fabric of the entrance all matched the scale of the place. The curtain was in perpetual motion from the draught, bulging out from below in a way the text calls a pleasant spectacle, one from which a man could scarcely turn away. The altar stood in keeping with the place itself, reached by a gradual slope arranged for the purpose of decency, and the ministering priests moved in robes that suited the whole.

Nothing in the scene was accidental. Even the movement of cloth had weight. Holiness at Jerusalem was not experienced as stillness. It breathed. The curtain moved. The priests moved. The water moved. And all this motion was ordered so precisely that the order itself was what struck the visitor as miraculous.

Water Ran Under the Mountain Without Stopping

The Temple floor sloped down toward the appointed places where water washed the blood from the sacrifices, because many thousands of animals were offered there on the feast days. An abundant natural spring gushed from within the Temple area without stopping. Below the site, as Aristeas was taken out four furlongs to see them, lay cisterns so vast he could hear the sound of the meeting waters before he reached the edge. Countless pipes carried water from the springs outward through the mountain, converging in streams that fed the drainage of the sanctuary above.

The scale of the hidden plumbing astonished him as much as the visible architecture. All that blood washed away in what the text calls the twinkling of an eye. The Temple did not simply perform sacrifice. It had been built to perform it at scale, day after day, with a system of water that kept the sacred space usable and clean.

Seven Hundred Worked in Silence

The most astonishing detail came from the priests themselves. When those who had been on duty were relieved, those waiting rose spontaneously to take their places, without any word of command. No one called the next shift forward. No one assigned the tasks aloud. Seven hundred priests worked at the sacrifices in complete silence, with thousands more bringing up the animals, and what Aristeas heard was nothing. The most complete silence reigned, he wrote, so that one might imagine there was not a single person present.

The guards swore oaths and kept those oaths to the letter: though five hundred in number, they would not permit more than five to enter at a time. The fortress that protected the Temple had been built so strongly that it could defend the sanctuary from any assault. And within this structure of stone, water, oath, and silence, Aristeas saw a people who had made holiness into a system that could run without the noise of authority reminding everyone what to do.

Letter Of AristeasJerusalemTempleHoly LandApocrypha
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The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Letter of Aristeas 1:84Letter of Aristeas

I have given you this description of the presents because I thought it was necessary. The next point in the narrative is an account of our journey to Eleazar, but I will first of all give you a description of the whole country. When we arrived in the land of the Jews we saw the city situated in the middle of the whole of Judea on the top of a mountain of considerable altitude.

On the summit the temple had been built in all its splendour. It was surrounded by three walls more than seventy cubits high and in length and breadth corresponding to the structure of the edifice. All the buildings were characterized by a magnificence and costliness quite unprecedented.

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Letter of Aristeas 1:87Letter of Aristeas

It was obvious that no expense had been spared on the door and the fastenings, which connected it with the door-posts, and the stability of the lintel.

The style of the curtain too was thoroughly in proportion to that of the entrance. Its fabric owing to the draught of wind was in perpetual motion, and as this motion was communicated from the bottom and the curtain bulged out to its highest extent, it afforded a pleasant spectacle from which a man could scarcely tear himself away.

The construction of the altar was in keeping with the place itself and with the burnt offerings which were consumed by fire upon it, and the approach to it was on a similar scale. There was a gradual slope up to it, conveniently arranged for the purpose of decency, and the ministering priests were robed in linen garments, down to their ankles.

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Letter of Aristeas 1:89Letter of Aristeas

The Temple faces the east and its back is toward the west. The whole of the floor is paved with stones and slopes down to the appointed places, that water may be conveyed to wash away the blood from the sacrifices,

for many thousand beasts are sacrificed there on the feast days. And there is an inexhaustible supply of water, because an abundant natural spring gushes up from within the temple area. There are moreover wonderful and indescribable cisterns underground, as they pointed out to me, at a distance of five furlongs all round the site of the temple, and each of them has countless pipes so that the different streams converge together.

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Letter of Aristeas 1:91Letter of Aristeas

All these were fastened with lead at the bottom and at the sidewalls, and over them a great quantity of plaster had been spread, and every part of the work had been most carefully carried out. There are many openings for water at the base of the altar which are invisible to all except to those who are engaged in the ministration, so that all the blood of the sacrifices which is collected in great quantities is washed away in the twinkling of an eye.

Such is my opinion with regard to the character of the reservoirs and I will now show you how it was confirmed. They led me more than four furlongs outside the city and bade me peer down towards a certain spot and listen to the noise that was made by the meeting of the waters, so that the great size of the reservoirs became manifest to me, as has already been pointed out.

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Letter of Aristeas 1:95Letter of Aristeas

There is a special place set apart for them to rest in, where those who are relieved from duty sit. When this takes place, those who have already rested and are ready to assume their duties rise up spontaneously since there is no one to give orders with regard to the arrangement of the sacrifices.

The most complete silence reigns so that one might imagine that there was not a single person present, though there are actually seven hundred men engaged in the work, besides the vast number of those who are occupied in bringing up the sacrifices. Everything is carried out with reverence and in a way worthy of the great God.

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Letter of Aristeas 1:105Letter of Aristeas

They asserted that they were bound by an oath when the trust was committed to them, for they had all sworn and were bound to carry out the oath sacredly to the letter, that though they were five hundred in number they would not permit more than five men to enter at one time. The citadel was the special protection of the temple and its founder had fortified it so strongly that it might efficiently protect it.

The size of the city is of moderate dimensions. It is about forty furlongs in circumference, as far as one could conjecture. It has its towers arranged in the shape of a theatre, with thoroughfares leading between them. Now the cross roads of the lower towers are visible but those of the upper towers are more frequented. For the ground ascends, since the city is built upon a mountain.

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Letter of Aristeas 1:115Letter of Aristeas

Wherefore they rightly recognize that the country districts need a large population, and the relations between the city and the villages are properly regulated.

A great quantity of spices and precious stones and gold is brought into the country by the Arabs. For the country is well adapted not only for agriculture but also for commerce, and the city is rich in the arts and lacks none of the merchandise which is brought across the sea.

It possesses too suitable and commodious harbours at Askalon, Joppa, and Gaza, as well as at Ptolemais which was founded by the King and holds a central position compared with the other places named, being not far distant from any of them. The country produces everything in abundance, since it is well watered in all directions and well protected from storms. The river Jordan, as it is called, which never runs dry, flows through the land.

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