BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

On Display in Rome: Images of the Temple Menorah

The Vatican and the Jewish Museum in Rome present The Menorah: Worship, History and Myth

arch-of-titus-menorah

Southern relief on the Arch of Titus adjacent to the Roman Forum depicting the triumph of Titus. Here, one can see Roman soldiers bearing captured treasures from the Second Temple in Jerusalem, the most prominent of which is the Temple Menorah. Photo: Gunnar Bach Pedersen.

The Menorah: Worship, History and Myth, a major exhibition jointly produced by, and on display at, both the Vatican Museum and the Museo Ebraico (the Jewish Museum in Rome), provides dramatic images of the Temple Menorah, looted in 70 C.E. by Roman general, and eventual emperor, Titus, from Jerusalem after the destruction of the Second Temple. The images collected from 2,000 years of art and archaeology, and from numerous museums and collections worldwide, are carved in stone, impressed on coins, assembled piece by piece in mosaics, painted on canvas, and inscribed in books. The exhibit runs from May 15 to July 23, 2017.

Each of the over 130 images and objects in the exhibit is a vivid memory of the seven-branched Temple Menorah. The exhibit includes paintings by Poussin, Max Ernst and Marc Chagall, among others. On display are numerous Jewish and Christian ceremonial objects, including two monumental baroque silver menorot from the Cathedral of Majorca. There are funerary inscriptions, illuminated manuscripts and Kabbalistic drawings of menorot created from the words of Psalm 67. There is even a bronze gladiatorial helmet (see below) emblazoned with a seven-branched palmetto and sporting a cheek piece engraved with a five-petaled rosette known from late Second Temple ossuaries discovered in Jerusalem. The helmet was displayed in the Museo Ebraico with the intriguing, if not wholly persuasive, suggestion that its owner was a Jewish captive taken to Rome along with the Temple Menorah by Titus in 70 C.E.

helmet-pompeii

Bronze gladiatorial helmet from Caserma dei Gladiatori in Pompeii; second half of the first century C.E. From the Naples Museo Archeologico Nazionale, on loan to the Museo Ebraico, Rome.

However, if each of these objects recalls a memory of the Temple Menorah, they are nonetheless only memories. The subject of the exhibit, the actual Menorah from the Temple in Jerusalem, is long gone and surely not to be seen. And that, to some extent, is the point of the exhibit. The Menorah itself, once an object of solid gold, produced according to instructions delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai, has become an idea shared by two faiths. In this historic exhibit, those two faiths have chosen to cooperate and, together, focus on how each has remembered that shared symbol.

As the curators of the exhibit, Arnold Nesselrath, Alessandra Di Castro and Franceso Leone, have stated, a single ticket provides entry to both museums and serves as a single metaphorical key to “two diverse yet complementary worlds.” Consequently, the enthusiastic cooperation between the Jewish community and the Vatican is pointedly on display, as well as the objects.

However, the diverse worlds of Judaism and Christianity were, in the past, often at odds with one another. For Jews, the Temple Menorah, depicted as booty captured from a desolated Jerusalem in a frieze on the interior of the Arch of Titus, was a bittersweet symbol of despair, mitigated by a hope for future redemption. For Catholics, the same frieze depicts the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy concerning the destruction of the Temple in Mark 13:1–21, and, therefore, proof of the Church’s triumphant message. The contrast between these two visions is also, and rightly, the subject of this remarkable exhibit.

A visitor may enter the exhibit in each of the two museums, the Braccio Di Carlo Magno in the Vatican and the Museo Ebraico di Roma in the Great Synagogue on the edge of what was, from 1555 to 1870, Rome’s Jewish Ghetto. Given the amount of available exhibition space at each museum, the majority of the exhibited objects and images are at the Vatican Museum. A small number of objects are shown at the Museo Ebraico. That said, significant objects were found in both museums.


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magdala-stone

Stone relief depicting the seven-branched menorah, excavated at Migdal, Israel, mid-first-century B.C.E.–mid-first-century C.E. On loan to the Vatican Museums. Photo: Yael Yulowich, courtesy Israel Antiquities Authority.

As one enters the Vatican portion of the exhibit, the first object displayed is the Magdala Stone, on the front of which is carved a menorah standing on a pedestal. The stone was excavated in the town of Magdala in Israel and was found in situ in a synagogue. Dated from the mid-first century B.C.E. through the mid-first century C.E., the Magdala Stone bears perhaps the oldest depiction of the Menorah from the Land of Israel and is also a depiction of the Menorah while it was still standing in the Second Temple.

As one enters the exhibit in the Museo Ebraico, the first object on display is a cast of the Tabula Magna Lateranensis, an inscription in mosaic tiles housed in the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano and visible today on the left of the entrance of the sacristy. The basilica is the cathedral of Rome where, until 1870, popes were crowned. The Tabula Magna is a 37-line Latin inscription from the time of Pope Nicholas IV (1288–1292) listing the treasure kept in the cathedral of Rome and in the nearby chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum. Among the treasures listed is the Temple Menorah, which, the inscription says, is the one pictured on the Arch of Titus. Despite this attestation that the Menorah had been kept in Rome as a treasure as late as the mid-13th century C.E., it is thoroughly unlikely that such was the case. The Tabula Magna also lists as the basilica’s treasures Christ’s cloak, John the Baptist’s raiment of camel’s hair, the Ark of the Covenant and the two Tables of the Law. The Tabula Magna is an artifact of a time obsessed with holy relics, and it testifies only to a legend concerning the Menorah propagated for the glory of its surrounding basilica.

Not stated in the exhibit, but surely there as a subtext, is the argument that not only is the Tabula Magna a legend, but so is the persistent, yet false, modern notion that the Temple Menorah is being held secretly somewhere in the basement of the Vatican.

To further punctuate that argument, a visitor to the exhibit may look no further than a triangular stone grave marker with a carving of the Menorah in the center. The grave marker was found in 2002 beneath a pile of stone inscriptions, in the garden of the Great Synagogue. Yet it is on display in the Vatican portion of the exhibit. On the reverse of the grave marker is an inscription in both Latin and Hebrew, stating that beneath the marker lie three “brothers of the Jewish faith” who had discovered the Temple Menorah along with the Ark of the Covenant at the bottom of the Tiber River in Rome. The inscription goes on to say that the brothers were beheaded by Emperor Honorius and that the holy objects remain in the river.

The dates of Emperor Honorius’s reign, 395–423 C.E., would appear to date the grave marker. However, it is an obvious fraud. Like the Tabula Magna, it mentions the ark, which was never taken to Rome. More importantly, a chemical analysis of its patina indicates it was created at the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th century. It is testimony not to any events in the fifth century C.E. but to the enduring legend of the Menorah.

genseric-sacking-rome

Sack of Rome by Genseric in 455 C.E. by Karl Bryullov (1833–1835). Oil on canvas. Historical painting illustrating Procopius, The Vandalic Wars, I,IV/paragraphs 1–11. From the Moscow Tretyakov Gallery, on loan to the Vatican Museums.

Ironically, it is this fraud that gave rise to the present exhibit. In a meeting at the Museo Ebraico with the Israeli Ambassador to the Vatican in 2013, the fake gravestone reminded the participants that the Menorah, as a symbol, had a life of its own that spanned Judaism and Christianity. Although there had been two earlier exhibits, one in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 1998, The Light of the Menorah: Story of a Symbol, and the other at the Museo Ebraico in 2008, From Jerusalem to Rome and Back: The Journey of the Menorah from Fact to Myth, it was agreed that the participation of the Vatican Museum would finally put to rest any lingering misconceptions that the Menorah was still in Rome. And, of course, the Vatican, with its own vast collection and resources, would make this exhibit a special event. Given the stunning beauty of the objects in the exhibit and their careful and authoritative presentation, that expectation has been achieved.

In addition, the exhibit is accompanied by a lavish catalog that includes exhaustive documentation as well as 14 scholarly articles by the curators of the exhibit and several other experts.

Last year, Steven Fine published a superb book, The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Israel (Harvard Univ. Press, 2016). The exhibit and its catalog are equally intelligent and enlightening. Together, the book, the exhibit and the catalog cap a year of exceptional scholarly effort to make the meaning and history of the Menorah accessible to all who have an interest in the Bible or the Jewish and Christian traditions.


fred-brandfonFredric Brandfon, who holds a Ph.D. in archaeology from the University of Pennsylvania, has worked on several excavations in Israel. He now practices law in Los Angeles, California.
 
 


Notes:

1. “And when he came out of the Temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down.’”


 

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13 Responses

  1. Lottie Cohen says:

    My Cohen family believes that the Ark of the Covenant, with the Commandment Tablets, along with the Menorah, was taken by Titus and kept in the Vatican’s secret coffers, never to be reveals, because if its existence is admitted, this will give rise to the beginning of the erection of the Third Temple in Jerusalem. We cannot wait much longer.

  2. John C Lawrenz says:

    Fred, great to see your picture and read your article. John C. Lawrenz

  3. alberto peano says:

    B. Hal, there is no contradiction in having a zodiac associated with the Menorah. The Zodiac is not always an astrological symbol. In my paper, that you can read in academia.edu, site I prove that Genesis 49 associates the 12 patriarchs with the zodiac and I explain why. Moreover is quite well known that the seven lights Menorah are the classical planets (including sun and moon), created things giving glory to G-d.

  4. Bruce J Schneider DPM says:

    how can we order the Menorah exhibit catalog?

  5. ilan bergman says:

    B. Hal, that arch was commissioned by the late Titus brother Domitian. The symbols on it can be found in Roman Temples across the Mediterranean. The Dragon and Sea Nymphs were common decoration. The fact that they are on the Menorah only shows spite by Domitian to further have a laugh at the conquered peoples expense.

  6. Dennis Lurvey says:

    Now the birth date of jesus has to be 6-7 BC based on the years his of people around him we have proof of. if the date zero is based on jesus birthdate then it has to be movable. so now 1 BC is the same as 7 BCE, moves the date of his ministry to 23 ACE but 30 AD. No one knows how long his ministry lasted, from 6 months to 3 years is the guess. It does put 7 more years between jesus death and the first book of mark around 45 ACE or 38 AD.

  7. Martin Weitz says:

    To find out what really may have happened to the Menorah read The Elena Text by Martin Weitz – an Amazon best seller

  8. Andrew Gabriel Roth says:

    First of all, to the person who said the menorah the Romans had was a fake, it is clearly NOT. However, it is also not the same menorah built by Moses. According to the Book of Maccabees, when the Temple was defiled by Antiochus Epiphanes in about 167 BCE, the items that were in the Holy of Holies area were defiled or destroyed and replaced with replicas. Therefore, what the Romans took were authentic Second Temple objects that were nevertheless replacements for the originals. I would not go so far as to say the new objects “were nothing like” the older ones but they were probably somewhat different, but remember these were done by Hebrew craftsmen who had living memory of the originals and had just seen them when they set about replacing them.

    To the writer of the article, who is no doubt merely repeating what his Roman source told him, I disagree and say it is not established that the Temple treasures carried off by the Romans were destroyed by them. There is every historical indication they still have them in the restricted section of their library.

    Andrew Gabriel Roth

  9. Jim says:

    BHal I agree with you. The ark, the other objects moveable were too precious for the priests to lose-they hid them. God will bring them out when the time is right! An interesting point is that God has revealed the true temple site. It was in the city of David, NOT on the so called ‘temple mount’, which is the Roman fortress Antonia.

  10. b. halm says:

    Hey there Billy – re: BC / AD – BCE/ CE, please ask them this…> Isn’t the cut off point for the two time frames the same date?! And that date is set by whom? Jesus the Messiah’s Incarnation to dwell with all who would accept HIM as the Jewish
    Messiah who came for even us poor little Gentiles. SO – same cut off point, just,
    apparently, more P.C. for you to add/change a couple of letters!
    [email protected]

  11. b. halm says:

    At the risk of being mocked, I hold to the position that the “menorah” taken by the Romans and displaced on the Arch of Titus, is not the real deal. Look closely at
    the base. We see nothing like that described in the Torah (Exd 25). I will grant you that we have discovered the mosaics at the floors of a couple of ancient synagogues that have Zodiac symbols in them. However, I think it a real stretch of the imagination to think that the Torah would instruct such a base. Please consider all that we learn from the Torah and G-D’s strict instructions on how to
    build every item for the Mishkan in the desert (‘temple’). I cannot imagine G-D instructing them to put the Zodiac on the sacred Menorah! So, where is it? We know now that there were extremely long tunnels dug out from all around the Temple, in Jerusalem – I contend that the real Exodus-Menorah was hidden by the Rabbis/Levites for just such protection. Your thoughts, everyone? [email protected]

  12. Billy says:

    I don’t understand how you use C.E instead of A.D. That too secular for a Biblical based organization.

  13. Avinoam Ben Dor says:

    More than 550 years ago Jerusalem was destroyed and sacked by Rome. Evidence to the events are still standing in Rome and the Vatican today. Maybe the members of UNESCO should read this article and understand why this organization has become USELESSCO and irrelevant.

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13 Responses

  1. Lottie Cohen says:

    My Cohen family believes that the Ark of the Covenant, with the Commandment Tablets, along with the Menorah, was taken by Titus and kept in the Vatican’s secret coffers, never to be reveals, because if its existence is admitted, this will give rise to the beginning of the erection of the Third Temple in Jerusalem. We cannot wait much longer.

  2. John C Lawrenz says:

    Fred, great to see your picture and read your article. John C. Lawrenz

  3. alberto peano says:

    B. Hal, there is no contradiction in having a zodiac associated with the Menorah. The Zodiac is not always an astrological symbol. In my paper, that you can read in academia.edu, site I prove that Genesis 49 associates the 12 patriarchs with the zodiac and I explain why. Moreover is quite well known that the seven lights Menorah are the classical planets (including sun and moon), created things giving glory to G-d.

  4. Bruce J Schneider DPM says:

    how can we order the Menorah exhibit catalog?

  5. ilan bergman says:

    B. Hal, that arch was commissioned by the late Titus brother Domitian. The symbols on it can be found in Roman Temples across the Mediterranean. The Dragon and Sea Nymphs were common decoration. The fact that they are on the Menorah only shows spite by Domitian to further have a laugh at the conquered peoples expense.

  6. Dennis Lurvey says:

    Now the birth date of jesus has to be 6-7 BC based on the years his of people around him we have proof of. if the date zero is based on jesus birthdate then it has to be movable. so now 1 BC is the same as 7 BCE, moves the date of his ministry to 23 ACE but 30 AD. No one knows how long his ministry lasted, from 6 months to 3 years is the guess. It does put 7 more years between jesus death and the first book of mark around 45 ACE or 38 AD.

  7. Martin Weitz says:

    To find out what really may have happened to the Menorah read The Elena Text by Martin Weitz – an Amazon best seller

  8. Andrew Gabriel Roth says:

    First of all, to the person who said the menorah the Romans had was a fake, it is clearly NOT. However, it is also not the same menorah built by Moses. According to the Book of Maccabees, when the Temple was defiled by Antiochus Epiphanes in about 167 BCE, the items that were in the Holy of Holies area were defiled or destroyed and replaced with replicas. Therefore, what the Romans took were authentic Second Temple objects that were nevertheless replacements for the originals. I would not go so far as to say the new objects “were nothing like” the older ones but they were probably somewhat different, but remember these were done by Hebrew craftsmen who had living memory of the originals and had just seen them when they set about replacing them.

    To the writer of the article, who is no doubt merely repeating what his Roman source told him, I disagree and say it is not established that the Temple treasures carried off by the Romans were destroyed by them. There is every historical indication they still have them in the restricted section of their library.

    Andrew Gabriel Roth

  9. Jim says:

    BHal I agree with you. The ark, the other objects moveable were too precious for the priests to lose-they hid them. God will bring them out when the time is right! An interesting point is that God has revealed the true temple site. It was in the city of David, NOT on the so called ‘temple mount’, which is the Roman fortress Antonia.

  10. b. halm says:

    Hey there Billy – re: BC / AD – BCE/ CE, please ask them this…> Isn’t the cut off point for the two time frames the same date?! And that date is set by whom? Jesus the Messiah’s Incarnation to dwell with all who would accept HIM as the Jewish
    Messiah who came for even us poor little Gentiles. SO – same cut off point, just,
    apparently, more P.C. for you to add/change a couple of letters!
    [email protected]

  11. b. halm says:

    At the risk of being mocked, I hold to the position that the “menorah” taken by the Romans and displaced on the Arch of Titus, is not the real deal. Look closely at
    the base. We see nothing like that described in the Torah (Exd 25). I will grant you that we have discovered the mosaics at the floors of a couple of ancient synagogues that have Zodiac symbols in them. However, I think it a real stretch of the imagination to think that the Torah would instruct such a base. Please consider all that we learn from the Torah and G-D’s strict instructions on how to
    build every item for the Mishkan in the desert (‘temple’). I cannot imagine G-D instructing them to put the Zodiac on the sacred Menorah! So, where is it? We know now that there were extremely long tunnels dug out from all around the Temple, in Jerusalem – I contend that the real Exodus-Menorah was hidden by the Rabbis/Levites for just such protection. Your thoughts, everyone? [email protected]

  12. Billy says:

    I don’t understand how you use C.E instead of A.D. That too secular for a Biblical based organization.

  13. Avinoam Ben Dor says:

    More than 550 years ago Jerusalem was destroyed and sacked by Rome. Evidence to the events are still standing in Rome and the Vatican today. Maybe the members of UNESCO should read this article and understand why this organization has become USELESSCO and irrelevant.

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