Cities Dreamt Up in the Palm of a Hand
Oniric Archetype of a City
Davide Francesco Valentini
from Turin monuments. Photo Jesus O’Bof (Trakatan)
In my dedication to things of a Greek/Judaic nature, I have come across a considerable anomaly. The historic evolution of Jewish thought is based on a form of wisdom unaffected by missionary zeal, proud but shunning proselytism, or perhaps shunning proselytism precisely because of this pride. Its lack of inclination to interaction – which has sometimes led to social closure, and which is inspired by justified fears – has given rise to a paradox in the life of this community: Biblical precepts forbade its members to mix with the Gentiles, but daily life was an inevitable compromise, mingling with the inhabitants of foreign cities.
And here lies the anomaly: the presence of an “unbroken fence-palisade” does not necessarily imply a lack of interaction. During the Hellenistic period (323-30 BC) Alexandria became the capital of the religious world, and above all the cultural capital of the Mediterranean, and the Ptolemic dynasty transformed the city into an unprecedented experiment of ethnic co-habitation, where the Egyptian population, Greek occupying forces and Jewish exiles lived according to a rigidly structured hierarchy. The Judiac community was an imposing, numerous one, and Aristeas, one of its members, was perfectly at home with, and well versed in Greek culture and language. The Letter he composed for his brother Philocrates tells of the events surrounding the translation of the Torah from Jewish into Greek, an initiative of the humanist king Ptolemy Philadelphus.
the presence of an “unbroken fence-palisade” does not necessarily imply a lack of interaction
Apart from the perspective of the text, I have always thought that the intimate dimension of Aristeas’ work lay in the encounter between centuries’ old civilisations, destined for a brilliant future; for seven days Ptolemy hosts the seventy-two translators from Jerusalem, astounded by the meek nature of their exemplary doctrine. The leading exponent of Hellenic political might – an emblem of the immense aesthetic and pagan excellence of the Greeks – admires the responses of his Jewish guests in a state of rapt predilection, which proves to be an indispensable forerunner to integration.
But familiarity with Aristeas is a forbidden conquest, an obsessive, philological nightmare which shuns limits. How can we reconcile the words on barriers and the vision of peaceful goodwill of the banquet?
The encounter between the two cultures is played out like a contraposition between urban models with opposing ideological and symbolic values. Alexandria is the real, topical setting for the story, the foreign but fortunate present for the life of the exiled community, while Jerusalem stands for a dream-like evocation of tradition, a utopia that comes to represent the urban incarnation of divine order.
Dreamily, Aristeas describes the capital of Judea, the destination of his imaginary journey: a moderate city based on a model of ideal perfection, located at the heart of the country on the top of its highest mountain. Its size and proportions, and the balance between urban areas and countryside, between farming and trade, guarantee the food supply, while the water supply is ensured thanks to an infallible network of underground tanks; the water can be heard sloshing around when our traveller puts his ear to the ground. In the course of this mental sightseeing trip Aristeas admires the inaccessible fortress and towers that lend the city a theatrical flavour, in theological harmony with the site. It is an idealised, highly evocative image, neglecting to mention the numerous attacks suffered and the real problems with the water supply that left their mark on the history of Jerusalem.
But the most imaginary aspect of Aristeas’ account lies in his description of the Temple, which I have laboriously investigated. East-facing, built on the hill in the centre of the city and cocooned in its triple walls, The Letter describes a non-existent Temple, an allegorical building which does not correspond to the appearance of the original version. It is not a question of Aristeas making mistakes – the Temple is not something you can make mistakes about – but rather, what his visions depict is a dimension of truth superior to architecture. The ‘perivboloi trei`~’ (the three walls), which never existed physically, exist symbolically as ritual divisions permitting an approach in stages to the Saint of Saints, cordoning off different levels of purity. The Legislator’s abstract walls, granted with a non-illusory social power, are transformed into real walls destined to preclude any contamination; Jerusalem is an intricate labyrinth of alleyways and steps where people can walk without touching, to avoid contact between the pure and the impure. Space is defined in a religious way, according to “concentric circles of holiness”, and the central position of the Temple – which did not actually occupy the peak, but one end – alludes to the Jewish concept of the irradiation of truth.
Alexandria, on the other hand, was the result of the megalomaniac ambitions of bold architects like Dinocrates of Rhodes, who proposed that Alexander construct the entire city on the left hand of an immense statue of a female figure reclining on the Nile delta. The Great emperor resisted the temptation to go along with this, and founded his city on the ground, rather than in mid-air.
In Aristeas’ view Alexandria was too big, over-populated and chaotic, too distant from the golden measure of Jerusalem. And too impure. In the city theatres, biblical stories became the subject of Greek-style tragedies, in an embarrassing mixture of sacred and pagan; Ezekiel – a talented playwright who was certainly Jewish – told the tale of Moses in the same form used by Euripides to sing of Dionysus and Aphrodite.
Translating the Bible was about gaining access to the word of God, an inspired mission that could not take place in an impure setting: the seventy-two translators – according to Aristeas – left Alexandria and took themselves off to the island of Pharos, connected to the city by bridge. The stretch of water acted as a barrier, isolating them and cleansing them of contamination from the mainland. Each time they crossed the bridge, leaving Alexandria or returning to it at the end of the day, the Judaic sages immersed themselves in the dividing waters to restore their purity. It was isolation, but not total isolation, a distance which was not insurmountable: the bridge between Pharos and Alexandria urged and inspired the encounters at the banquet, like the doors and passageways between Jerusalem and the Temple. Relationships between Jews and Gentiles are possible because the “unbroken fence-palisade” is full of breaches and cracks. It is an ancient, respectful dialogue, an asymmetrical encounter where Alexandria listens and cannot (or maybe does not wish to) compete with Aristeas’ celestial city, and the enchanted words of a Jew far from home evoke a longed-for, eternal vision of Jerusalem. Inspired by nostalgia rather than geography.
