The possibility that the menorah that was used in the Second Temple in Jerusalem is hidden deep in the cellars of the Vatican has excited researchers, rabbis, and adventurers for many generations. It is, after all, the menorah that was used by the Temple priests for the daily candle-lighting ceremony and in which the Hanukkah miracle took place (although most likely it was one similar to it), that gave birth to a tradition that continues to this day.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
Let's jump to the latest development in this 2,000-year-old story. Recently, the Chief Rabbi of Safed Shmuel Eliyahu said that his son, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, was contacted by an Italian parliamentarian, whose name was not mentioned, with the most unusual suggestion: to jumpstart the process of the return of the Temple vessels, including the menorah, looted by the Romans from Jerusalem after the destruction of the Second Temple, which – he said – were indeed in the Vatican.
This surely would have made headlines had not many attempts been made in the past to locate the vessels and substantiate the claims about their whereabouts.
For instance, in 2002, in a meeting between then-Israeli Ambassador to the Vatican Oded Ben-HUr and Pope John Paul II, the two agreed to document all Jewish art objects kept in the Vatican. Hebrew University researchers, who were in charge of the project, examined the possibility of the menorah being kept there as well but found no evidence on the matter.
Research on the carved menorah on the Arch of Titus in Rome, however, is more established and is no less fascinating.
The prevailing assumption among researchers is that the famous stone relief, which depicts the menorah and other vessels carried by the Roman soldiers on their triumphal procession from Jerusalem to Rome in 71 CE, was created based on the real gold seven-lamped candelabra. Other items looted from the Temple include the Gold Trumpets, the fire pans for removing the ashes from the altar, and the Table of Showbread.
The candlestick, however, that was looted from Jerusalem, might not have been the original menorah used by the Temple priests in their service. It could have been one of the replacement menorahs that were stored in the Temple in case of malfunction or disruption.
This hypothesis is based on the fact that the appearance of the Arch of Titus menorah does not match the description of the menorah in Jewish sources. For instance, the base of the arch menorah is different in that it has three levels that depict various sea and dragon-like features, which was not the case with the original, as any images of animals or creatures were associated with the sin of idolatry.
The first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog hypothesized that the original base of the menorah could have broken off and been lost on the way to Rome, and therefore, local craftsmen had to reconstruct it their way, which is why the arch menorah was carved differently.
Scholars have also pointed out that the language of another source, a Genesis Rabbah midrash that discusses the destruction of the Second Temple, suggests that the menorah that was taken by the Romans was indeed a replacement one, as do the descriptions of the spoils by historian Flavius Josephus.
Many have tried to trace the movements of the menorah that was taken by the Roman soldiers. First, it was deposited in the Roman Temple of Peace, built 20 years earlier in honor of Pax, the Roman goddess of peace. Did the menorah survive the fire that destroyed the temple in 192 CE? And if it did, was it moved? After all, many a conqueror invaded Rome and looted it over the centuries.
the centuries.
One such researcher is Arnon Segal, who in his book "Habayit" attempts to retrieve the movements of the candelabra, starting 130 years after the fire in the Roman Temple of Peace.
"Some say that the menorah was moved to Constantinople (Istanbul), during the time of Constantine the Great in 324 CE, when he moved and renamed the capital of the empire," Segal said. "Others hypothesize that the menorah resided in the Temple of Peace in Rome, until the Vandal conquest of 455 CE. So these barbarian invaders could have stolen the menorah and melted it."
Another possibility is that "the menorah remained intact and that Justinian the Great, who lived in the sixth century, even returned it to Jerusalem and placed it in a mighty church that he built, and whose remains are under the Batei Mahseh Square in the Old City.
Others claim that "in 410 CE the menorah made its way to Carcassonne in the south of France, after the Visigoths, barbarian tribes from the Scandinavian region, looted Rome and took its treasures to their capital, Carcassonne.
"According to this theory, after about a hundred years, the Swabians looted Carcassonne and took the menorah to their new capital, Carthage, in North Africa." From there, according to this hypothesis, "the Byzantine commander Belisarius, who conquered Carthage in 550 CE, took the menorah back to Constantinople.
"Others claim that the movements of the menorah did not stop there and that during the First Crusade, in 1099, the Crusaders returned it to its former place on the Temple Mount, where it was kept by the Knights Templar. With the conquest of the city by Saladin, the retreating Knights Templar took the menorah with them to Acre, and from there to Cyprus. In the end," according to this hypothesis, "the soldiers of Philip IV, king of France, returned the candelabra, in the 13th century, back to the pope's cellars in Rome."
The Vatican has denied time and again that it has any looted Temple vessels in its possessions. As mentioned above, even if a menorah is kept there, it is not the one originally used in the Temple, nor is it the one that was used by the Hasmoneas in 164 BCE (234 before the destruction of the Second Temple) in which the Hanukkah miracle occurred. According to the First Book of Maccabees, the Temple was also looted by the Greeks, including the menorah, which forced the Hasmoneans to light oil in seven iron skewers.
What happened then to the original menorah after the destruction of the Second Temple and where is it today? Both Josephus and the Talmud suggest that the Temple vessels, including the candelabra, were buried during the siege in hidden caves deep underground (as had been the vessels of the First Temple hundreds of years earlier).
Roman soldiers, who tried to find the menorah, only located the replicas and not the candelabra that was used by the priests for the daily candle-lighting service.
Over the course of history, several more individuals attempted to locate the menorah. For instance, in 1911, Montagu Brownlow Parker, a British aristocrat and army officer, bribed most of the Waqf guards on the Temple Mount and spent several nights digging, but without success. When he was discovered, he fled the country by the skin of his teeth.
In 1981, then-Rabbi of the Western Wall Yehuda Getz too attempted to locate the treasures, especially the Ark of the Covenant. Based on Kabbalistic writings, he uncovered a large cave in the Western Wall Tunnels, where the Holy of Holies of the Temple is said to have been located. The search ended in a violent clash between Jews and Muslims. Then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered for the opening that was broken through by Getz to be sealed, and the relative quiet in the area returned.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
Throughout the generations, depictions of the Temple vessels, the menorah in particular, were used to decorate synagogues, mosaic floors, tombs, and Jewish homes, including to this day.
The same is true of the Jewish community of Gaza. Up until 40 years ago, before Israel withdrew from Gaza, one of the pillars of the local Great Mosque bore inscriptions in Hebrew and depicted a menorah, a shofar, and an etrog fruit – evidence of the Jewish existence in Gaza during the days of the Talmud.
