map produced just two decades later. This transformation still begs the ques-
tion, however. While we can be sure that Ortelius borrowed the location from
Mu ̈nster’s map, we still have to explain the source of Ortelius’s explanation of
what Arzareth itself is and why it is in northern Asia.
While we cannot explain Ortelius’s motivations in full, his relations with
the Frenchman Guillaume Postel ( 1510 – 1581 ) may explain a second and more
signicant insipiration for his thoughts and ideas about the ten tribes. The
correspondence between Ortelius and Postel has only recently been uncovered,
and knowledge of the extent of it is far from complete,^74 but it is clear that the
link between the French mystic and the Flemish cartographer was unique. It
helps us to understand the connections among the ten tribes, geography, and
restitution.
A Hebraist, Arabist, astronomer, mathematician, and Kabbalist (among
many other things), Postel’s character was popularized in Umberto Eco’sFou-
cault’s Pendulum.^75 However, already in 1678 , a century after his time, he was
described inThe Wonders of the Little Worldas a sort of holy man: “William Postel a
Frenchman [who] lived to an hundred and well high twenty years, and yet the top
of his beard on the upper lip was black, and not gray at all.”^76 Eco’s Postel, not far
from the historical figure, was described as in a “fit for mystical fervor and
spiritual regeneration.”^77 He maintained close relationships, if often tense, with
thinkers from all Christian denominations, as well as with Jews and Muslims.
Postel was very excited about Ortelius’s inclusion of the ten tribes in hisTheatrum
and expressed his feelings about it in a letter to Ortelius in 1579 .Inthisletter,
Postel celebrates the common opinion that both he and Ortelius held about
the ten tribes. Ortelius’s “cosmographic depiction” would now show that “the
ten tribes are in Scythia.”^78 Evidently, Postel had very good reasons to rejoice about
theTheatrum’s Arzareth. The question is: why was it so important to him?
Postel is mostly known for being an advocate of universalisms, who sought
to “harmonize Christian, Jewish and Mohammedan [Islamic] thought” and
who prophesied about a “universal religion, universal monarchy and world
peace.”^79 Against the backdrop of schisms, Postel deeply believed inConcordia
MundiorOrbis Concordia—the universal “triune ideal of unity, order, and
peace.”^80 The ideal of universal peace prompted Postel to explore and write
extensively about the common origins of humanity and about the origins of,
among others, “mysterious” peoples such as the Turks, Samaritans, and
Scythians.^81 One could say that he was one of the first to conceive of world
history as “human history” or as the history of humanity.^82 However, in
addition to his scholarship, he reserved a special role for himself in bringing
on this age of peace. Postel was not only the prophet proclaiming the coming of
restitution, but he also believed that he was chosen to serve as “congregator.”
lu
(lu)
#1