His restless engagement with all sorts of religious strands was part of his
self-understanding as a mystical peacemaker—thecongregator mundiof the
“Ecclesia Universalis, God’s respublica on the earth.”^83 One can suppose that,
for thecongregator mundiseeking the restitution and unification of all humani-
ty, a lost collectivity such as the ten tribes would be highly interesting.
A variety of passages surveyed by historian Franc ̧ois Secret suggest that
Arzareth as a distinct site occupied a special place in Postel’s world. An array of
other clues indicates that this enigmatic man placed special importance on
the ten tribes in his messianicConcordia Mundischema. As Secret points out,
the starting point of Postel’s interest in the tribes was a 1516 Venetian exposition
of the prophecies of Joachim di Fiore. This document, theExpositio magni
prophetae Joachim,provides a hint at the tribes’ location, prophesying: “[the
ten tribes] will leave the Caspian Mountains through a certain valley, and
will miraculously cross a river with the blessing of Christ that will calm down
the incredible velocity [of that river] like it is said in Esdras 4 , 13 .”^84 Intimated in
this prophecy are traces of the Jewish legend of the Sambatyon, a river impass-
able because it is too fast for human crossing, and of Benjamin of Tudela’s
geographical speculations. However, the real innovation is the clear idea that
Jesus performed the miracle of the crossing—obviously absent in Esdras.
The tribes were no longer beyond the Caspian Mountains, and Postel set
out to identify and locate them. His eyes were on Central Asia and its various
peoples, notably the Turks, whom he suspected were somehow related to the
lost tribes.^85 In 1560 , he cited “secret Jewish doctrines” that made it necessary
to “infer that the Tartars are the successors of the Ten Tribes.”^86 A year later, he
wrote in his ownCosmographicae Disciplinae Compendiumthat Arzareth was in
northern Asia close to the North Pole.^87 Postel most probably borrowed this
idea from Sebastian Mu ̈nster, whom he considered “so erudite and so well
versed in all kinds of subjects.”^88 Finally, Postel fully exposed his ideas about
the location of the ten tribes in a letter of 1579 to Theodor Zwinger ( 1533 – 1588 ),
in which Postel traced their entire journey. They were first “led by Shalmanes-
ser to the Western borders of Persia and then until the river Gozan or Ganges.”
They then proceeded “to the extreme angle of Asia, that is to say, to Arzareth,
which is the best part of the land of the Scythian people, or their ancestors.
They arrive in there spontaneously while singing Gaou or Gaoth, or Oaoth,
that is a word employed by Moses in the song of crossing the sea, [a word] that
by secret mystery sings the victory of God.”
The “Song on the Sea,” sung by Moses after the crossing of the Red Sea
(Exodus 15 : 1 – 18 ), describes the great victory of the Lord after he drowns the
Egyptians in the sea. Central in both Jewish and Christian (Catholic) liturgy, it
is one of the most powerful expressions of praising the Lord in the wake of his
lu
(lu)
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