Kyueil Kwak: Scriptural Interpretations of the Biblical Tabernacle and the Architectural Contemplation of the Cosmos through the Hagia Sophia

In the sixth century Byzantine emperor Justinian I dedicated the two cathedrals, one in Constantinople (537 C.E.) and the other in Edessa (554 C.E.), both named “Hagia Sophia.” These homonymous buildings, modeled after the biblical tabernacle and designed to represent the Cosmos, have the unique combination of a central dome (representing the spherical heavens) supported by the vaulted ceiling (representing the sky) and the rectangular shaped building body (representing the earth). Coincidentally, Origen of Alexandria and Theodore of Mopsuestia, each representing the Alexandrian and Antiochene traditions of scriptural interpretation, were both condemned for certain cosmological controversies at the Council of Constantinople (553 C.E.), summoned by the same emperor who commissioned these church buildings. Thus the cathedrals stand as an architectural symbol for the imperial conclusion to the cosmological debates over the shape of the Cosmos: the spherical model of the Cosmos for the Alexandrian tradition of scriptural interpretation versus the tabernacle model for the Antiochene one. Hence, the Hagia Sophia visually manifests a common and timeless Christian belief on the integral relationship between Scripture and the Cosmos, God’s two great books for revelation. In dealing with the question regarding how then this common belief was transferred into the two disparate models of the Cosmos, eventually combined one above the other in the architectures, this paper will demonstrate how one’s cosmic view is foundational to the particular formation of her/his principle and practice of scriptural interpretation.