Temple
Temple a word used to designate a building dedicated to the worship of a deity. In this article we treat only of the series of edifices erected for that purpose at Jerusalem, and in doing so we present the reconstructions hitherto the latest and most approved, with strictures, however, upon their defects. SEE PALACE.
I. Names. — The usual and appropriate Heb. term for this structure is ןהֵיכָּל, heykâl, which properly denotes a royal residence, and hence the sacred name יַהֹוָה, Jehovah, is frequently added; occasionally it is also qualified by the epithet קדֶשׁ, kâdesh, sanctuary, to designate its sacredness. Sometimes the simpler phrase יהוָה בֵּית, beyth yehovadh, house of Jehovah, is used; and in lieu of the latter other names of the Deity, especially אֵֹלהַי, elohim, God, are employed. The usual Greek word is ναός, which, however, strictly denotes the central building or fane itself; while the more general term ἱερόν included all the associated structures, i.e. the surrounding courts, etc.
The above leading word הֵיבָּל is a participial noun from the root הָכִל, to hold or receive, and reminds us strongly of the Roman templum, from τέμενος, τέμνω, locus liberatus et effatus. When an augur had defined a space in which he intended to make his observations, he fixed his tent in it (tabernaculum capere), with planks and curtains. In the arx this was not necessary, because there was a permanent auguraculum. The Sept. usually renders היכל, "temple," by οικος or ναός, but in the Apocrypha and the New Test. it is generally called τὸ ἱερόν. Rabbinical appellations are בֵּית הִמַּקדָּשׁ, beyfh ham-Mikdash, the house of the sanctuary, הִבּחַירָה בֵּית, the chosen house, בֵּית הָעֹלָמַים, the house of ages, because the ark was not transferred from it, as it was from Gilgal after 24, from Shiloh after 369, from Nob after 13, and from Gibeon after 50 years. It is also called מָעוֹן, a dwelling, i.e. of God.
⇒Bible concordance for TEMPLE.
In imitation of this nomenclature, the word temple elsewhere in Scripture, in a figurative sense, denotes sometimes the Church of Christ (Re 3; Re 12): "Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God." Paul says (2Th 2:4) that Antichrist "as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." Sometimes it imports heaven (Ps 11:4):
"The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord's throne is in heaven." The martyrs in heaven are said to be "before the throne of God, and to serve him day and night in his temple" (Re 7:15). The soul of a righteous man is the temple of God, because it is inhabited by the Holy Spirit (1Co 3:16-17; 1Co 6:19; 2Co 6:16).
II. History of the Temple and its Several Successors. — The First Temple. After the Israelites had exchanged their nomadic life for a life in permanent habitations, it was becoming that they should exchange also their movable sanctuary or tabernacle for a temple. There elapsed, however, after the conquest of Palestine, several centuries during which the sanctuary continued movable, although the nation became more and more stationary. It appears that the first who planned the erection of a stone-built sanctuary was David, who, when he was inhabiting his house of cedar, and God had given him rest from all his enemies, meditated the design of building a temple in which the ark of God might be placed, instead of being deposited "within curtains," or in a tent, as hitherto. This design was at first encouraged by the prophet Nathan; but he was afterwards instructed to tell David that such a work was less appropriate for him, who had been a warrior from his youth, and had shed much blood, than for his son, who should enjoy in prosperity and peace the rewards of his father's victories. Nevertheless, the design itself was highly approved as a token of proper feelings towards the Divine King (2Sa 7:1-12; 1Ch 17:1-14; 1Ch 10:14). SEE DAVID. We learn, moreover, from 1 Kings 5 and 1 Chronicles 22 that David had collected materials which were afterwards employed in the erection of the Temple, which was commenced four years after his death, in the second month (comp. 1Ki 6:1; 2Ch 3; 2Ch 2). This corresponds to May, B.C. 1010. We thus learn that the Israelitish sanctuary had remained movable more than four centuries subsequent to the conquest of Canaan. "In the fourth year of Solomon's reign was the foundation of the house of the Lord laid, in the month Siv; and ill the eleventh year, in the month Bul, which is the eighth month, was the house finished throughout all the parts thereof, and according to all the fashion of it. So was he seven years in building it." SEE SOLOMON. The workmen and the materials employed in the erection of the Temple were chiefly procured by Solomon from Hiram, king of Tyre, who was rewarded by a liberal importation of wheat. Josephus states (Ant. 8, 2) that duplicates of the letters which passed between Solomon and king Hiram were still extant in his time, both at Jerusalem and among the Tyrian records. He informs us that the persons employed in collecting and arranging the materials for the Temple were ordered to search out the largest stones for the foundation, and to prepare them for use on the mountains where they were procured, and then convey them to Jerusalem. In this part of the business Hiram's men were ordered to assist. Josephus adds that the foundation was sunk to an astonishing depth, and composed of stones of singular magnitude, and very durable. Being closely mortised into the rock with great ingenuity, they formed a basis adequate to the support of the intended structure. Josephus gives to the Temple the same length and breadth as are given in 1 Kings, but mentions sixty cubits as the height. He says that the walls were composed entirely of white stone; that the walls and ceilings were wainscoted with cedar, which was covered with the purest gold; that the stones were put together with such ingenuity that the smallest interstices were not perceptible, and that the timbers were joined with iron cramps. It is remarkable that after the Temple was finished, it was not consecrated by the high-priest, but by a layman, by the king in person, by means of extemporaneous prayers and sacrifices. SEE SHECHINAH.
The Temple remained the center of public worship for all the Israelites only till the death of Solomon, after which ten tribes forsook this sanctuary. But even in the kingdom of Judah it was from time to time desecrated by altars erected to idols. For instance, "Manasseh built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. And he caused his son to pass through the fire, and observed times, and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards; he wrought much wickedness in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. And he set a graven image of the grove that he had made in the house," etc. Thus we find also that king Josiah commanded Hilkiah, the high-priest, and the priests of the second order to remove the idols of Baal and Asherah from the house of the Lord (2Ki 23:4,13): "And the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manasseh had made in the two courts of the house of the Lord, did the king beat down, and brake them down from thence, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron." In fact, we are informed that, in spite of the better means of public devotion which the sanctuary undoubtedly afforded, the national morals declined so much that the chosen nation became worse than the idolaters whom the Lord destroyed before the children of Israel (2Ki 21:9) a clear proof that the possession of external means is not a guarantee for their right use. It appears also that during the times when it was fashionable at court to worship Baal the Temple stood desolate, and that its repairs were neglected (2Ki 12:6-7). We further learn that the cost of the repairs was defrayed chiefly by voluntary contribution, by offerings, and by redemption money (2Ki 12:4-5). The original cost of the Temple seems to have been defrayed by royal bounty, and in great measure by treasures collected by David for that purpose. There was a treasury in the Temple in which much precious metal was collected for the maintenance of public worship. The gold and silver of the Temple were, however, frequently applied to political purposes (1Ki 15:18 sq.; 2Ki 12:18; 2Ki 16:8; 2Ki 18:15). The treasury of the temple was repeatedly plundered by foreign invaders: for instance, by Shishak (1Ki 14:26); by Jehoaoh, king of Israel (2Ki 14:14); by Nebuchadnezzar (2Ki 24:13); and, lastly, again by Nebuchadnezzar, who, having removed the valuable contents, caused the Temple to be burned down (2Ki 25:9 sq.), summer, B.C. 588. The building had stood since its completion 415 years (Josephus has 470, and Rufinus 370, years). Thus terminated what the later Jews called בית הראשון, The first house. SEE JERUSALEM.
⇒See also the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.
2. The Second Temple. — In the year B.C. 536 the Jews obtained permission from Cyrus to colonize their native land. Cyrus commanded also that the sacred utensils which had been pillaged in the first Temple should be restored, and that for the restoration of the Temple assistance should be granted (Ezr 1; Ezr 6; 2Ch 36:22 sq.). The first colony which returned under Zerubbabel and Joshua having collected the necessary means, and having also obtained the assistance of Phoenician workmen, commenced in the second year after their return the rebuilding of the Temple, spring, B.C. 535. The Sidonians brought rafts of cedar-trees from Lebanon to Joppa. The Jews refused the co-operation of the Samaritans, who, being thereby offended, induced the king Artachshashta (probably Smerdis) to prohibit the building. It was only in the second year of Darius Hystaspis (summer, B.C. 520) that the building was resumed. It was completed in the sixth year of this king, winter, B.C. 516 (comp. Ezr 5; Ezr 1; Hag 1:15). According to Josephus (Ant. 11:4, 7), the Temple was completed in the ninth year. of the reign of Darius. The old men who had seen the first Temple were moved to tears on beholding the second, which appeared like nothing in comparison with the first (Ezra 3, 12; Haggai 2, 3 sq.). It seems, however, that it was not so much in dimensions that the second Temple was inferior to the first as in splendor, and in being deprived of the ark of the covenant, which had been burned with the Temple of Solomon. SEE CAPTIVITY.
After the establishment of the Seleucidse in the kingdom of Syria, Antiochus Epiphanes invaded Egypt several times. During his first expedition, B.C. 171, the renegade Menelaus (q.v.) procured the death of the regular high-priest Onias III (q.v.) (2 Macc. 4:27 sq.); during his second campaign, on retiring for winter-quarters to Palestine, Antiochus slew certain other persons, B.C. 170; and, finally, he pillaged and desecrated the Temple, and subdued and plundered Jerusalem, June, B.C. 168. He also ordered the discontinuance of the daily sacrifice. In December of the same year he caused an altar for sacrifice to Jupiter Olympius to be placed on the altar of Jehovah in the Temple (7, 2, 5). This was "the abomination that maketh desolate." At the same time, he devoted the temple on Mount Gerizim, in allusion to the foreign origin of its worshippers, to Jupiter. Ξενιός. The Temple at Jerusalem became so desolate that it was overgrown with vegetation (1 Macc. 4:38; 2 Macc. 6:4). Three years after this profanation (Dec. 25, B.C. 165) Judas Maccabseus, having defeated the Syrian armies in Palestine, cleansed the Temple, and again commenced sacrificing to Jehovah upon the altar there. He repaired, the building, furnished new utensils, and erected fortifications against future attacks (1 Macc. 4:43-60; 6:7; 13:53; 2 Macc. 1, 18; .10, 3). Forty-five days after cleansing the sanctuary, Antiochus died. Thus were fulfilled the predictions of Daniel: from "the casting down some of the host and stars," i.e. slaying some of the pious and influential Jews by Antiochus, especially from the death of Onias, B.C. 171, to the cleansing of the sanctuary, B.C. 165, was six years (of 360 days each) and 140 days, or 2300 days (Da 8:8-14); from the reduction of Jerusalem, B.C. 168, to the cleansing of the sanctuary, B.C. 165, was three years and a half, i.e. "a time, times, and a half," or 1290 days (7, 25; 12:7, 11); and from the reduction of Jerusalem, B.C. 168, to the death of Antiochus, which occurred early in B.C. 164, forty-five days after the purification of the Temple, 1335 days. As to the 140 days, we have no certain date in history to reckon them; but if the years are correct, we may well suppose the days to be so (ver. 12; Josephus, Ant. 12:7, 6; War, pref. 7; 1, 1, 1; 1 Macc. 1, 46,47; 4:38-61; 2 Macc. 5, 11-27; 6:1-9). SEE ANTIOCHUS. Alexander Jannaeus, about B.C. 106, separated the court of the priests from the external court by a wooden railing (Josephus, Ant. 13:13, 5). During the contentions among the later Maccabees, Pompey attacked the temple from the north side, caused a great massacre in its courts, but abstained from plundering the treasury, although he even entered the holy of holies, B.C. 63 (ibid. 14,4). Herod the Great, with the assistance of Roman troops, stormed the Temple, B.C. 37; on which occasion some of the surrounding halls were destroyed or damaged. SEE PALESTINE.
3. The Third Temple. — Herod, wishing to ingratiate himself with the Church-and-State party, and being fond of architectural display, undertook not merely to repair the second Temple, but to raise a perfectly new structure. As, however, the Temple of Zerubbabel was not actually destroyed, but only removed after the preparations for the new Temple were completed, there has arisen some debate whether the Temple of Herod could properly be called the third Temple. The reason why the Temple of Zerubbabel was not at once taken down in order to make room for the more splendid structure of Herod is explained by Josephus as follows (Ant. 15:11, 2): "The Jews were afraid that Herod would pull down the whole edifice and not be able to carry his intentions as to its rebuilding into effect; and this danger appeared to them to be very great, and the vastness of the undertaking to be such as could hardly be accomplished. But while they were in this disposition the king encouraged them, and told them he would not pull down their Temple till all things were gotten ready for building it up entirely. As Herod promised them this beforehand, so he did not break his word with them, but got ready a thousand wagons that were to bring stones for this building, and chose out ten thousand of the most skilful workmen, and bought a thousand sacerdotal garments for as many of the priests, and had some of them taught the arts of stone-cutters, and others of carpenters, and then began to build; but this not till everything was well prepared for the work." The work was actually commenced in the nineteenth year of the reign of Herod-that is, the beginning of B.C. 21. Priests and Levites finished the Temple itself in one year and a half. The out-buildings and courts required eight years. However, some building operations were constantly in progress under the successors of Herod, and it is in reference to this we are informed that the Temple was finished only under Albinus, the last procurator but one, not long before the commencement of the Jewish war in which the Temple was again destroyed. It is in-reference also to these protracted building operations that the Jews said to Jesus, "Forty and six years was this Temple in building" (Joh 2:20). SEE HEROD. Under the sons of Herod the Temple remained apparently in good order, and Herod Agrippa, who was appointed by the emperor Claudius its guardian, even planned the repair of the eastern part, which had probably been destroyed during one of the conflicts between the Jews and Romans of which the Temple was repeatedly the scene (Josephus, Ant. 17:10). During the final struggle of the Jews against the Romans, A.D. 70, the Temple was the last scene of the tug of war. The Romans rushed from the Tower of Antonia into the sacred precincts, the halls of which were set on fire by the Jews themselves. It was against the will of Titus that a Roman soldier threw a firebrand into the northern out-buildings of the Temple, which caused the conflagration of the whole structure, although Titus himself endeavored to extinguish the fire (War, 6:4). Josephus remarks," One cannot but wonder at the accuracy of this period thereto relating; for the same month and day were now observed, as I said before, wherein the holy house was burned formerly by the Babylonians. Now the number of years that passed from its first foundation, which was laid by king Solomon, till this its destruction, which happened in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, are collected to be one thousand one hundred and thirty, besides seven months and fifteen days; and from the second building of it, which was done by Haggai in the second year of Cyrus the king, till its destruction under Vespasian there were six hundred and thirty-nine years and forty-five days." The sacred utensils, the golden table of the shew- bread, the book of the law, and the golden candlestick were displayed in the triumph at Rome. Representations of them are still to be seen sculptured in relief on the triumphal arch of Titus (see Fleck, Wissenschaftliche Reise, 1, 1, plate 1-4; and Reland, De Spoliis Templi Hierosolymitani in Arcu Titiano, ed. E. A. Schulze [Traj. ad Rh. 17751). The place where the Temple had stood seemed to be a dangerous center for the rebellious population, until, in A.D. 136, the emperor Hadrian founded a Roman colony under the name AElia Capitolina on the ruins of Jerusalem, and dedicated a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus on the ruins of the Temple of Jehovah. Henceforth no Jew was permitted to approach the site of the ancient Temple, although the worshippers of Jehovah were, in derision, compelled to pay a tax for the maintenance of the Temple of Jupiter (see Dion Cassius [Xiphil.], 69, 12; Jerome, Ad Jes. 2, 9; 6:11 sq.; Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. 4:6; Demonstratio Evangelica, 8:18). Under the reign of Constantine the Great some Jews were severely punished for having attempted to restore the Temple (see Fabricii Lux Evangelii, p. 124).
The emperor Julian undertook, in 363, to rebuild the Temple; but, after considerable preparation and much expense, he was compelled to desist by flames which burst forth from the foundations (see Ammianus Marcellinus, 23:1; Socrates, 'Hist. Eccles. 3, 20; Sozomen, 5, 22; Theodoret, 3, 15; Schröckh, Kirchengeschichte, 6:385 sq.). Repeated attempts have been made to account for these igneous explosions by natural causes; for instance, by the ignition of gases which had long been pent up in subterraneous vaults (see Michaelis, Zerstr. kl. Schrift. 3, 453 sq.). A similar event is mentioned by Josephus (Ant. 16:7, 1), where we are informed that Herod, while plundering the tombs of David and Solomon, was suddenly frightened by flames which burst out and killed two of his soldiers. Bishop Warburton contends for the miraculousness of the event in his discourse Concerning the Earthquake and Fiery Eruption which Defeated Julian's Attempt to Rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem. See also Lotter, Historia Instaurationis Templi lierosolymitani sub Juliano (Lips. 1728, 4to); Michaelis (F. Holzfuss), Diss. de Templi Hi. erosolymitani Juliani Mandato per Judaeosfrustra Tentata Restitutione (Hal. 1751, 4to); Lardner, Collection of Ancient Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, 4:57 sq.; Ernesti, Theol. Bibl. 9:604 sq. R. Tourlet's French translation of the works of Julian (Paris, 1821), 2, 435 sq., contains an examination of the evidence concerning this remarkable event. See also Jost, Geschichte der Israeliten, 4:211, 254 sq.; and id., Allgemeine Geschichte desjüdischen Volkes, 2, 158. SEE JULIAN.
A splendid mosque now stands on the site of the Temple. This mosque was erected by the caliph Omar after the conquest of Jerusalem by the Saracens in 636. Some think that Omar changed a Christian church which stood on the ground of the Temple into the mosque which is now called El Aksa, the outer, or northern, because it is the third of the most celebrated mosques, two of which, namely, those of Mecca and Medina, are in a more southern latitude. SEE MOSQUE.
III. Situation and Accessories of the Temple. —
1. The site of the Temple is clearly stated in 2Ch 3:1: "Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David, his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshing-floor of Ornan (or Araunah) the Jebusite." In south-eastern countries the site of the threshing-floors is selected according to the same principles which might guide us in the selection of the site of windmills. 'We find them usually on the tops of hills which are on all sides exposed to the winds, the current 'of which is required in order to separate the grain from the chaff. It seems that the summit of Moriah, although large: enough for the agricultural purposes of Araunah, had no level sufficient for the plans of Solomon. According to Josephus (War 5, 5), the foundations of the Temple were laid on a steep eminence, the summit of which was at first insufficient for the Temple and altar. As it was surrounded by precipices, it became necessary to build up walls and buttresses in order to gain more ground by filling up the interval with earth. The hill was also fortified by a threefold wall, the lowest tier of which was in some places more than three hundred cubits high; and the depth of the foundation was not visible, because it had been necessary in some parts to dig deep into the ground in order to obtain sufficient support. The dimensions of the stones of which the walls were composed were enormous; Josephus mentions a length of forty cubits. It is, however, likely that some parts of the fortifications of Moriah were added at a later period. As we shall eventually see, the position and dimensions of the present area of the Haran reasonably correspond to the requirements of the several ancient accounts of the Temple. There can be little doubt, looking at the natural conformation of the rocky hill itself, that the central building always occupied the summit where the Mosque of Omar now stands. Tile theory of Fergusson (in Smith's Dict. of the Bible, and elsewhere) that it was situated in the extreme south-west corner of the present platform has not met with acceptance among archaeologists. SEE MORIAH. The Temple was in ancient warfare almost impregnable, from the ravines at the precipitous edge of which it stood; but it required more artificial fortifications on its western and northern sides, which were surrounded by the city of Jerusalem; for this reason there was erected at its north-western corner the Tower of Antonia, which, although standing on a lower level than the Temple itself, was so high as to overlook the sacred buildings, with which it was connected partly by a large staircase, partly by a subterraneous communication. This tower protected the Temple from sudden incursions from the city of Jerusalem, and from dangerous commotions among the thousands who were frequently assembled within the precincts of the courts; which also were sometimes used for popular meetings. SEE ANTONIA.
2. Many savants have adopted a style as if they possessed much information about the archives of the Temple; there are a few indications from which we learn that important documents were deposited in the Tabernacle and Temple. Even in De 31:26, we find that the book of the law was deposited in the ark of the covenant; and according to 2Ki 22:8, Hilkiah rediscovered the book of the law in the house of Jehovah. In 2 Macc. 2, 13 we find a βιβλιοθήκη mentioned, apparently consisting chiefly of the canonical books, and probably deposited in the Temple. In Josephus (War, 5, 5) it is mentioned that a book of the law was found in the Temple. It appears that the sacred writings were kept in the Temple (Ant. 5, 1, 17). Copies of political documents seem to have been deposited in the treasury of the Temple (1 Macc. 14:49). This treasury, ὁ ἱερὸς θησαυρός, was managed by an inspector, γαζυφύλαξ, גזבר, and it contained the great sums which were annually paid in by the Israelites, each of whom paid a half-shekel, and many of whom sent donations in money and precious vessels, ἀναθήματα. Such costly presents were especially transmitted by rich proselytes, and even sometimes by pagan princes (2 Macc. 3, 3; Josephus, Ant. 14:16, 4; 18:3, 5; 19:6, 1; War, 2, 17, 3; 5, 13, 6; Cont. Apion. 2, 5; Philo, Opp. 2, 59 sq., 569). It is said especially that Ptolemy Philadelphus was very liberal to the Temple, in order to prove his gratitude for having been permitted to procure the Sept. translation (Aristeas, De Translat. LXX, p. 109 sq.). The gifts exhibited in the Temple are mentioned in Lu 21:5; we find even that the rents of the whole town of Ptolemais were given to the Temple (1 Macc. 10:39). There were also preserved historical curiosities (2Ki 11:10), especially the arms of celebrated heroes (Josephus, Ant. 19:6, 1): this was also the case in the Tabernacle.
The Temple was of so much political importance that it had its own guards (φύλακες τοῦ ἱεροῦ), which were commanded by a στρατηγός. Twenty men were required for opening and shutting the eastern gate (Josephus, War, 6:5, 3; Cont. Apion. 2, 9; Ant. 6:5,3; 17:2, 2). The στρατηγός had his own secretary (Ant. 20, 6, 2; 9, 3), and had to maintain the police in the courts (comp. Ac 4:1; Ac 5:24). He appears to have been of sufficient dignity to be mentioned together with the chief priests. It seems that his Hebrew title was הִר הִבִּיַת אַישׁ, the man of the mountain of the house (Middoth, 1, 2). The priests themselves kept watch on three different posts, and the Levites on twenty-one posts. It was the duty of the police of the Temple to prevent women from entering the inner court, and to take care that no person who was Levitically unclean should enter within the sacred precincts. Gentiles were permitted to pass the first enclosure, which was therefore called the Court of the Gentiles; but persons who were on any account Levitically unclean were not permitted to advance even thus far. Some sorts of uncleanness, for instance that arising from the touch of a corpse, excluded only from the court of the men. If an unclean person had entered by mistake, he was required to offer sacrifices of purification. The high-priest himself was forbidden to enter the holy of holies under penalty of death on any other day than the Day of Atonement (Philo, Opp. 2, 591). Nobody was admitted within the precincts of the Temple who carried a stick or a basket, and who wanted to pass merely to shorten his way, or who had dusty shoes (Middoth, 2, 2).
IV. General Types of the Temple. — There is perhaps no building of the ancient world which has excited so much attention since the time of its destruction as the Temple which Solomon built at Jerusalem, and its successor as rebuilt by Herod. Its spoils were considered worthy of forming the principal illustration of one of the most beautiful of Roman triumphal arches, and Justinian's highest architectural ambition was that he might surpass it. Throughout the Middle Ages it influenced to a considerable degree the forms of Christian churches, and its peculiarities were the watchwords and rallying-points of all associations of builders. Since the revival of learning in the 16th century its arrangements have employed the pens of numberless learned antiquarians, and architects of every country have wasted their science in trying to reproduce its forms.
But it is not only to Christians that the Temple of Solomon is so interesting; the whole Mohammedan world look to it as the foundation of all architectural knowledge, and the Jews still recall its glories and sigh over their loss with a constant tenacity, unmatched by that of any other people to any other building of the ancient world.
With all this interest and attention, it might fairly be assumed that there was nothing more to be said on such a subject-that every source of information had been ransacked, and every form of restoration long ago exhausted, and some settlement of the disputed points arrived at which had been generally accepted. This is, however, far from being the case, and few things would be more curious than a collection of the various restorations that have been proposed, as showing what different meanings may be applied to the same set of simple architectural terms.
When the French expedition to Egypt, in the first years of this century, had made the world familiar with the wonderful architectural remains of that country, every one jumped to the conclusion that Solomon's Temple must have been designed after an Egyptian model, forgetting entirely how hateful that land of bondage was to the Israelites, and how completely all the ordinances of their religion were opposed to the idolatries they had escaped from forgetting, too, the centuries which had elapsed since the Exode before the Temple was erected, and how little communication of any sort there had been between the two countries in the interval. Nevertheless, as we shall presently see, the Egyptian monuments remarkably confirm, in many respects, the ancient accounts of the Temple at Jerusalem.
The Assyrian discoveries of Botta and Lavard have within the last twenty years given an entirely new direction to the researches of the restorers, and this time with a very considerable prospect of success, for the analogies are now true, and whatever can be brought to bear on the subject is in the right direction. The original seats of the progenitors of the Jewish races were in Mesopotamia. Their language was practically the same as that spoken on the banks of the, Tigris. Their historical traditions were consentaneous, and, so far as we can judge, almost all the outward symbolism of their religion was the same, or nearly so. Unfortunately, however, no Assyrian temple has yet been exhumed of a nature to throw much light on this subject, and we are still forced to have recourse to the later buildings at Persepolis, or to general deductions from the style of the nearly contemporary secular buildings at Nineveh and elsewhere, for such illustrations as are available. These, although in a general way illustrative, yet by no means, in our opinion, suffice for all that is required for Solomon's Temple. For some architectural features of that erected by Herod we must doubtless look to Rome. Of the intermediate Temple erected by Zerubbabel we know very little, but, from the circumstance of its having been erected under Persian influences contemporaneously with the buildings at Persepolis, it is perhaps the one of which it would be most easy to restore the details with anything like certainty. Yet we must remember that both these later temples were essentially Jewish, i.e. Phoenician, in their style; and we may there, fore presume that the original type, which we know was copied in plan, was likewise imitated in details to a very great degree. There are, however, two sources of illustration with which the Temple was historically connected in a very direct manner, and to these we therefore devote a brief attention before considering the several edifices in detail.
1. The Tabernacle erected by Moses in the desert was unquestionably the pattern, in all its essential features, of its Solomonic successor. In the gradually increasing sanctity of the several divisions, as well as in their strikingly proportionate dimensions, we find the Temple little more than the Tabernacle on an enlarged scale, and of more substantial materials. This is so obvious that we need not dwell upon it. SEE TABERNACLE.
2. The Egyptian Temples, in their conventional style, evince, notwithstanding their idolatrous uses, a wonderful relation to both the Tabernacle and the Temple. As will be seen from the accompanying plan of the Temple of Denderah, which is one of the simplest and most symmetrical as well as the best preserved of its class, there is a striking agreement in the points of the compass, in the extra width of the porch, in the anterior holy place, in the interior shrine, in the side-rooms, in the columnar halls; and in the grander Egyptian temples, such as the earlier portions of those at Luxor and Karnak, we have the two obelisks at the portal like the pillars Jachin and Boaz. These coincidences cannot have been accidental. Nor is this general adoption of a plan already familiar to the Hebrews inconsistent with the divine prescription of the details of architecture (Ex 25:9; 1Ch 28:12). SEE EGYPT.
V. Detailed Description of Solomon's Temple. —
1. Ancient Accounts. — The Temple itself and its utensils are described in 1Ki 6; 1Ki 7:and 2Ch 3; 2Ch 4. According to these passages, the Temple was 60 cubits long, 20 wide, and 30 high. Josephus, however (Ant. 8:3, 2), says, "The Temple was 60 cubits high and 60 cubits in length, and the breadth was 20 cubits; above this was another stage of equal dimensions, so that the height of the whole structure was 120 cubits." It is difficult to reconcile this statement with that given in 1 Kings, unless we suppose that the words ισος τοῖς μέτροις, equal in measures, do not signify an equality in all dimensions, but only as much as equal in the number of cubits; so that the porch formed a kind of steeple, which projected as much above the roof of the Temple as the roof itself was elevated above its foundations. As the Chronicles agree with Josephus in asserting that the summit of the porch was 120 cubits high, there remains still another apparent contradiction to be solved, namely, how Josephus could assert that the Temple itself was 60 cubits high, while we read in 1 Kings that its height was only 30 cubits. We suppose that in the book of Kings the internal elevation of the sanctuary. is stated, and that Josephus describes its external elevation, which, including the basement and an upper story (which may have existed, consisting of rooms for the accommodation of priests, containing also vestries and treasuries), might be double the internal height of the sanctuary. The internal dimension of the "holy" which was called in preference הֵיכָל, was 40 cubits long, 20 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. The holy was separated from the "holy of holies" (דּבַיר) by a partition, a large opening in which was closed by a suspended curtain. The holy of holies was on the western extremity of the entire building, and its internal dimensions formed a cube of 20 cubits. On the eastern extremity of the building stood the porch, אוּלָם, πρόναος. At the entrance of this pronaos stood the two columns called Jachin and Boaz, which were 35 cubits high.
The Temple was also surrounded by a triple יָצַיע, story of chambers, each of which stories was five cubits high, so that there remained above ample space for introducing the windows, somewhat in the manner of a clear-
story to the sanctuary. Now the statement of Josephus, who says that each of these stories of chambers (עלִעוֹת) was 20 cubits high, cannot be reconciled with the Biblical statements, and may prove that he was no very close reader of his authorities. Perhaps he had a vague kind of information that the chambers reached half-way up the height of the building, and, taking the maximum height of 120 cubits instead of the internal height of the holy, he made each story four times too high. The windows which are mentioned in 1Ki 6:4 consisted probably of latticework. The lowest stair of the chambers was five cubits, the middle six, and the third seven cubits wide. This difference of the width arose from the circumstance that the external walls of the Temple were so thick that they were made to recede one cubit after an elevation of five feet, so that the scarcement in the wall of the Temple gave a firm support to the beams which supported the second story, without being inserted into the wall of the sanctuary; this insertion being perhaps avoided not merely for architectural reasons, but also because it appeared to be irreverent. The third story was supported likewise by a similar scarcement, which afforded a still wider space for the chamber of the third story. These observations will render intelligible the following Biblical statements: "And against the wall of the house he built stories round about, both of the Temple and of the oracle; and he made chambers round about. The nethermost story was five cubits broad, and the middle was six cubits broad, and the third was seven cubits broad; for without in the wall of the house he made narrowed nests (מַגרָעוֹת, narrowings or rebatements) round about, so that the beams should not be fastened in the walls of the house. The house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither; so that there was neither hammer,: nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it was building. The door of the middle story was in the right side of the house; and they went up with winding stairs into the middle story, and out of the middle into the third. So he built the house, and finished it; and covered the house with beams and boards of cedar. And then he built chambers against all the house, five cubits high; and they rested on the house with timber of cedar" (1Ki 6; 1Ki 7). From this description it may be inferred that the entrance to these stories was from without; but some architects have supposed that it was from within; which arrangement seems to be against the general aim of impressing the Israelitish worshippers with sacred awe by the seclusion of their sanctuary.
In reference to the windows, it should be observed that they served chiefly for ventilation; since the light within the Temple was obtained from the sacred candlesticks. It seems, from the descriptions of the Temple, to be certain that the דּבַיר, oracle, or holy of holies, was an adytum without windows. To this fact Solomon appears to refer when he spake, "The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness" (1Ki 8:12).
The דַּבַיר, oracle, had perhaps no other opening than the entrance, which was, as we may infer from the prophetic visions of Ezekiel (which probably correspond with' the historic Temple of Solomon), six cubits wide. From 1Ki 7:10, we learn that the private dwellings of Solomon were built of massive stone. We hence infer that the framework of the Temple also consisted of the same material. The Temple was, however, wainscoted with cedar wood, which was covered with gold. The boards within the Temple were ornamented by beautiful carvings representing cherubim, palms, and flowers. The ceiling of the Temple was supported by beams of cedar wood (comp. Pliny, Hist. Nat. 16:69). The wall which separated the holy from the holy of holies probably consisted not of stone, but of beams of cedar. It seems, further, that the partition partly consisted of an opus reticulatum, so that the incense could spread from the holy to the most holy. This we infer from 1Ki 6:21: "So Solomon overlaid the house within with pure gold; and he made a partition by the chains of gold before the oracle, and he overlaid it with gold." The floor of the Temple was throughout of cedar, but boarded over with planks of fir (1Ki 6:15). The doors of the oracle were composed of olive-tree; but the doors of the outer temple had posts of olive-tree arid leaves of fir (ver. 31 sq.). Both doors, as well that which led into the Temple as that which led from the holy to the holy of holies, had folding- leaves, which, however, seem to have been usually kept open, the aperture being closed by a suspended curtain-a contrivance still seen at the church- doors in Italy, where the church doors usually stand open; but the doorways can be passed only by moving aside a heavy curtain. From 2Ch 3; 2Ch 5, it appears that the greater house was also ceiled with fir. It is stated in ver. 9 "that the weight of the nails employed in the Temple was fifty shekels of gold;" and also that Solomon "overlaid the upper chambers with gold." The lintel and side posts of the oracle seem to have circumscribed a space which contained one fifth of the whole area of the partition; and the posts of the door of the Temple one fourth of the area of the wall in which they were placed. Thus we understand the passage 1Ki 6:31-35, which also states that the door was covered with carved work overlaid with gold.
Within the holy of holies stood only the Ark of the Covenant; but within the holy were ten golden candlesticks and the altar of incense. SEE ALTAR; SEE CANDLESTICK.
The Temple was surrounded by an inner court, which in Chronicles is called the court of the priests, and in Jeremiah the higher court. This, again, was surrounded by a wall consisting of cedar beams placed on a stone foundation (1Ki 6:36): "And he built the, inner court with three rows of hewed stone, and a row of cedar beams." This enclosure, according to Josephus (Ant. 8:3, 9), was three cubits high. Besides this inner court, there is mentioned a great court (2Ch 4:9) "Furthermore, he made the court of the priests, and the great court, and doors for the court, and overlaid the doors of them with brass." It seems that this was also called the outward court (comp. Eze 40:17). This court was also more especially called the court of the Lord's house (Jer 19:14; Jer 26:2). These courts were surrounded by spacious buildings, which, however, according to Josephus (War, 5, 5, 1), seem to have been partly added at a period later than that of Solomon. For instance (2Ki 15:35), Jotham is said to have built the higher gate of the house of the Lord. In Jer 26:10; Jer 36:10 there is mentioned a new gate (comp. also Eze 40:5-47; Eze 42:1-14). But this prophetic vision is not strictly historical, although it may serve to illustrate history (comp. also Josephus, Ant. 8:3, 9). The third entry into the house of the Lord mentioned in Jer 38:14 does not seem to indicate that there were three courts, but appears to mean that the entry into the outer court was called the first, that into the inner court the second, and the door of the sanctuary the third. It is likely that these courts were quadrilateral. In the visions of Ezekiel they form a square of four hundred cubits. The inner court contained towards the east the altar of burnt-offering, the brazen sea, and ten brazen lavers; and it seems that the sanctuary did not stand in the center of the inner court, but more towards the west. From these descriptions we learn that the Temple of Solomon was not distinguished by magnitude, but by good architectural proportions, beauty of workmanship, and costliness of materials. Many of our churches have an external form not unlike that of the Temple of Solomon. In fact, this Temple seems to have been the pattern of 'our church buildings, to which the chief addition has been the Gothic arch. Among others, the Roman Catholic Church at Dresden is supposed to bear much resemblance to the Temple of Solomon.
2. Modern Reconstructions. — It thus appears that as regards the building itself we have little more than a few fragmentary notices, which are quite insufficient to enable us to make out a correct architectural representation of it, or even to arrive at a very definite idea of many things belonging to its complicated structure and arrangements. All attempts that have been made in this direction have utterly failed, and, for the most part, have proceeded on entirely wrong principles. Such, was remarkably the case with the first great work upon the subject by professedly Christian writers namely, the portion of the commentary on Ezekiel by the Spanish Jesuits Pradus and Villapandus (1596-1604) which treats of the Temple. It was accompanied by elaborate calculations and magnificent drawings; but the whole proceeded on a series of mistakes-first, that the Temple of Ezekiel was a delineation of that which had been erected by Solomon; secondly, that this was again exactly reproduced in Herod's; and, thirdly, that the style of architecture from the first was of the Greeco-Roman character-all quite groundless suppositions. Their idea of Solomon's Temple was that both in dimensions and arrangement it was very like the Escurial in Spain. But it is by no means clear whether the Escurial was in process of building while their book was in the press in order to look like the Temple, or whether its authors took their idea of the Temple from the palace. At all events, their design is so much the more beautiful and commodious of the two that we cannot but regret that Herrera was not employed on the book and the Jesuits set to build the palace. Various other writers, chiefly on the Continent, followed in the same line — Haffenreffer, Capellus (Τρισάγιον, printed in the Crit. Sacri), Lightfoot, Sturm (in Ugolino), Lamy, Semmler, Mela notice of whose treatises, some of them large and ponderous, may be seen in Bahr, Salomonische Tempel (§ 3). They are now of comparatively little use' Lightfoot's, as Bahr admits, is the best of the whole, being more clear, learned, and solidly grounded in its representations But it has chiefly to do, as its title indicates (The Temple, especially as it stood in the Days of Our Savior), with the Temple of Herod, and but very briefly refers to the Temple of Solomon. An essentially different class of writings on the Temple sprang up after the middle of last century, introduced by J. D. Michaelis, which, in the spirit of the times, made little account of anything but the outward material structure, this being regarded as a sort of copy-though usually in a very inferior style of art of some of the temples of heathen antiquity. It is only during the present century that any serious efforts have been made to construct an idea of Solomon's Temple on right principles; that is, on the ground simply of the representations made concerning it in Scripture, and with a due regard to the purposes for which it was erected, and the differences as well as the resemblances between it and heathen temples of the same Hera. A succession of works or treatises with this view has appeared, almost exclusively in Germany, several of them by architects and antiquarians, with special reference to the history of the building art. They differ very much in merit; and in one of the latest, as perhaps also the ablest, of the whole, the treatise of Bahr already referred to (published in 1848), a review is given of the aim and characteristics of preceding investigations. As a general result, it has been conclusively established on the negative side, and is now generally acquiesced in, that the means entirely fail us for presenting a full and detailed representation, in an architectural respect, of the Temple and its related buildings. Its being cast in the rectilinear and chest form plainly distinguished it from erections in the Greek and Roman style; and, if the employment of Phoenician artists might naturally suggest some approach in certain parts to Phoenician models, it is, on the other hand, admitted by the most careful investigators in this particular department of antiquarian study that little or nothing is known of the Phoenician style of building (Bahr, p. 46). We here present the delineations of several later antiquaries, which show how variously the historical descriptions are interpreted and applied.
Entirely different from the foregoing is Prof., Paine's idea of the Temple, arising from his interpretation of the "enlarging" and winding about still upward" of Eze 41:7 to mean an over jutting of the upper chambers by galleries (Temple of Solomon, p, 38). — A serious objection to such an arrangement is the insecurity of a building thus widening at the top.
VI. Zerubbabel's Temple. — We have very few particulars regarding the Temple which the Jews-erected after their return from the Captivity, and no description that would enable us to realize its appearance. But there are some dimensions given in the Bible and elsewhere which are extremely interesting as affording points of comparison between it and the temples which preceded it or were erected after it.
The first and most authentic are those given in the book of Ezr 6:3 when quoting the decree of Cyrus, wherein it is said, "Let the house be builded, the place where they offered sacrifices, and: let the foundations thereof be strongly laid; the height thereof threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof threescore cubits; with three rows of, great stones, and a row of new timber." Josephus quotes this passage almost literally (Ant. 11:4, 6), but in doing so enables us to translate "row" (Chald. נַדבָּך, layer) as story (δόμος, so also the Sept.) as, indeed, the sense would lead us to infer-for it could only apply to the three stories of chambers that surrounded Solomon's, and afterwards Herod's, Temple; and with this again we come to the wooden structure which surmounted the Temple and formed a fourth story. It may be remarked, in passing, that this dimension of sixty cubits in height accords perfectly with the words which Josephus puts into the mouth of Herod (ibid. 15:11,1) when he makes him say that the Temple built after the Captivity wanted sixty cubits of the height of that of Solomon. For, as he had adopted, as we have seen above, the height of one hundred and twenty cubits, as written in the Chronicles, for that Temple, this one remained only sixty. The other dimension of sixty cubits in breadth is twenty cubits in excess of that of Solomon's Temple; but there is no reason to doubt its correctness, for we find, both from Josephus and the Talmud, that it was the dimension adopted for the Temple when rebuilt, or rather repaired, by Herod. At the same time, we have no authority for assuming that any increase was made in the dimensions of either the holy place or the holy of holies, since we find that these were retained in Ezekiel's description of an ideal Temple, and were afterwards those of Herod's. As this Temple of Zerubbabel was still standing in Herod's time, and was, more strictly speaking, repaired rather than rebuilt by him, we cannot conceive that any of its dimensions were then diminished. We are left, therefore, with the alternative of assuming that the porch and the chambers all round were twenty cubits in width, including the thickness of the walls, instead of ten cubits, as in the earlier building. This may, perhaps, to some extent, be accounted for by the introduction of a passage between the Temple and the rooms of the priest's lodgings, instead of each being a thoroughfare, as must certainly have been the case in Solomon's Temple. This alteration in the width of the Pteromata made the Temple one hundred cubits in length by sixty in breadth, with a eight it is said, of sixty cubits, including the upper room, or Talar, though we cannot help suspecting that this last dimension is somewhat in excess of the truth.
The only other description of this Temple is found in Hecataeus the Abderite, who wrote shortly after the death of Alexander the Great. As quoted by Josephus (Cont. Ap. 1, 22), he says that "in Jerusalem, towards the middle of the city, is a stone-walled enclosure about five hundred feet in length (ὡς πεντάπλεθρος) and one hundred cubits in width, with double gates, in which he describes the Temple as being situated. It may be that at this age it was found necessary to add a court for the women or the Gentiles, a sort of Narthex or Galilee for those who could not enter the Temple. If this, or these together, were one hundred cubits square, it would make up the "nearly five plethora" of our author. Hecatseus also mentions that the altar was twenty cubits square and ten high. Although he mentions the Temple itself, he unfortunately does not supply us with any dimensions.
The Temple of Zerubbabel had several courts (αὐλαί) and cloisters or cells (πρόθυρα). Josephus distinguishes an internal and external ἱερόν, and mentions cloisters in the courts. This Temple was connected with the town by means of a bridge (Ant. 14:4).
VII. Ezekiel's Temple. — The vision of a temple which the prophet Ezekiel saw while residing on the banks of the Chebar in Babylonia, in the twenty-fifth year of the Captivity, does not add much to our knowledge of the subject. It is not a description of a temple that ever was built or ever could be erected at Jerusalem, and can consequently only be considered as the beau ideal of what a Shemitic temple ought to be. As such it would certainly be interesting if it could be correctly restored; but, unfortunately, the difficulties of making out a complicated plan from a mere verbal description are very great indeed, and are enhanced in this instance by our imperfect knowledge of the exact meaning of the Hebrew architectural terms, and it may also be from the prophet describing not what he actually knew, but only what he saw in a vision.
Be this as it may, we find that the Temple itself was of the exact dimensions of that built by Solomon, viz. an adytum (Eze 40:1-4) twenty cubits square, a naos twenty by forty, and surrounded by cells of ten cubits' width, including the thickness of the walls; the whole, with the porch, making up forty cubits by eighty. The height, unfortunately, is not given. Beyond this were various courts and residences for the priests, and places for sacrifice and other ceremonies of the Temple, till he comes to the outer court, which measured five hundred reeds on each of its sides; each reed (ver. 5) was six Babylonian cubits long, viz. of cubits each of one ordinary cubit and a handbreadth, or, at the lowest estimate, twenty-one inches. The reed was therefore at least ten feet six inches, and the side consequently five thousand two hundred and fifty Greek feet, or within a few feet of an English mile, considerably more than the whole area of the city of Jerusalem, Temple included.
It has been attempted to get over this difficulty by saying that the prophet meant cubits, not reeds; but this is quite untenable. Nothing can be more clear than the specification of the length of the reed, and nothing more careful than the mode in which reeds are distinguished from cubits throughout; as, for instance, in the next two verses (6 and 7), where a chamber and a gateway are mentioned each of one reed. If "cubit" were substituted, it would be nonsense. Nevertheless, Prof. Paine has given a reconstruction of this as well as the actual Temple, for the description and dimensions in the vision are consistent with themselves and capable of being plotted down.
Notwithstanding its ideal character, the whole is extremely curious, as showing what were the aspirations of the Jews in this direction, and how different they were from those of other nations; and it is interesting here, inasmuch as there-can be little doubt but that the arrangements of Herod's Temple were in some measure influenced by the description here given. The outer court, for instance, with: its porticos measuring five hundred cubits each way, is an exact counterpart, on a smaller scale, of the outer court of Ezekiel's Temple, and is not found in either Solomon's or Zerubbabel's; arid so: too, evidently, are several of the internal arrangements. SEE EZEKIEL.
VIII. Herod's Temple. — The most full, explicit, and trustworthy information on this subject is contained ill that tract of the Jewish Talmud entitled Middoth (i.e. "measures"), which is almost as minute in its descriptions and dimensions (no doubt by parties who had seen, and ,as priests been familiar with, the edifice) as a modern architect's specifications. Besides this, the two descriptions of the temple, incidentally given by Josephus (ut sup.) are three consecutive accounts of the ancient structure. Our principal attempt will therefore be to follow these where they agree, and to reconcile their seeming discrepancies going at the same time all important allusions in the Bible and uninspired historians of antiquity, and constantly comparing the whole with the indications on the modern site. Occasional use, for verification, may be made of the measures in the spiritual temple of Ezekiel 40-42, but: with great caution, as but few of' them seem to have been borrowed from the actual type which, moreover, was Solomon's Temple, and not Herod's
(I.) The OUTER CIRCUIT OF THE TEMPLE. We assume that the present enclosure of the Haram corresponds to the areas of the Temple and of the Tower Antonia taken together; and the most convenient mode of considering the general contour of the outer wall will be after presenting the following arrangements:
1. Remains of cyclopean masonry are still found at intervals on all the sides of the present enclosure of the peculiar beveled character which marks their antiquity. The English engineers engaged in the late Ordinance survey traced all these along the southern end, and found them resting on the native rock, some of them still retaining the marks of the original Tyrian workmen (see Recovery of Jerusalem, p. 108). Now Josephus informs us (Ant. 15, 11, 3; War, 5, 5, 1) that the area of Moriah was enlarged by building up enormous walls from the valleys and filling them in with earth. The lower courses of these seem to have been buried under the rubbish that fell upon them from the demolition of the upper part of the walls, and have thus escaped. It is difficult to suppose that such masonry could have been the work of later times, or that the area would have been altered after such prodigious bounds had been set to it. Particular coincidences of ruins on the eastern, southern, and western sides will be noted in giving the circuit of the wall in detail. The "Jews Wailing-place" along the western wall is agreed upon all hands to be a veritable mark of antiquity, going back at least as far as the time of Herod.
2. The enormous vaulted substructions found under the southern end of the Haram are evidently the same which would be left between these embankments and the native rock; and it was apparently among these that the tyrant Simon subsisted till after the destruction of the city (Josephus, War, 7:2, 4). But especially does Maimonides speak expressly of the arches supporting the ground on-this part in order to prevent graves and other pollution beneath (Lightfoot, Prospects of the Temple, ch. 1).
3. That the platform (not the mere building) of the Tower Antonia occupied the whole northern end of this enclosure we think is nearly certain from the following facts:
a. The scarped rock and wall on this side can be no other than the precipice, rendered more inaccessible by art, above which Josephus states that this tower, as 'well as those at the other corners of its courts, was reared (War, 5, 5, 8). No such ridge can be found to the north of this.
b. The presence of the fosse (found in the modern "Pool of Bethesda") on this part seems 'to limit its site. This ditch is not only referred to in the several notices of Antonia by Josephus above cited, but in Ant. 14:4,1, 2 he speaks of it as being "broad and deep," "of immense depth;" so that it could hardly, have failed to remain as a landmark in all ages.
c. The projecting bastions at the north-west and northeast angles appear to be the relics of the towers at these corners, and the projection at the Golden Gate may have been connected with the tower at the south-east corner.
d. The present barracks of the Turkish troops are on the traditionary site of the Tower of Antonia at the northwest corner of the Haram.
4. The actual size of the present enclosure agrees remarkably with the dimensions of the Temples and Antonia's areas. According to the Talmud (Middoth, 2, 1), the outer court of the Temple was 500 cubits square, which, taking the most approved estimate of the Jewish or Egyptian cubit at 1.824 feet, SEE CUBIT, would give 912 feet as the length of each side.
Now the total length of the southern wall of the Haram is 922 feet, which will allow 5 feet for the thickness (at the surface) of each wall, a coincidence that cannot be accidental. Again, Josephus gives the distance around the whole enclosure of the Temple and Antonia together as being six stadia (War, 5, 5, 2); and if we subtract from this his estimate of four stadia for the circuit of the Temple (Ant. 15:11, 3), we have one stadium, or about 606 feet, for the additional length of the court of Antonia northward on each side. Now this added to the square whose base has just been found will give about 1521 feet for the sides of the entire enclosure on the east and west; and it is a remarkable fact that the length of the Haram in this direction, according to the Ordnance Survey, averages 1540 feet, leaving again 5 feet for the thickness of each of the three walls. We are not sure, however, but that a somewhat greater thickness should be allowed the outer wall, which (on the west side, at least) Josephus says was "broad" (War, 6:3, 1), and on all sides "very strong" (Ant. 14:4, 1).
On this point, however, there are some considerations that at first seem to be powerful objections:
(a) Josephus, in the passage last referred to, makes the Temple area only a stadium square. But this is evidently nothing more than a round number from mere recollection, measured only by the eye; whereas the Talmud is so minute in its interior specification that there can be little doubt which to follow. The 500 reeds in the measurement of the spiritual temple by Ezekiel (Eze 42:16-20) seem to have been taken from these 500 cubits.
(b) The modern area is not rectangular, nor are its opposite sides parallel or of equal length; the south-west corner is the only one that has been positively settled as being aright angle, and the north side is certainly longer than that on the south. We do not conceive, therefore, that the term "square" in the Mishna and Josephus need be so strictly taken, but only to mean that the area was a quadrilateral, apparently rectangular to the eye, and of equal dimensions on the east, south, and west sides, which are exposed to view. This mode of reconcilement, we think, is better than to suppose the line on either of these sides to have been shifted in the face of every possible evidence of identity. By running the dividing line between the Temple and the court of Antonia immediately south of the Golden Gate (so as to make this latter, which is evidently ancient, the entrance to Antonia, and not to the Temple, which had but one eastern gate), we obtain another right angle, and make the four sides of the Temple area nearly equal.
Having thus settled the general line of the outer wall of the Temple, it remains to trace the objects of interest lying along it, both on the inner and outer sides, in which endeavor we will begin. On the south-west corner. Here was the famous bridge of which Josephus so often speaks (Ant. 14:4, 2, twice; War, 1, 7, 2; 2, 16, 3; 6:6, 2; 8, 1). Accordingly, in the foundation-stones on the western side of the present wall, 39 feet from the south corner, may still be seen the three lower courses (50 feet long) of the first arch, evidently, of this bridge, which spanned the Tyropoeon. A measurement of the curve indicates that the span of the entire arch was about 45.feet (see these details in the Ordnance Survey, p. 27), so that seven such arches would conveniently extend across the valley (350 feet, the remaining 125 feet. to the wall being embankment) and allow suitable piers between them. This was evidently the "passage over the intermediate valley," through which
2. The first gate (from the south) on the western side of the Temple "led to the king's palace" on Zion (Josephus, Ant. 15:11, 5). This passage seems to have been originally built by Solomon (1Ki 10:5; 2Ch 9:4). The arches, however, may belong to the time of the reconstruction of the bridge, perhaps by Herod. Here, We think, must be located "the gate Shallecheth (literally, a "casting down," perhaps with reference to the steepness of the valley), by the causeway of the going up" to Zion (1Ch 26:16; comp. ver. 18); although Lightfoot places them both at the northern end of the Temple wall, reading Josephus's four gates in a southward order (Works, 9:226). There exists still, in fact, a sort of embankment not far north of this spot, across which the "upper level" aqueduct from Bethlehem is probably carried to Moriah. This is apparently the same with the gate anciently named Sur (2Ki 11:6), otherwise called the Gate of the Foundation (2Ch 23:5)., The reason of the name "Sur" (literally, "removed") is quite uncertain. The "foundation" may refer to the high base of the wall supporting the- bridge adjoining. It seems to have been this passage between the abode of the usurping Athaliah on Zion and the refuge of the young king in the Temple proper that was specially guarded; the guards were three and the same in each, but differently named: one section was at the Horse Gate (at "the king's house"), another at the other end of the bridge (at this "gate of Sur," or "of the foundation"), and the third at the gates of the inner enclosure ("the doors" generally, "the gate behind the [former] guard"); so that if any enemy passed the first two among "the people in the [outer] courts," he should still be intercepted by the last before reaching the prince. Lightfoot interprets differently (Works, 9:326). In the Talmud it is explicitly said that there was (apparently but) one gate in the western Temple wall, and in the same connection the gates are repeatedly referred to as being five in number, of which ῥfour are assigned to the other sides (Middoth, 1, 1, 3). This single western one is there called Kipbnus (ibid. 1, 3). That this was the same with the gate in question, we think to be probable, from the consideration that this being the principal entrance on this side-as is evident not only from its position and the points connected, but also from the slighting manner in which the rest are referred to and their destination mentioned-will account for the silence in the Talmud respecting the others. From the name itself little can be safely argued; see Lightfoot's attempts to define it (Works, 9:226). Each of the gates in the outer wall of the Temple (as well as those in the inner wall) was 20 cubits high and 10 wide (Middoth, 2, 3), which Josephus, apparently including side and cap ornaments, extends (in the case of the inner, and therefore probably also the outer, wall) to 30 cubits high and 15 wide (War, 5, 5, 3).
3. The second gate northward seems to have been that anciently called Parbar, from a comparison of the following facts:
a. In 1Ch 26:18, it is mentioned in connection with "the causeway," as if next to Shallecheth.
b. In 2Ki 23:11 is made mention of a gate leading from "the suburbs" into the Temple, apparently not far from the palaces and this precisely agrees with the southern one of the two middle gates which Josephus states led to "the suburbs" (Ant. 15:11, 5). The word "Iparbar" (which only occurs in these two Biblical passages, and in Eze 27:28) is used by the rabbins as meaning "suburb," although its radical sense would appear to be an open building or space (see Gesenius and Buxtorf, Lex. s.v.)
c. At a point 265 feet north of the south-west corner of the Haram there still-exists a gate (Bab el-Mugharibeh, "the gate of the Western Africans") in the modern wall, leading into the Haram, and in the nature of the case there must always have been a gate near this spot.
d. Beyond this point, as we shall presently see, there is no opportunity for a gate south of the point where the north wall of Zion would have joined the Temple; but that wall must have included one of these "gates to the suburbs," both for the sale of convenience and to prevent an undue crowding of three gates in the western Temple wall north of its junction with the Zion wall. Here, however, there is just convenient space for a gate, and a suitable locality about half-way between the bridge and the Zion wall.
e. These views are confirmed by the following point:
4. Josephus mentions (War, 6:3, 2) as lying along this wall "John's Tower, which he built in the war he made against Simon, over the gates that led to the Xystus," by which gate we understand this of Parbar, and that the tower was constructed over an enlargement of its gateway lying opposite Simon's or the Lying-out Tower.
5. The next object of interest is "the Council-house" mentioned by Josephus as the termination of the old wall at the Temple (War, 5, 4, 2), which plainly implies that it lay in the corner where the city and Temple walls met, and immediately joined them both. This building we therefore locate on that part of the Haram which adjoins the termination of the present Street of David, for the reasons following:
a. The courses of old foundation-stones forming "the Jews Wailing-place" show that there was no structure anciently adjoining them, and therefore the Council house must be located north of this spot.
b. The space here unappropriated (about 100 feet, between the Jews Wailing-place and David Street) would be a suitable one for a public building with its interior court and connected offices:
c. The Mukhama, or "town-hall," of the modern city is exactly on this spot, and "'some of it has more the appearance of being in situ than many of the other remains in the city" (Ordnance Survey, p. 28).
6. Just north of the Zion wall thus located, we would place one of the gates of Asuppim, referred to in 1Ch 26:17 as lying on the western side of the Temple, identical with Josephus's other gate leading to the suburbs, at a convenient place, and uniformly situated with respect to the gate above and that below, and just at the present Bab es-Silsileh, or "Gate of the Chain," at the head of the modern "Street of David," which is the principal entrance to the Haram.
7. Adjoining this on the inside must have been the House of Asuppim, or "collections" (1Ch 26:15), occupying (part of) the cloister between the two gates of the same name. It probably was the place of deposit for the Temple offerings (see Lightfoot, Works, 9:230). This is apparently "that northern edifice which was between the two gates" mentioned by Josephus (War, 6:2, 7), for that these were the two gates of Asuppim is evident from several considerations:
a. The Romans, although then assaulting the outer Temple wall, evidently attacked its north-west corner, where the Temple proper was nearest to them, and therefore would not have reared their engines south of the junction of the old wall with the Temple, which leaves but these two gates for the sphere of their operations on the west.
b. That this building was on the west side of the Temple is clear from the fact that of the four engines the first was opposite the north-west angle of the inner court [from a northerly point of attack], and the last one farther along the north side; if, then, this second one be opposite the same north- west corner of the inner court from a westerly direction, the third will be farther south on the west side, between the south gate of Asuppim and the old wall — a natural and consistent arrangement. The Tower of Antonia proper prevented any being reared nearer the extreme north-west corner of the outer wall.
8. The other Gate of Asuppim we therefore place at a corresponding distance northward, opposite where a gate enters the Haram from the modern "Cotton Mart," and hence called Bab el-Kattanin. Lightfoot asserts that this gate (which, however, he calls Shallecheth) was diametrically opposite the eastern gate (Works, 9:226), but apparently without any authority. This is evidently also Josephus's "last [gate on this side that] led to the other city," i.e. Acra (Ant. 15:11,5).
9. In this last passage, also, Josephus states that on passing out of this gate "the road descended down into the valley [the he Tyropoeon] by a great number of steps, and thence again by the ascent," which agrees with the fact that the detritus adjoining the wall is here 72 feet' deep (Ordnance Survey, p. 29).
10. We next arrive at the north-west corner of the Temple enclosure, about 1000 feet from the east as well as the south side. Near this corner were private passages for the Roman guard from Antonia to the galleries within the wall (Josephus, War, 5, 5, 8).
11. On the north side there was but one gate (the "two gates" of Josephus [War, 6:2, 7] have been shown above not to belong to the north side), which the Talmud calls Tedi (Middoth, 1, 3), a word of uncertain signification, but apparently indicative of "privacy" from its being less used, and therefore less ornamented, than the other gates (so Lightfoot from the Talmud), which the obstruction of Antonia would naturally occasion. We place it in the middle of the wall, nearly opposite both the Gate of Song and the present "Gate el-Hitta," on the north side of the Haram.
12. The north-east corner of the square would thus fall just south of the Golden Gate, considered as representing the tower at that angle of the enclosure of Antonia, possibly the old tower of Meah (Ne 3:1; Ne 12:39).
13. On the east side there was but one gate, that of Shushan (Middoth, 1, 3), so called from a representation of that city on the walls of one of its chambers. It was opposite the entrance of the porch of the Temple, in order that the priest, when he burned the red heifer on the Mount of Olives, might exactly face the altar; on which account the tower over the gate was lower than those surmounting the other gates, so as not to intercept his view. So infers Lightfoot from the Talmud and Maimonides (Works, 9:218, 219); which location, however, Mr. Williams finds it necessary to dispute (Holy City, 2, 355, note 5). This position shows that this gate and the altar were in a range with the other gates between them. By an inspection of the sectional view of the Temple on the map, it will appear that at a certain height on the Mount of Olives the fire on the altar might be seen through the inner gates and over this gate. We find no traces of this gate mentioned by travelers.
14. At the south-east corner Josephus says there was a tremendous precipice (Ant. 15:11, 3, 5), apparently "the pinnacle of the Temple" on which the tempter placed Christ (Lu 4:9), still to be recognized in the steep descent at this point, and proved to have been anciently more profound by the vaulted substructions beneath the inside of the Haram, raising this angle of its platform above the old bed of the valley. The wall is here about 60 feet high, and about S0 feet deep from the present surface of the ground outside. From Josephus's language in War, 6:3, 3, it is evident that the precipice at the northeast angle was also very considerable.
15. On the south side, according, to the Talmud; 'were two gates, both named Huldah (Middoth, 1, 3), perhaps from the prophetess of that name. These are evidently the "gates in the middle" of this side mentioned by Josephus (Ant. 15:11, 5). We conclude that they lay very near together, and (with Dr. Robinson) identify them with the double gateway still found in the south Haram wall at the point where the modern city wall joins it. Its entire breadth is 42 feet (Robinson, Bibl. Res. 1, 450) and it is reached by a sloping passage from the platform of the Haram, as the embankment here could never have otherwise admitted an exit, nor even then without exterior steps. Lightfoot, however, makes these gates divide the wall into three equal parts (Works, 9:224), apparently merely arguing from the statement of Josephus. It is worthy of note that in 1Ch 26:14-18 but one set of guards is constantly assigned to the south side, in like terms as to the single gates on the north and east, whereas four sets are, in both enumerations, assigned to the west side. The other modern vestiges of portals on this side are of inferior size and antiquity.
16. On the several sides of the Court of the Gentiles that lay within the outer wall (called also the Outer Court, Lower Court, and by the rabbins usually "Mountain of the Lord's House") there were several objects worthy of special note:
(1.) On the north and west sides were double interior porticos or cloisters, each 15 cubits wide, supported by columns and sustaining a roof on cedar beams (Josephus, War, 5, 5, 2).
(2.) On the east side was Solomon's Porch (Joh 10:23; Ac 3; Ac 11), of the same size and style with those on the north and west (Josephus, Ant. 15:11, 3; 20:9, 7).
(3.) On the south side was the Royal Portico (apparently so called after Herod, who rebuilt it; Josephus, War, 1, 21, 1), which differed- from the rest in being triple, the two side aisles being 30 feet broad, and the middle one once and a half as broad (Ant. 15:11, 5). Lightfoot has strangely set these down as being respectively 15 and 42J cubits broad (Pitman's edition of his Works, 9:239, with which his own map agrees; the English folio edition, 1, 1061, has the same numbers; but the Latin edition in Ugolino, Thesaurus, 9:596, has for the middle aisle forty-one cubits), in which we suspect some oversight (perhaps from thinking of the dimensions of the other cloisters), as all editions of Josephus here read alike, and the Middoth does not particularize on this point. The hypothesis of Williams (Holy City, 2, 401) that would throw the Royal Portico outside the Temple area is opposed to all ancient authority; so much so that even his coadjutor Prof. Willis is constrained to dissent from him (ibid. 1, 103).
(4.) These cloisters were adorned with Corinthian columns of solid marble, 162 in number (of such size that three men could just span them with their outstretched arms, making about a diameter of six feet), which separated the aisles, besides another row half imbedded in the outer wall (Josephus, Ant. 15:11, 5). We understand this to be the number of all the columns that stood alone in all the circuit of this court, and not those of the Royal Portico merely; for they would then be unduly crowded, and the average space between them which we have made (about 45 feet) is no greater span for the roof timbers than across the middle aisle of the south cloister. The harmony with which the several gates fall in between them when thus distributed is no little corroboration of the entire scheme. In the substructed vaults the rows of piers are 15 feet apart, and thus certain rows of them would fall exactly under these pillars, these piers also averaging about half the distance apart of the columns above. (See Prof. Willis's remarks in Williams's Holy City, appendix, 1, 125-128:; although we cannot see why he should think that a column stood over-each pier one way when they could have been only over every other, or every third one, the other way.) These columns were 25 cubits high on three sides, which determines the height of the roof on those sides (Josephus, War, 5, 5, 2); but on the south side the (shafts of the) two exterior rows were 27 feet high, the capitals and double-bases raising the roof to'50 feet, and the middle aisle was twice as high, probably by another series of columns of the same size surmounting the first (Ant. 15:11, 5). Balustrades doubtless guarded the edges of the flat roofs, and the gates were probably capped with turrets, for ornament as well as defense.
(5.) There were porters' lodges adjoining at least five of the gates (Middoth, 1, 1), and probably similar structures for the accommodation of the Levites guarding each of the gates (1Ch 26:12-13).
(6.) The Talmud also speaks of shops in this court, where articles used in sacrifice were kept for sale, as well as of a room in which the Jewish "Council of Twenty-three," and afterwards the Sanhedrim, sat; these Lightfoot locates near the Shushan Gate, the former on the ground floor and the latter overhead (Works, 9:241-244). It was probably an abuse of this privilege of sale that led to the introduction of cattle, sheep, and pigeons by the traders whom Christ expelled.
(II.) THE SACRED ENCLOSURE. Brevity will require that in the consideration of the details of the interior portions of the Temple the simple dimensions and statements should be exhibited, together with their authority, with as little discussion as possible.
1. A lattice-wall all around, 1 cubit broad, 3 cubits high, with equidistant pillars containing notices of non-admission (Josephus, Ant. 15:11, 5; War, 5, 5, 2); called chil (La 2:8).
2. This stood 12 steps, each one half cubit high and broad, above the Gentiles' Court [on the north and south sides] (Middoth, 2, 3), but 14 [on the east side] (War, 5, 5, 2).
3. Adjoining was a platform, 10 cubits wide (War, 5, 5, 2).
(III.) THE COURT OF THE WOMEN.
1. This court (called also New Court, 2Ch 20:5; Outer Court, Eze 46:21: Treasury, Joh 8:20) was 135 cubits square [internally] (Middoth, 2, 5); "foursquare" (War, 5, 5, 2).
2. A gate on each side (War, 5, 5, 2). These were 30 cubits wide [including ornaments], supported by pillars at the side, and having rooms above (War, 5, 5, 3).
3. The east gate (called "Beautiful," Ac 3; Ac 2) was 40 cubits wide [including side ornaments of 5 cubits] (War, V, 5,). 3
4. There were 5 steps from the platform [i.e. the difference between the floors of this court and that of the Israelites] (War, 5, 5, 2, 3).
5. There were 15 steps to: the Court of the Israelites (War, 5, 5, 3); circular for the "Psalms of degrees" (Middoth, 2).
6. Corner courts of the Women's Court, each 40 cubits from east to west [and 30 broad], with interior open spaces, 20 cubits by 14, for boiling sacrifices; the covered rooms around that in the north-east corner for performing the ceremony of release from a Nazarite's vow, in the southeast for a wood repository, in the south-west for cleansing lepers, in the north-
west chambers for wine and oil for offerings (Middoth, 2, 5; Eze 46:21-24). Lightfoot, however, makes the Nazarites' room in the south- east, the wood-room in the north-east, the lepers' room in the north-west, and the wine and oil rooms in the south-west (Works, 9:307), correcting Surenhusius's mistranslation.
7. Single galleries of two stories [men below, women above] between the corner courts [on the north, east, and west sides] (Middoth, 2, 5); supported by columns similar to those of the Gen tiles' Court (War, 5, 5, 2).
8. There were eleven treasure-chests distributed in front of the columns in this court, besides- the two at the gate Shushan for the half-shekel tax (Lightfoot, from the rabbins, Works, 9:315).
9. Underground rooms for musical instruments on each side of the gate between this and the Israelites' Court (Middoth, 2, 6).
10. There was a tower over the east [Beautiful] gate with an occult [subterranean] passage from the Tower Antonia for the Roman guard (Ant. 15:11, 7)
(IV.) THE COURT OF THE ISRAELITES.
1. This was 187 cubits from east to west, 135 from north to south, 8 cubits wide on the north and south, and 11 on the east and west (Middoth, 2-6).
2. Surrounded by a portico similar to those of the Gentiles' Court, but single (War, 5, 5. 2).
3. Had three gates on the north and south, none on the west (Middoth, 1, 4; War, 5, 5, 2). Those on the north and south equidistant (Ant. 16:11, 5; Middoth, 5, 3).
4. East gate called Higher Gate (2Ki 15:35; 2Ch 27:3), New Gate (Jer 26:10; Jer 36:10), Gate of Entrance (Eze 40:15), Gate of Nicanor (Middoth, 1, 4).
5. Gates and rooms in the will adjoining as follows, beginning at the south- west corner (for the authority of most of these points it is sufficient to refer to Lightfoot's citations [Works, 9:333-380], as there can be no dispute respecting them. We have not in all cases arranged the rooms precisely like Lightfoot, but have made a few slight changes where they seemed requisite):
(1) Sentinel's Hall, west of the first gate. (2.) Gate of Kindling. (3.) Guard-room, adjoining east. (4.) Gate of Firstlings, in the middle. (5.) Guard-room adjoining it. (6.) Wood-room for the use of the altar, adjoining the (7.) Water-gate, the last on this side. (8.) Well-room, with its draw-well connected with a reservoir [the aqueduct from Bethlehem?] deriving its waters from a westerly direction, and-an engine for forcing it into the priests' laver. (9.) House Gazith, at the south-east corner, consisting of two parts:
[1.] The Session-room of the Sanhedrim, with its triple semicircles for seating the members, and its desks. From a comparison of the number of members with the size of the room, we find that the space in the wall could by no means contain them, and have therefore enlarged it outwardly.
[2.] A room for the priests to pray and cast their lots in.
(10.) On the south side of the Gate of Nicanor, the Pastry-mail's Chamber, for baking the salt cakes burned with the daily sacrifice.
(11.) On the north side of the same gate, the Priests' Wardrobe, for the pontifical dresses.
(12.) In the north-east corner, the Earthenware-room, for the sacred pottery.
(13.) Al Guard-room, adjoining on the east.
(14.) The Gate of Song.
(15.) Adjoining this, a Wash-room for cleansing the entrails, etc., of sacrifices.
(16.) A Room for Hides of victims, and
(17.) The Salt-rooeri, for the salt used in preserving them, both in order, adjoining
(18.) The Gate of Women. Adjoining this,
(19.) A Treasure-room, for the more permanent deposit of the money from the House of Asuppim.
(20.) A Guard-room, and next,
(21.) The other Treasure-room, for the same purpose as the former. These adjoined
(22.) The Gate of Burning, the last of the six.
(23.) The interval between this gate and the western wall was called the House of Burning, and was divided into three equal parts. This building projected inwardly into the Court of the Israelites, like one portion of the House Gazith. These two buildings alone had entrances from the sacred enclosure, all the other rooms being entered only from the court within:
[1.] Adjoining the gate, the House of the Consecrated Stones of the former altar (removed after the rededication under the Maccabees, as having been desecrated by Antiochus Epiphanes), in the northern subdivision; and on the south the Shew-bread Bakery.
[2.] In the middle the Priests' Hall, where was a fire for the use of the guards at night.
[3.] The western portion is occupied, on the north for a Priests' Bathing-room, and on the south for keeping the Lambs selected for the daily sacrifice.
6. The principal difficulty connected with this court is the number of steps, and their height, leading into it on the north and south, and arises from a confusion in the terms by which Josephus mentions them. He says (War, 5, 5, 2) that between the sacred platform and the interior court "were other steps, each of 5 cubits apiece," which we understand to mean that the Court of the Israelites was entered by [two flights of] steps, each [flight] rising 5 cubits, thus making 20 steps, in two sets of half-cubit steps. Again he says (ibid. § 4) that "there were 15 steps [those of the "degrees"] which led away [i.e. eastward] from the [west] wall of the Court of the Women to [i.e. towards] this greater gate [the Beautiful Gate], whereas those that led thither [i.e. to the platform down to which the Beautiful Gate led] from the other gates [opening towards this platform] were five steps shorter," by which we can only understand (according to the above interpolations) that the number of the steps leading out of the Court of the Israelites on the east exceeded by 5 the number [in each flight] of those on the north and south; for if these latter were but 10 in all, each must have been one cubit in the rise (7 cubits at the Nicanor Gate 2 at the Beautiful Gate = 10), an impracticable ascent. Finally, he says (ibid. § 2) that "the height of its buildings [those of the Women's Court], although it were on the outside 40 cubits, was hidden by the steps, and on the inside that height was but 25 cubits," which we take to denote that the top of the wall enclosing the Court of the Israelites (which was continuous with that of the Court of the Women) was 40 cubits from the level of the floor of the Court of the Gentiles, the intervening steps making the difference (15 cubits) of its internal altitude-as would be true within a single cubit (121 10 . The gate- turrets were still higher than this. The steps mentioned by Josephus (War, 5, 1, 5) as preventing the erection of John's engines on any other spot than "behind the inner court over against the west end of the cloister" seem to be those that ran around the three sides of the Priests' Court, at the railing separating it from the cloistered Court of the Israelites.
7. The thickness of this wall is nowhere stated in the Mishna, but is given by Josephus as being 8 cubits (War, 6:5, 1, at the close); and the numerous rooms contained within it would seem to justify a greater thickness than in any of the other walls.
(V.) THE COURT OF THE PRIESTS, THE GREAT ALTAR, AND THE TEMPLE PROPER.
These are treated of in the Mishna in the fullest detail, and the minutest points to the thickness of the walls and partitions, the number, size, and position of the doors, the dimensions, order, and situation of the rooms and passages, with all their peculiarities and contents — are given with the precise explicitness of specifications for a builder's contract; so that as to everything, great or small, contained within these bounds there is such full and trustworthy authority that all one has to do is to collect and plot them down on the plan. This the reader will find so carefully and completely done to his hand by Lightfoot, in his Prospects of the Temple, so often referred to, that to detail it here would be but to repeat his statements: we have examined his authorities and conclusions in detail, and believe that no accurate description can do much more than follow his digest on this subject. We have embodied the results in our accompanying this volume.
The points in which we have varied from his plan are too few and unimportant to be worth enumerating. One particular, however, requires special consideration, because its settlement involves the discussion of the few points that have not been determined above; and to this we add such other remarks as will convey a sufficiently definite idea of the main edifice.
1. The Position of the Great Altar. — Its distance from the northern boundary of the Court of the Israelites is given in the Mishna in the following words: "From north to south [the Israelites' Court was] 135 cubits [wide], as follows: from the ascent to the extremity of the altar [i.e the whole length of the altar including its inclined ascent] were 62 cubits [i.e. horizontal measure, for the altar is elsewhere given as 32 cubits square, and the slope of the ascent as another 32 cubits, which would give 64 instead of 62 cubits, measured superficially (see Lightfoot, Works, 9:413)], from the altar to the rings 8 cubits; the place of the rings was 24 cubits, thence from the rings to the tables were 4 cubits, from the tables to the columns 4, from the columns to the wall of the court 8 cubits [making thus 110 cubits] ; the rest [25 cubits] were as well the space between the ascent and wall as a place of columns" (Middoth, 5, 1). This last clause is somewhat ambiguous, but is generally understood as meaning that there was a space of 25 cubits between the south wall and the foot of the "ascent," which contained some extra posts (like those on the north side) for sacrificing on crowded occasions an interpretation from which we do not see any good reason for dissenting. So L'Empereur (in his separate commentary on the Middoth, p. 173) explains, "Partly for an [open] space and partly for the place of [extra] columns," assigning 12N cubits to each portion, which amounts to the same thing as to the point in question. So also Lightfoot (Works, 9:413). The position of the altar from east to west is fixed with regard to the court in which it lay in terms which are free from any ambiguity.
In common with most antiquarians, awe are disposed to find the native rock, on which the altar is assumed to have been reared, in the remarkable Sacred Rock under the dome of the central mosque of the Haram. This is 50 or 60 feet broad, occupying nearly the whole space immediately under the dome, and rising about 5 feet above the floor of the building, which is 12 feet higher than the rest of the enclosure. The center of the rock is about 785 feet from the southern and 610 from the eastern wall of the Haram. The frequent supposition that it stood within the most holy place, or at least within the Temple proper, is negative by the relative distances presently to be noticed from the Talmud. The positive reasons for making the altar coincide with the Sacred Rock may be stated as follows:
(a.) Tradition, Jewish, Christian, and Moslem favors it (see Williams, Holy City, 2, 340-343).
(b.) This rock is prominent above all other spots, and we know that the great altar was higher than even the floor of the Temple itself.
(c.) The upper platform of the Haram thus most nearly coincides with that of the sacred enclosure of the Temple.
(d.) The cave and sewer at the south-east corner of the present rock would thus be identical with the ancient cesspool and drain for the blood sprinkled around the altar.
This site of the great altar fixes the general position of the Temple and sacred enclosure generally within the great area, and agrees with the only definite statement in the Mishna on the subject, namely, that "the greatest space between the Temple and the wall of the outer court was on the south side, the next greatest on the east, the next on the north, and the least on the west" (Middoth, 2, 1). According to our arrangement, the spaces (at the nearest point) between the chêl, or sacred fence, and the inner surface of the outmost wall are respectively on the west about 78 feet, on the north about 80 feet, on the east about 239 feet, on the south about 643 feet. Lightfoot's plan has nearly the same. Dr. Wm. Brown (of Scotland), in his work on the Antiquities of the Jews (1, 70), lays them down in cubits, as follows: south, 259; east, 90; north,.72; west, 49. Fergusson arbitrarily refers these measurements to the inner court of the Temple (Temples of the Jetos, p. 118), on the ground that the Talmud states that "in the place largest in measurement was held most service" (Middoth, 2, 1); but the text obviously means the space in the outer court, as that-alone is the subject there treated of.
The position of the altar also fixes the line of the boundary between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, which at this date cut off one cubit from the south-east corner of the altar a circumstance of which the rabbins take frequent notice (see Lightfoot, Works, 9:395). This boundary originally ran entirely south of the holy city (Jos 15:7-9; Jos 18:15-17), but the conquest of Jebus by David appears to have annexed Mount Zion permanently to Judah (2Sa 4:1). The subsequent purchase of the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite by David (2Sa 24:24; 2Sa 1
Chronicles 21:25) as the; site of his altar, and eventually of the Temple (2Ch 3:1), does not seem to have removed it entirely out of the tribe of Benjamin.
General Description of the Temple Proper. — This we find well summarized in Winer (Realwörterb. 2, 583 sq.), from the combined statements of the Talmud and Josephus (the latter, however, although a priest by birth, and therefore entitled to admission to the building, so constantly mixes the description of Herod's with that of Solomon's Temple that we must often distrust his details).
This edifice was constructed upon new foundations (Josephus, Ant. 15:11, 3), and of white marble, the blocks being in some instances 45 cubits long, 6 broadband 5 high (War, 5, 5, 6; comp. Ant. 15:11,3). The entire width (from north to south) of the porch was (exteriorly) 100 cubits; but the remainder (rear part) of the building was only 60 cubits (according to the Talmudists TO, including the side chamber of 5 cubits, the wall of 6 cubits, etc.), so that the porch projected 20 (or 15) cubits on each side beyond the rest of the structure. Its length was also 100 cubits, and its height the same; but Josephus says (Anc. 15:11, 3) that eventually it sank 20:cubits (the original height being 120), a statement which Hirt (p. 10) regards (probably with justice) as a mere legend. The interior space was, according to Josephus, so divided that the porch had a length (from north to south) of 50 cubits, a breadth of 20, and a height of 90 (comp. War, 5, 5, 5); the holy place a length of 40 cubits, a breadth of 20, and a height of 60; and the most holy place a length and breadth of 20 cubits, and a height of 60; but the Talmud (Middoth, 4:6) makes the height of both the latter rooms to have been only 40 cubits, by which we suspect it means the extra height above the ceiling of the most holy place, since this last was a perfect cube. The entire building also seems to have been 100 cubits in each dimension, as Josephus in the main indicates, although his numbers in several passages appear to be confused or corrupt. This: likewise is the statement of the Talmud (ibid. 4:7), according to which the length (from east to west) of the porch was on y 11 cubits, that of the sanctuary 40 cubits, and that of the shrine 20 cubits; while on the west, below the holy of holies, was a space (for a chamber) of 6 cubits (comp. also ibid. 4:3), besides 23 cubits: for the thickness of the walls and partitions. If, as Josephus and the Talmud both state, the porch was 100 cubits high, but (as the latter states) only-90 high on the inside, the difference. of 10 cubits may have been that of the peaked roof, if a gable; but the difference in their numbers as to the height of the rear portion of the building gives probability to the statement of the Talmud (ibid. 4:6) that there was an upper room (עֲלַיָּה) over the holy and most holy places, containing trap-doors in the floor, through which workmen were let down into the most holy place to make repairs'(ibid. 4:5), Josephus calls this part of the building τὸ ὑπερῷον μερος, and the Talmud gives it a height of 40 cubits, which apparently refers only to the intermediate space left by the difference between the holy and the most holy place. As to the style of the roof (whether flat or peaked) Josephus says nothing; he only remarks (War, 5, 5, 6) that it was surmounted (κατὰ κορυφήν) by golden spikes (ὄβελοι), probably of gilded iron, fastened with lead, for. scaring away the birds; the same are mentioned in the Talmud (כולה עורב, Middoth, 4:6), where they are said to have been one cubit in height. The roof itself appears, according to the Mishna, to have been a low gable (see L'Empereur, ad Middoth, 4:6), with a balustrade (מעפה) three cubits high. The space above the עֲלַיָּה. is thus divided (Middoth, 4:6): 1 cubit כיור (? ceiling); 2 cubits בית דלפה (place of rain-water); 1 cubit מקרה (timber); 1 cubit מע זיבה (flooring); 3 cubits railing; 1 cubit scarecrows. On both sides of the interior apartments was a space of 20 cubits devoted to a suite of rooms (ο0λΚοΛ ῍ρπιΧ-ρεψο), which, however, extended only 60 cubits high (Josephus, Ant. 15:11, 3; War, 5, 5,5). According to the Talmud (Middoth, 4:3), these (תָּאַים) were in all 38; namely, 15 on the north and south side each, and 8 on the west or rear (comp the "many mansions," μοναὶ πολλαί, of Joh 14:2). The shoulder or projecting space (north and south) on each side of the porch (40 cubits in Josephus, 30 in the Talmud) was used as a depository of the sacrificial implements (בית החילפות, locus secespitarumi, Middoth, 4, 7).
The most holy place, which was entirely empty (ἔκειτο οὐδὲν ὅλ·ως ἐν αὐτῷ, Josephus, War, 5, 5,5), except the stone (אבן שׁתהי) which occupied the place of the ark (Mishn a, Yoa, 5, 2), and on which the high- priest set the censer (the rabbins relate many marvels concerning it), was separated at the doorway from the holy place (Josephus, War, 5, 5, 5) by a vail καταπέτασμα), which was torn by the earthquake at Jesus' death (Mt 27:51). The rabbins speak of a double vail: according to the Talmud these occupied a space of 1 cubit between the apartments (טרקסין, Middoth, 4:7). The holy place had an entrance with two gold- plated door-leaves, which, according to Josephus (War, 5, 5, 4), were 55 cubits high and 16 broad; but, according to the Mishlia (Middoth, 4:1), 20 cubits high and 10 broad — a difference which Lightfoot reconciles by supposing that Josephus includes the decorations (cornice, entablature, etc.). The Talmudists also speak of a double door at this passage, which the thickness of the walls renders probable. The sanctuary stood open, or was closed only by a screen of embroidered Babylonian tapestry of byssus. See VAIL. As furniture of the holy place Josephus mentions only the seven-armed candelabrum, the table of shew-bread, and the altar of incense. The porch had a doorway 70 cubits high and 25 broad (Mishna, 40 high and 20 broad, Middoth, 3, 7: probably to be reconciled as above). The porch contained two tables, one of marble, the other of gold, on which the priests daily set respectively the old and the fresh shew-bread taken from and carried into the Temple (Mishna, Shekel. 6:4).
In front of the porch, within the priests' court, stood in close proximity (but somewhat to the south, Middoth, 3, 6) the laver (כַּיּוֹר); and there (22 cubits from the porch) stood the great altar, SEE BURNT-OFFERING, the intervening space being regarded as especially holy (Mishna, Cluelim, 1, 9). North of this were 6 rows of rings (in the pavement.), to which the animals to be slaughtered were fastened; a little beyond were low pillars with cedar beams across them, from which the sacrifices were suspended: and between these pillars stood marble tables (של שיש שלחנות), on which their flesh and entrails were laid (Middoth, 3, 5; 5, 2; Tamid, 3, 5; Shekalim, 6:4). West of the altar stood two tables; one of marble, on which the fat of the victims was deposited; the other of silver (?), upon which were kept the implements for this service. SEE SACRIFICIAL OFFERING.
3. Magnificence of the Central Building. — The vast sums which Herod laid out in adorning this structure gave it the most magnificent and imposing appearance. "Its appearance," says Josephus "had everything that could strike the mind and astonish the sight. For it was on every side covered with solid plates of gold so that when the sun rose upon it, it reflected such a strong and dazzling effulgence that the eye of the beholder was obliged to turn away from it, being no more able to sustain its radiance than the splendor of the sun" (War, 5, 5, 4). To strangers who approached the capital, it appeared, at a distance, like a huge mountain covered with snow. For where ft was not decorated with plates of gold, it was extremely white and glistening. The historian, indeed, says that the Temple of Herod was the most astonishing structure he had ever seen or heard of, as well on account of its architecture as its magnitude, and likewise the richness and magnificence of its various parts, and the fame and reputation of its sacred appurtenances. Tacitus calls it imensce opulentice templum (Hist. 5, 12).. Its external glory, indeed, consisted not only in the opulence and magnificence of the building, but also in the rich gifts with which it was adorned, and which excited the admiration of those who beheld them (Lu 21:5). In the portico the various votive offerings made both by Jews and foreigners were deposited (see Richter, Α᾿νθήματα Templi Hierosol. [Lips. 1764]). Among these treasures (2 Mac. 3, 2; 9:16; Josephus, Ant. 14:16, 4: 18:3' 5; 19:6,1 1; War, 2, 17, 3; 5, 13, 6; Apion. 2, 2: Philo, Opp. 2, 569, 591) we find specially mentioned a large golden table, presented by Pompey the Great, and several golden vines of exquisite workmanship and immense size; for Josephus assures us that some of the clusters of golden grapes were as tall as a man (War, 5, 5, 4). One such golden vine (גפן של זהב, Middoth, 3,:8) especially seems to have been trained up over the entire front of the building (Josephus, Ant. 15:11, 3; comp. Tacit. Hist. 5, 5). See the monographs De Vite Aurea in Temiplo bvy J;inus [Lips. 1706], Green [ibid. 1737], and Huldrich [Zür. 1782]j). Herod, in imitation of the Greeks and Romans, suspended in the porch several. of the rich spoils and trophies which he had taken from the Arabs and other barbarous tribes of the East. This was a common custom among the heathen nations; Virgil introduces Eneas boasting of having suspended the spoils which he took from the Greeks, oil the portals of a Grecian temple- (En. 3). SEE GAMMADIM.
IX. The Apocalyptic Temple. — In the vision of Johnon Patmos he expressly- tells us respecting the New Jerusalem, "I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple thereof" (Re 21:22). The celestial city itself, in other words, is to be one vast temple filled with the perpetual Shechinah. We here give Paine's. sketch of the ideal city on the mountain, the length of which was equal to its breadth, and this again was equal to the height of the city above the plain (ver. 16).
X. Sacred Observances Connected with the Temple.
1. The Daily Service. — The following is an outline of the regular duties of the priesthood:
(1.) The morning service. After having enjoyed their repose, the priests bathed themselves in the rooms provided for that purpose and waited the arrival of the president of the lots. This officer having arrived, they divided themselves into two companies, each of which was provided with lamps or torches, and made a circuit of the Temple, going in different directions, and meeting at, the pastryman's chamber on the south-side of the gate Nicanor. Having summoned him to prepare the cakes for the high-priest's meat offering, they retired with the president to the south-east corner of the court and cast lots for the duties connected with the altar. The priest being chosen to remove the ashes from the altar, he again wash-ed his feet at the laver, and then with the silver shovel proceeded to his work. As soon as he had removed one shovel full of the ashes, the other priests retired to wash their hands and feet, and then joined him in cleansing the altar and renewing the fires. The next act was to cast lots for the thirteen particular duties connected with offering the sacrifice; which being settled, the president ordered one of them to fetch the lamb for the morning sacrifice. While the priests on this duty were engaged in fetching and examining the victim, those who carried the keys were opening the seven gates of the Court of Israel and the two doors that separated between the porch and the holy place; When the last of the seven gates was opened, the silver trumpets gave a flourish to call the Lesites to their deks for the music, and the stationary men to their places as the representatives of the people. The opening of the folding-doors of the Temple was the established signal for killing the sacrifice, which was cut in pieces and carried to the top of the altar, where it was salted and left while the priests once more retired to the room Gazithi to join in prayer. While the sacrifice was lain in the court of the priests, the two priests appointed to trim the lamps and cleanse the altar of incense were attending to their duties in the holy place. After the conclusion of their prayer and a rehearsal of the ten commandments and their phylacteries, the priests again cast lots to choose two to offer incense on the golden altar, and another to lay the pieces of the sacrifice on the fire of the brazen altar. The lot being determined, the two who were to offer the incense proceeded to discharge their duty, the time for which was between the sprinkling of the blood and the laying the pieces upon the altar, in the morning, and in the evening, between the laying the pieces upon the altar and the drink offering. As they proceeded to the Temple they rang the megemphita, or great bell, to warn the absent priests to come to worship, the absent Levites to come to sing, and the stationary men to bring to the gate Nicanor those whose purification was not perfected. The priest who carried the censer of coals which had been taken from one of the three fires on the great altar, after kindling the fire on the incense altar, worshipped and came out into the porch, heaving the priest who had the incense alone in the holy place. As soon as the signal was given by the president, the incense was kindled, the holy place was filled with perfume, and the congregation without joined in the prayers (Lu 1:9). These being ended, the priest whose lot it was to lay the pieces of the sacrifice upon the altar threw them into the fire, and then, taking the tongs, disposed them in somewhat of their natural order. The four priests who had been in the holy place now appeared upon the steps that led to the porch, and, extending their arms so as to raise their hands higher than their heads, one of them pronounced the solemn blessing (Nu 6:24-26). After this benediction, the daily meat offering was offered; then the meat-offering of the high priest; and last of all the drink-offering; at the conclusion of which the Levites began the song of praise, and at every pause in the music the trumpets sounded and the people worshipped. This was the termination of the morning service. It should be stated that the morning service of the priests began with the dawn of day, except in the great festivals, when it began much earlier; the sacrifice was offered immediately after sunrise.
(2.) During the middle of the day, the priests held themselves in readiness to offer the sacrifices which might be presented by any of the Israelites either of a voluntary or an expiatory nature. Their duties would therefore vary according to the number and nature of the offerings they might have to present.
(3.) The evening service varied in a very: trifling measure from that of the morning; and the same priests ministered, except when there was one in the house of their Father who had never burned incense, in which case that office was assigned to him, or, if there were more than one, they cast lots who should be employed. SEE DAILY OFFERING.
2. Holiness of the Place. — The injunction of Le 19:3, "Ye shall reverence my sanctuary," laid the people under an obligation to maintain a solemn and holy behavior when they came to worship in the Temple. We have already seen that such as were ceremonially unclean were forbidden to enter the sacred court on pain of death; but in the course of time there were several prohibitions enforced by the Sanhedrim which the law had not named. The following have been collected by Lightfoot out of the Rabbinical writings (Temple Service, ch.10) 10.
(1.) "No man might enter the mountain of the house with his staff."
(2.) "None might enter in thither with his shoes on his feet? though he might with his sandals.
(3.) "Nor might any man enter the mountain of the house with his scrip on."
(4.) "Nor might he come in with the dust on his feet," but he must wash or wipe them, "and look to his feet when he entered into the house of God," to remind him, perhaps, that he should than shake off all worldly thoughts and affections.
(5.) "Nor with money in his purse." He, might bring it in his hand, however; and in this way it was brought in for various purposes. If this had not been the case, it would seem strange that the cripple should have been placed at the gate of the Temple to ask alms of those who ῥentered therein (see Ac 3:2).
(6.) None might spit in the Temple; if he were necessitated to spit, it must- be done in some corner of his garment."
(7.) "He might not use any irreverent gesture, especially before the gate of Nicanor," that being exactly in front of the Temple.
(8.) "He might not make the mountain of the house a thoroughfare," for the purpose of reaching the place by a nearer way; for it was devoted to the purposes of religion.
(9.) "He that went into the court must go leisurely and "gravely into his place; and there he must demean himself, as in the presence of the Lord God, in all reverence and fear."
(10.) "He must worship standing, with his feet close to each other, his eyes directed to the ground, his hands upon his breast, with the right one above the left" (see Lu 18:13).
(11.) "No one, however weary, might sit down in the court." The only exception was in favor of the kings of the house of David.
(12.) "None might pray with his head uncovered. And the wise men and their scholars never prayed without a veil." This custom is alluded to in 1. Corinthians 11:4, where the apostle directs the men .to reverse the practice adopted in the Jewish Temple.
(13.) Their bodily gesture in bowing before the Lord was either "bending of the knees," "bowing the head," or "falling prostrate on the ground."
(14.) Having performed the service, and being about to retire, "they might not 'turn their backs upon the altar." They therefore went backwards till they were out of the court.
Concerning the high veneration which the Jews cherished for their Temple, Dr. Harwood has collected some interesting particulars from Philo, Josephus, and the writings of Luke. Their reverence for the sacred edifice was such that rather than witness its defilement they would cheerfully submit to death. They could not bear the least disrespectful or dishonorable thing to be said of it. The least injurious slight of it, real or apprehended, instantly awakened all the choler of a Jew, and was an affront never to be forgiven. Our Savior, in the course of his public instructions, happening to say, "Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up again" (Joh 2:19) it was construed into a contemptuous disrespect, designedly thrown out against the Temple-his words instantly descended into the heart of a Jew and kept rankling there for several years; for, upon his trial, this declaration, which it was impossible for a Jew ever to forget or to forgive, was alleged against him as big with the most atrocious guilt and impiety (Mt 26:61). Nor was the rancor and virulence which this expression had occasioned at all softened—by all the affecting circumstances of that excruciating and' wretched death they saw him die; even as he hung upon the cross, with infinite triumph, scorn, and exultation, they upbraided him with it, contemptuously shaking their heads and saying, "O thou who couldst demolish our Temple and rear it up again in all its splendor in the space of three days, now save thyself, and descend from the cross" (Mt 27:40). Their superstitious veneration for the Temple further appears from the account of Stephen. When his adversaries were baffled and confounded by that superior wisdom and those distinguished gifts he possessed, they were so exasperated at the victory he had gained over them that they went aid suborned persons to swear that they had-heard him speak blasphemy against Moses and against God. These inflaming the populace, the magistrates, and the Jewish clergy, he was seized, dragged away, and brought before the Sanhedrim. Here the false witnesses whom they had procured stood up and said, "This person before you is continually uttering the most reproachful expressions against this sacred place" (Ac 6:13), meaning the Temple. This was blasphemy not to-be pardoned. A judicature composed of high-priests and scribes would never forgive such impiety. We witness the same thing in the case of Paul when they imagined that he had taken Trophimus, an Ephesian, with him into the Temple; for which insult they had determined to imbrue their hands' in his blood (21, 28, etc.).
XI. Literature. — As we have said above, the two classical authorities on the Temple are the general description of Josephus (Ant. 15:11, and War, 5, 5) and the minute account of the Herodian building in the Talmudic tract Middoth (Mishna, 5, 10), which has been edited and commented upon by. L'Empereur of Oppyck (Lugd. Bat. 1630, 4to). Among the older works on the 'subject we especially name vols. 8 and 9 of Antiquitates Hebraicae, by Ugolino, which contain, in addition to other dissertations, Moses Maimonides, Constitutiones de Domo Electa; Abraham ben- David, De Templo; see also Schulze, De Variis Judceorum Erroribus in Descriptione Templi Secundi (F. ad M. 1756; also prefixed to his edition of Reland, De Spoliis Templi Hierosolymitani [Ultraj. 1775]) , Hafenrefer, Templum Ezech. (Tubing. 1613); Villalpando and Prado, In Ezechiel; Jud. Leo, Libri Quatuor de Templo Hieros. tam Priori quam Poster. ex Hebr. Lat. Vers. a J. Sanbert (Helmst. 1665, 4to); Cappellus, Τρισάγιον, sive Triplex Templi Delineatio (Amst. 1643, 4to; also inserted in the Critici Anglicani, vol. 8:and in vol. 1 of Walton's Polyglot).; Harenberg, In d. Brem. u. Verdisch. Biblioth. 4:1 sq., 573 sq., 879 sq.; Lamy, De Tabern. Faed., Urbe Hieros. et de Templo (Par. 1720 sq.); Cremer, De Salom. Templo (Harderov. 1748) Ernesti, De Templo Herod. (Lips. 1752); Grulick, De Divino in Templo Ezech. Consilio (Vitemb. 1775). Monographs on the Temple in Hebrew have been written by C. Altschul (Amst. 1724), J. M. Altschul (ibid. 1782), W. Altschul (Sklov, 1794; Warsaw, 1814), Leone (Amst. 1660; Middelb. 1642; in Latin by Saubert [Helmst. 1665]), Heller (Prague, 1602; F. ad M. 1714), Chefez (Ven. 1696), Wilna (Sklov, 1802), Snizler (Lond. 1825). The principal later works on the subject are those of Lightfoot, Descriptio Templi Hierosolymitani, in Opp. 1, 533 sq.; Hirt, Der Tempel Salomons (Berlin, 1809, 4to); Stieglitz, Gesch. der Baukunst (Nuremb. 1827), p. 125 sq.; Less, Beitrdge zur Geschich. d. ausbild. Baukunst (Leips. 1834), i, 63 sq.; Meyer, Der Tempel Salom. (Berlin, 1830; inserted also in Blatterf. hohere Wahrheit, 1); Grilneisen, in the Kunstblatt z. Morgenbl. 1831, No. 73-75, 77-80. Other works are mentioned by Meusel, Biblioth. Histor. 1; 2, 113 sq.; and Winer, Realwörterb. s.v. Tempel." See also Bennett, The Temple of Ezekiel (Lond. 1824); Isreels, Ezekiel's Temple (ibid. 1827); Kirchner, Der Tempel zu Jerus. (Neu-Ebers. 1834); El-Sinti, Hist. of the Temple (from the Arabic by Reynolds, Lond. 1837); Keil, Der Tempel Salomo's (Dorp. 1839); Kopp, id. (Stuttgart, 1839); the Stud. u. Krit. 1844, 2, 320, 361; Thenius, Erklar. d. Konige, in the Kurzgef. exeq. Handb. 9. Anhang, p. 25 sq.; Bahr, Der Salom. Tenpel (Carlsr. 1848); Balmer-Rinck, Gesch. d. Tempel- Architectur (Ludwigsb. 1858). The latest works are those of Bannister, The Temples of the Hebrews (Lond. 1861); Paine, Solomon's Temple, etc. (Bost. 1861); Unruh, D. alte Jerus. u. s. Bauwerke (Lagensatz, 1861); Rosen, Der Tempel-Platz des Moria (Gotha, 1866 ); Fergusson, The Temples of the Jews (Lond. 1878). This last and most pretentious effort at reconstructing the Jewish Temple is thoroughly vitiated by two favorite preconceptions of the author-namely, a false location of the structure at the south-west angle of the Haram, and an overweening estimate of modern architectural taste as a guide on so ancient a subject. Thus he flippantly dismisses the explicit-and repeated Rabbinical statement of the dimensions of the Court of the Women as "absurd" (p. 98) and "impossible" (p. 117), because it cannot be got within his imaginary "rectangle 600 feet square" (Josephus's round number for the entire Temple area). He falsely asserts that this Rabbinical account "is borrowed avowedly; but unintelligently, from Ezekiel" (p. 117), ignoring the fact that the Mishna, which contains these measurements, has come down, traditionally if not in writing, from contemporaries of Herod's Temple itself. What a pity that these authorities, or even Herod himself, did not have the benefit of such learned criticism on their work!
