Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/560

 TEMPLE

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TEMPLE

Temple and took away the plates of gold and silver with which he himself had covered the doors and the lintels, and gave them to purch:ise peace from Sen- nacherib (IV Kings, xviii, 15-16) Manasses pro- faned the Temple of Jehovah by the worship of idols (IV Kings, xxi, 4). At last the monument of Solo- mon, in ancient times more celebrated for its splendour than its size, was reduced to ashes by Nabuchodonosor in 586. II. Te.mple of Zoro- BABEL. — In 537 Sassa- basar, appointed Gov- ernor of Jerusalem bj- Cyrus, King of Persia, ^___^^_^_^_^_^_^^ and Zorobabel, a de-

10 M soiosp 60 vosoao '^'""^' scendant of King „ ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' "" Joachim, returned from FiQ. 2. Elevation oftheTempleof.- -J ' .-.. ^

Solomon i.v A-B OF Plan captnity witn a vast

number of Jews and armed with authority to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem. In the seventh month after their return the altar of holocausts of unhewn stones was set up on the foundations of the former one. In the second month of the second year they laid the first stone of the new Temple. But the work was impeded and even suspended through the hostility and plots of the Samaritans, and the Temple was not finished until 516 (I Esd., iii, 6). The Temple of Zorobabel was sixty cubits broad and the same in height (I Esd., vi, 3), these being the interior dimensions. Jo.sephus teUs us (Ant. Jud., XV, xi, 1) that this was really its height, for Herod reminded the people that the height of the second Temple was sixty cubits less than that of the first, making the Temple of Solomon one hun- dred and twenty cubits high, according to II Par., iii, 1. It is difficult to say whether the breadth of sixty cubits ascribed by the decree of Cyrus to the Temple was in round numbers, or whether the figures indi- cate the smaller cubit then in use, but it matters little, for if the breadth were really sixty royal cubits it would mean only that the side chambers had been enlarged five cubits on each side. The Holy Place and the Holy of Holies in Zorobabel's Temple retained the dimensions they had in Solomon's, and they remained the same in the third Temple.

We know from Esdras (iii, 12) and from Aggeus (ii, 3) that the Temple of Zorobabel was much inferior to that of Solomon. The poverty of the new Temple consisted chiefly in the scarcity of its furnishing. The Ark of the Covenant had not been recovered and the d&bir was empty, but as it was the dwelling-place of God on earth the entrance was once more screened with a costly veil. In the Holy Place stood a new altar of incense and a table for the loaves of proposi- tion, but there was only one seven-branch candle- stick. Treasures once more accumulated, and the entire furnishing was again in gold or covered with plates of gold, including the walls. In 168 b. c. the precious metals adorning the Temple aroused the covetousness of Antiochus Epiphanes, who "took away the golden altar, and the candlestick of light, and all the vessels thereof, and the table of proposi- tion, and the pouring vessels, and the vials, and the little mortars of gold, and the veil, and the crowns, and the golden ornament that was before the temple, and he broke them all in pieces" (I Mach., i. 23). Judas Machabeus hastened to provide the house of God with new furni.shings. The table of proposition escaped the destruction of the Temple by Titus and with other sacred utensils figures in the conqueror's triumphal procession at Rome (Bell. Jud., VII, v, 4-6). The inner court had the same circumference as that in the first Temple (I Esd., vi, 4), and according to Hecata-us, as quoted by .Josephus, the altar of holo- causts had the same dimensions as that of Solomon.

The Mishna (Middoth, III, vi,) mentions a movable vessel on wheels. Josephus (Ant. Jud., XI, iv, 7) relates that Zorobabel had erected sc\eral porches with vestibules within the inner precincts of the tem- ple and in I Mach., iv, 38, 57, there is mention of chambers built in the inner court.

During the heroic wars of the Machabees with the Syrians the Temple had to undergo many vicissitudes. The walls with their large towers built by Judas Machabeus for the protection of the Temple (I Mach., iv, 60) were destroyed by Antiochus Eupator (I Mach., vi, 62), but Jonathan and Simon soon rebuilt them (Ant. Jud., XIII, v, 11). In 63 b. c. Pompey, after taking the city, laid siege to the Temple, in order to break the last resistance of the Jews (.\nt. Jud., XIV, iv, 4), and nine years later the procurator Crassus despoiled it of its riches (Ant. Jud., XIV, vii, 1). Finally Herod, made King of the Jews by the Senate, was obliged to take the city by storm and to besiege the fortress of the Temple (Ant. Jud., XVI, -xvi, 2 sq.).

III. Temple op Herod. History. — Herod under- took the restoration of the Temple in its original splen- dour and traditional arrangements. The buildings were demolished one after another according as the materials for the new structures were available. A host of priests became masons and carpenters and themselves took charge of tearing down and rebuild- ing the sanctuary, which, task was accomplished in eighteen months. Nearly 10,000 workmen were employed on the other buildings. After eight years' labour (10 B. c.) the new edifice was opened for ser- vice. But this monument, which in its vast propor- tions and magnificence rivalled the most beautiful buildings of antiquity and far surpassed even that of Solomon, was completed only in a. d. 62 or 64 (Cf. John, ii, 20), at that time 18,000 workmen being still employed (Ant. Jud., XX, ix, 7). For Herod dou- bled the artificial platform which held the Temple of Zorobabel, enlarging the sacred precincts to the south and especially to the north where the galleries reached as far as the rock of Baris and the Antonia (.\nt. Jud., XV, xi, 3; Bell. Jud., I, xxi, 1; V, v, 2). The Temple with its courts, galleries, and porches occupied the whole of the present site of the haram esh sherif, which measures 1070 feet on the north, 1540 on the east, 920 on the south, and 1630 on the west. The Temple of Herod consisted of two courts, an inner and an outer one. The former included all the buildings of the Temple properly so called and was divided into: (1) The Court of the Priests, which contained the house of God and the altar of holocausts; (2) the Court of Israel; and (3) the Court of the Women. All the space between the inner court and the outer wall of the platform was called the Court of the Gentiles, because non-Jews were permitted to enter it. The following are the arrange- ments of the Temple according to Josephus (Ant. Jud., XV, xi; Bell. Jud., V, v), other sources being indicated in the course of the descriptions.

Priests' Court and House of God. — The Court of the Priests formed a rectangle one hundred and eighty- seven cubits from east to west and one hundred and thirty-seven cubits from north to south [(Middoth, II, 6 (fig. 3)]. To the west stood the house of Jehovah and to the east the altar of holocausts. The sanctu- ary was reached by a stairway of tweh'e steps (2), which terminated in a majestic porch one hundred cubits high and the same in breadth (3). A door without leaves twenty cubits wide and forty high led into a vestibule eleven cubits wide. .According to the Mishna this doorway was flanked by two square- shaped pillars each formed of ten cubes measuring four cubits on the sides. On these two pillars rested a sort of entablature formed of five oaken beams, separated from each other by square stones set on a line with the pillars. It was a r^roduction of the