Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/178

Rh of more primitive sanctuaries. The influence of the cave temple seems at least to be undeniable in that widespread type of sanctuary in which, besides the court for the worshippers and an outer chamber, there was a dark and mysterious inner room, an adytum or Holy of Holies. This type is found in Egypt (see ARCHITECTURE, vol. ii. p. 388 and plate VII.), among the Semites, as in the temple at Jerusalem and in that of Hierapolis (De Dea Syr., 31), and also among the Greeks and Romans. In Greece the adytum was not a universal feature, though large temples usually had an antechamber as well as the cella or proper chamber of the god. But, where an oracle was given, or mysteries were celebrated, an adytum was always found, and one of its names was peyapov, which seems to be a transcription of a Semitic word for a cave (meghara). Certain adyta in Greece were actually sub terranean; and the association of oracles with caves is well known.

The architectural features and plan of temples in various parts of the world have been illustrated at length in the article, and need not detain us here, but some further notice of the successive temples at Jerusalem is called for by the unique interest of the subject, while a glance at the topographical problems connected with this holy site is necessary to supplement the article .

Solo- 1. The Temple of Solomon. There were temples among mon s the Hebrews before the time of Solomon, whether private, temple. ^ Q ^^ of j^^ (Judges xv ii. 5) ? Or public, like that of Shiloh, where the ark was housed for a time (see ). In this, as in other matters, the Israelites must have learned from the Canaanites, who had large temples in the time of the Judges. The “hold” (vault?) of the temple of El-Berith at Shechem was the place of refuge for a thousand men (Judges ix. 46 sq.), and at Gaza there was a vast temple with a roof supported on two middle pillars (Judges xvi. 29). Solomon s enterprise was not therefore absolutely novel, and in point of size his temple can hardly have surpassed those just mentioned. But his subjects were much behind the Canaanites and Philistines in the constructive arts, and as Solomon had to call in the aid of Tyrian craftsmen it cannot be questioned that the design was derived from Tyrian architecture. The general plan, indeed, of the house or “palace” (hekal) of Jehovah, with an adytum (deblr, E.V. “oracle”), an outer chamber, and an altar before the door, is, as we have seen, common to many countries, especially in temples which had an oracle, as was the case with Solomon's temple, built to contain the ark. But all the distinctive features are Phoenician, or at least characteristic of the northern Semites, of whose art the Phoenicians were then the lead ing exponents. For the general arrangements the temple of Hierapolis (Mabbog), described by Lucian, offers a complete parallel. Like that of Solomon, it faced the east, and had two cellse and a pronaos. The interior was enriched with gold work. Before the door stood a brazen altar within a walled court. The walled court is a con stant feature in the Phoenician and Syrian temples, known to us from their remains or from coins, 1 and the golden decorations, the portico, and the brazen altar appear in the ancient temple of Byblus and in other Phoenician shrines (C.I.S., Nos. 2, 143). The chief motives in the internal decoration of Solomon s temple were the palm tree and the cherub. The former is one of the commonest Phoenician symbols, and the Phoenician associations of the latter are clear from Ezek. xxviii. The cherub, in fact, is only a variety of the sphinx, and the way in which the palm and winged animal figures were combined in 1 See T. L. Donaldson, Architectura Numismatica (London, 1859); Renan, Mission de PMnicie; Perrot and Chipiez, Hist, de V Art, vol. iii. Fig. 1. Phoenician decoration is shown in a fragment of alabaster preserved in the Louvre and here figured (fig. 1) after Perrot (op. cit., iii. 131). Two cherubs with outstretched wings stood in the adytum to form a baldachin over the ark. Baldachins over the image or symbol of the deity existed in other temples of the northern Semites (Donaldson, op.cit., pp. 73, 76 iq., 99), and in many Phoe nician works of art (e.g., on the stele of Byblus) the figure or symbol of a deity is overshadowed by the winged disk (an Assyrian sym bol of godhead) ar ranged as a sort of canopy (Menant, Glyptique Oriental, ii. 231, 238).

The adytum of the temple was a cube of 20 cubits each way; the outer chamber was of the same breadth, but 40 cubits long and 30 high. 2 The portico was of the breadth of the main building and 10 cubits deep. That the two chambers were separated by a solid wall and not by a mere wooden partition may be taken as certain if, with Stade, we understand 1 Kings vi. 31 to say that the doorway of the adytum was pentagonal, i.e., that instead of a horizontal lintel a rude arch of two blocks was introduced to distribute the pressure of the superincumbent wall. In this case it is not likely that the exterior walls of the adytum were carried up to a height of 30 cubits, so as to allow of a continuous roof. The reduction of the dimensions to English feet is approximately determined by the Siloam inscription, which gives a round number of 1200 cubits for a measured length of 1760 feet. The Hebrew cubit, therefore, was the short cubit of antiquity, and for practical purposes may be taken as equal to the Greek cubit of 18 inches, used by Josephus for the measurements of Herod s temple. Thus the roof-beams of the temple had a span of 30 feet, a length sufficient to make it probable that the wooden pillars spoken of in 1 Kings x. 1 2 (comp. 2 Kings xviii. 16) were employed to support them. The roof of the temple at Gaza rested on pillars, as we have seen, and wooden pillars seem to have been used within the temple at Golgus (Cesnola, Cyprus, p. 139), which was smaller than that of Jerusalem. A peculiar feature in Solomon s temple was that all its sides except the front were surrounded by three stories (each 5 cubits high) of small chambers, 5 cubits wide on the ground floor, 6 on the first floor, and 7 on the second, the increasing breadth being evidently got by reducing the thickness of the walls by 1 cubit at each floor. 3 Thus, allowing for the walls, the external measurements of the house cannot have been much less than 45 cubits by 90. The aspect of the facade can only be conjecturally determined. Several Phoenician temples, known from coins, show on their facade a high-pitched gable (Byblus, Tripolis), and that of Tripolis has also a flat-roofed wing on each side of the gable and portico, which would answer to the ends of the side chambers in 2 The description of the temple in 1 Kings is often obscure and the text is not always sound. Cp. Stade s essay in Z. f. ATliche Wiss., 1883, p. 129 sq. 3 In such small chambers the winding stair (1 Kings vi. 8) can hardly have been more than a vertical post with footholds nailed to it (Prof. J. H. Middleton).