Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/179

Rh our temple. But perhaps the closest analogy to the frontispiece of Solomon's temple is the often-cited one of the temple at Paphos, of which a representation from a coin is an nexed (fig. 2). Here the portico be tween the side wings is flanked by two slender towers, and in the end of the nave above the door there are square-topped windows. Solo mon s temple had &quot; windows of beams &quot; (or &quot; with horizontal lin tels &quot;) &quot; framed in,&quot; which, as Pro fessor J. H. Middleton observes, is Fi - 2 - naturally explained on the analogy of the windows be tween the beams in the wooden gables of Coptic churches. This is the obvious position of openings for light in buildings the type of which was derived from wooden constructions, and we know that the oldest Phoenician temples were, at least in great part, of wood (Utica ; Pliny, H.Jr. t xvi. 79 ; comp. Jos., C. Ap., i. 17, 18, and Solo mon s house of the forest of Lebanon). That Solomon s temple had towers cannot be proved, for the height of the porch is not given in Kings, and the 1 20 cubits of 2 Chron. iii. 4 is obviously an excessive figure, due to a mistake of the writer or of a copyist. But the fact that in Ezekiel s ideal temple the door-posts of the porch are 5 cubits broad makes the existence of slender turrets like those of Paphos on each side of the portal probable. Another feature of Solomon s temple is exactly reproduced at Paphos. On each side of the door the coin shows a fantastic pillar standing free. Solomon erected two such pillars of bronze, 18 cubits high (1 Kings vii. 15 sq.), w ith capitals of &quot;lily work,&quot; i.e., adorned with lotus flowers, like the Phoenician capital from Cyprus figured by Perrot (op. cit., p. 116). Such twin pillars or twin stelae in stone are of constant occurrence in Phoenician sacred art, and are still familiar to us as the Pillars of Hercules. In Solomon s temple both the oracle and the outer cella had folding doors. In the second and third temples the inner door was replaced 1&amp;gt;y a vail (parokheth), and a vail also hung before the outer door (Mai. i. 10 ; 1 Mac. i. 22, iv. 51 j B. J., v. 5, 4 sg.). The Chronicler (2 Chron. iii. 14) introduces a vail in the first temple. This feature also seems to be common to the temple with other Semitic shrines (comp. C.I.S., No. 86, DD~ID, Assyr. parakku, Syriac prakke, &quot;shrines,&quot; and the Kaaba at Mecca). 1 The temple had an inner court of its own (1 Kings vi. 36), but the outer or great court (1 Kings vii. 12) was the court of the palace as well as of the sanctuary. Details as to the position of the courts and buildings must be reserved till we speak of the site, but it may be noticed that Jer. xxxvi. 10 speaks of the &quot;higher court,&quot; to which the &quot; new gate &quot; of the temple belonged. This new gate in the higher court can hardly be different from the &quot; higher gate &quot; built by Jotham (2 Kings xv. 35), or from the &quot;higher gate&quot; of Benjamin, which, in Jer. xx. 2, is not the city gate of that name, but a gate &quot;in&quot; (not &quot;by&quot; as E.V. ) &quot;the house of the Lord.&quot; From its name this gate must have been on the north side or at the north-east angle of the temple area, so that the ground rose to the north or north-east. The upper court may be merely the upper part of the great court near the &quot;higher gate&quot; leading to the palace (2 Chron. xxiii. 20), or may be the same as the &quot; new court &quot; of 2 Chron. xx. 5. But one cannot be sure that the Chronicler is not transferring to Jehoshaphat s time a new court of the second temple. We know, however, that the kings of Judah made from time to time considerable changes in and about the temple. 2. The Temple of Zerubbabel. After the captivity an altar of stone took the place of the brazen altar, or rather perhaps of the altar of Ahaz (2 Kings xvi. 10 sq.). The altar was erected immediately after the return (Ezra iii. 1 Cp. also the vail of Assyrian tissue given by Antiochus to the temple at Olympia (Pausan., v. 12, 4), which Ganneau (Quarterly Statement, April 1878) boldly identifies with the vail of the temple that Antiochus Epiphanes carried off from Jerusalem (1 Mac., i. 22 ; Jos., Ant., xii. 5, 4). 2) ; but the rebuilding of the temple was long delayed, and the work was not completed till 520 B.C. (see HAGGAI). It was much inferior to the first temple in magnificence, though not perhaps in size (Haggai ii. 3). The proposed breadth of 60 cubits and height of 60 cubits spoken of in Ezra vi. 3 would indeed imply that it was larger than the first temple, but in view of the testimony of Haggai (loc. cit.) it seems unlikely that these dimensions were realized by Zerubbabel. The first temple resembled other temples of antiquity in being built to contain a visible symbol of the presence of the deity, namely, the ark, which stood in the inner chamber. In the second temple the adytum was empty, but the idea that the Godhead was locally present in it still found expression in the continuance of the altar service, in the table of showbread (a sort of continual lectisternium) that stood in the outer chamber, and above all in the annual ritual of the day of atonement, when the high priest entered the Holy of Holies to sprinkle the blood of the expiatory sacrifice on behalf of the people. Not only in this point but in all others the ritual of the second temple was dominated by the idea of priestly mediation, and the stated sacrifices of the priests on behalf of the people, which replaced the old stated oblations of the kings, became the main feature of the altar service. The first temple was primarily the royal chapel, and the kings did as they pleased in it ; the second temple was the sanctuary of the priests, whose chief now became the temporal as well as the spiritual head of the people. In the time of Ezekiel not only laymen but uncircumcised foreigners entered the sanctuary and acted as servants in the sacred offices (Ezek. xliv. 7) ; in the second temple the laity were anxiously kept at a distance from the holy things, and even part of the court around the altar was fenced off by a barrier, which only the priests were allowed to cross (Joseph., Ant., xiii. 13, 5). Being no longer hemmed in by the royal buildings, as the first temple had been (Ezek. xliii. 8), its precincts could be expanded to suit the necessities of the enormous host of ministers of various ranks demanded by the growing complexity of the ritual, which, in matters of music and the like, was immensely developed as time went on (comp. PSALMS). Herod s temple, with the dependent buildings, was a little city enclosed in its own fortifications. But long before his time the temple was a sort of priestly citadel, the fortress as well as the sanctuary of the hierocracy ; and the sacred offerings which flowed to Jerusalem from Jews in all parts of the world were lavishly expended on enlarg ing and strengthening it (Jos., B.J., v. 5, 1). The name of Simon II. (c. 200 B.C.) is associated in Ecclus. 1. 1 sq. with important works of fortification on the circuit of the temple. Twice ruined in the wars with the Seleucids, these bulwarks were twice rebuilt, by Judas and Jonathan Maccabaeus (1 Mac. vi. 7; Jos., Ant., xiii. 5, 11). The works were further strengthened by Simon (1 Mac. xiii. 52), and at the time of Pompey s siege (63 B.C.) constituted an almost impregnable fastness, strengthened on its weakest or northern side by great towers and a deep ditch (Ant., xiv. 4, 2). Twenty-six years later the temple was again be sieged by Herod, who, attacking, like Pompey, from the north, had to force three lines of defence, the city wall and the outer and inner temple (Ant., xiv. 16, 2). Of the temple as it was in the Greek or the Hasmonean period we have two descriptions by Hellenistic Jews, Pseudo-Aristaeus (comp. SEPTUAGIXT) and Pseudo-Hecateus (Jos., C. Ap., i. 22). In such a matter we may suspect even notorious literary forgers of care lessness and exaggeration rather than of absolute untruth. Pseudo- Aristeeus describes the temple as surrounded by a triple circuit of walls more than 70 cubits high, and as further protected by the adjoining Acra, which overlooked the place of sacrifice. Comparing the account of Herod s siege, we may perhaps take the third circuit to be the wall of the town, which is represented as lying below the