Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/214

 196 A History of Art in Sardinia and Jud.i.a. Jotham ;' and of a new portal by Jehoiakim ; a of the "porch of the Sabbath," and of the royal avenue ; 3 of the Parvar, the house of Nathan- M elech, situated west of the temple, where the horses that figured in the pageants of Baal were put up, together with the upper chamber of Ahaz, where altars were raised to heathen deities. 4 Many more, no doubt, were the structures of which the meagre Chronicles have left no record, for no regular entry seems to have been made of the works executed in each reign. 8 Passing events fare no better in the hands of the compilers, except to recount, here and there, the discomfiture of their opponents. The great cleansing of the temple, for instance, under Joas, when the shrines, altars, and all the abomination of the Baalim were swept from the pronaos. Here too, or in the outer court, is supposed to have stood the temple of Baal, which was pulled down by the people after the death of Athalia. 6 If the Parvar escaped destruc- tion, it was probably due to some idolatrous king. But the inner sanctuary does not seem to have been invaded, and Jehovah con- tinued to be worshipped there even under his avowed enemies. 7 These are but gleanings of a very fragmentary nature, feeble rays in a sea of darkness ; but, however small, they enable us to get an insight into the cause of the fitful action of the kings of Judah, which has been too often overlooked. These rulers may be divided into three categories : in the first were the few, very few indeed, that exclusively served Iah ; in the second, by a long way the most numerous, were those who ranged Iahve along with other deities ; and finally those who publicly desecrated his altars. But to return, careful inspection of Ezekiel's scheme shows that description in detail was reserved for the surrounding courts and chambers, albeit in his estimation these subsidiary parts were not we may be sure, of the same importance as the haram itself. But Ezekiel wrote for a generation to whom every detail of the temple was familiar ; he counted upon the recollections of his readers to supplement, where necessary, requisite particulars and 1 Ezek. ix. 2 ; Jer. xx. 2. 2 2 Kings xv. 35, and 2 Chron. xxvii. 3. 3 Jer. xxxvi. 10. 1 2 Kings xvi. 18. 6 2 Kings xxiii. 12. 6 2 Kings xi. 18. 7 This may be inferred from the fact that Joas was hidden in the sanctuary until his eighth year. The statement in 2 Chron. xxviii. 24, that the temple was closed and that burnt-offerings were suspended, is not confirmed in Kings; albeit the interior alterations that were executed by Ahaz are circumstantially made.