KING SOLOMON'S TEMPLE
When Solomon was about to build the Temple (II. Chron. i. 10) he called upon Hiram, king of Tyre, to furnish him with a supply of timber. The Tyrian king not only supplied him with the timber, which was cut in the forest of Lebanon by the Sicleonites and sent on floats by sea to Joppa, a distance of over one hundred miles, and thence carried by land about forty miles to Jerusalem, but also sent him a man by the name of Hiram Abiff, the most accomplished designer and operator then known in the country. Tyre and Sidon were the chief cities of the Phoenicians. Tyre was distant from Jerusalem about one hundred and twenty miles by sea, and was thirty miles nearer by land. Sidon was under the Tyrian Government, situated twenty miles north of Tyre in the forests of Lebanon. It was a place of considerable importance even in the time of Joshua (1451 B.C), who succeeded Moses, and who spoke of it "Great Sidon." Hence it is evident that the Phenicians were far advanced in the arts of life when the Israelites reached the promised land. That no confusion might arise, owing to the great numbers employed, King Solomon selected those of most enlightened minds, religious and zealous in good work, as masters to superintend the workmen; and for overseers of the work he selected men who were skillful in geometry and proportion, and who had been initiated and proved in the mystical learning of the ancient sages. He numbered and classed all the craftsmen, whether natives or foreigners.
At the completion of the temple, the ark of the covenant was deposited by Solomon in the Sanctum Sanctorum, or Holy of Holies, of the temple. It was lost upon the final destruction of the building by the Chaldeans in 588 B. C. The first temple of the Jews was called the palace or the house of Jehovah to indicate its splendor and magnificence, and was intended to be the perpetual dwelling-place of the Lord. It was one of the most magnificent structures of the ancient world. It was surrounded with spacious courts, and the whole structure occupied at least half a mile in circumference. This was surrounded by a wall of great height, exceeding in the lowest part four hundred and fifty feet, constructed entirely of white marble. The body of the temple was in size much les, than many a modern parish church, for its length was but ninety feet, or, including the porch, one hundred and five, and its width but thirty, being just twice the size of the old or Sinaitic tabernacle. It was its outer courts, its numerous terraces, and the magnificence of its external and internal decorations, together with its elevated position above the surrounding dwellings, which produced that splendor of appearance that attracted the admiration of all who beheld it and gave cause for the queen of Sheba, when it first broke upon her view, to exclaim in admiration, "A Most Excellent Master must have done this!" The twelve tribes of Israel were all engaged in its construction, and for its erection David had collected more than four thousand millions of dollars, and 184,600 men were engaged about seven and one-half years in building it ; after its completion it was dedicated by Solomon with solemn prayer, and seven days of fasting, during which a peace-offering of twenty thousand oxen and six times that number of sheep was made, to consume which the holy fire came down from heaven.
The Exploration of Jerusalem.
Recent explorations of Jerusalem by an association known as "The Palestine Exploration Fund" of England, with Captain Charles Warren in charge, have made many discoveries that go to corroborate the testimony of Josephus and of Scriptural writers of the earlier history of the Holy City.
The present city of Jerusalem stands, as it were, upon a heap of dust and rubbish, under which is the Jerusalem of the Bible. The fact that ancient Jerusalem was seventeen times captured, and more than once leveled to the ground, its splendid edifices converted into piles of dust and ruins, is not sufficient altogether to account for this singular situation, but it is rather to the fact that the stone of which the houses and walks of Jerusalem are built is very friable and exfoliates rapidly, so rapidly that a few centuries are sufficient to reduce a square block to a shapeless mass. This, of course, produces pulverized earth, the earth which has buried fifty, seventy five and even a hundred feet deep, the Jerusalem of our Saviour's period. The so-called "Jerusalem marble," taken from the immense quarry which underlies so much of the northeastern quarter of the city, and which has been excavated during the last three thousand years expressly for building materials, is so soft when it first comes from the quarry that it may almost be crushed between the fingers. It is but little firmer than a well-crystallized loaf of sugar. True, it hardens upon exposure, and in time becomes a fair material for building purposes; but if any one is surprised to find the city of Jerusalem standing upon a pile of disintegrated limestone, fifty feet thick, as it surely does, he has only to explore that enormous quarry, a quarter of a mile deep, to discover where the rubbish originally came.
This explanation will enable the reader to understand what is meant by exploring Jerusalem. It is simply to go to the bottom $f that enormous mound of dust and ashes, and let in the light upon streets and foundations upon which it shone two thousand years ago. In this respect there is a most exact analogy between the exploration of Jerusalem and of Pompeii. Over the latter city the superincumbent mass is scoriae, lava and volcanic ashes; in the former the accumulations are of pulverized limestone, added, of course, to the garbage of the city, shreds of pottery, bones, etc., etc., the accumulations of that extended period. It is no romance to say that the present Jerusalem overlies many Jerusalems that have gone to dust, in the centuries since the Jebusites established their citadel upon Mount Zion, before the time of Abraham, and that the explorer's spade must pass these graves of cities one by one to find the remnants which he seeks. These remarks are likewise applicable to the old sites of Tyre, Sidon, Gebal, etc.
The Foundation of the Temple.
It is difficult for the superficial reader to comprehend that although the temple of Solomon is absolutely gone effaced from the earth, so that not a crumb or fragment can be recognized yet its foundation remains. By this term is not meant the walls upon which the temple was built (comparing it with an ordinary edifice), but the platform, the hill, the mound artificially erected to serve as a basis for the sublime structure.
The hill, styled in the Old Testament Moriah, and more recently Mount Moriah, was, by nature, a narrow, knobby, crooked ridge (of the class familiarly known as "hog back"), deeply channeled by ravines and gulleys, honeycombed with caves, and in no proper sense fit to be used as the basis of a great temple. On all sides it fell off rapidly and very steeply, except from northwest to southeast, the direction in which the ridge ran. The area on the summit was enlarged by walls built along the declivities, the outside wall deep down the valleys, from 100 to 150 feet below the area on which the temple buildings stood. One hundred feet again below this lay the original bed of the brook Kedron. The foundations of the temple, therefore, were 250 feet above the deep defiles around. This area, originally built by Solomon and enlarged by Herod, still exists, running on the south along the valley of Hinnom 1,000 feet and along the Kedron 1,500. To transform this unsightly and circumscribed ridge into a solid, broad, high and durable platform was a problem of stupendous magnitude as great a one, perhaps even greater, than would have been that of making a platform entirely artificial.
To illustrate and convey a partial idea of the task that devolved upon Hiram and his builders: Go out upon a level plain; measure off an oblong square, i,600 feet by 1,000, equal to thirty-six and a half acres ; build a wall around it of great stones, eight, ten, twenty, and even forty feet long, and of proportionate breadth and thickness; bind the foundation-stones of this wall firmly together with clamps of iron and lead, and in the same manner fasten them into the native rock that lies below ; raise that wall to an average height of one hundred and fifty feet of solid masonwork ; fill up solid the whole area of thirty-six and a half ateres to that great height of one hundred and fifty feet! This being done, you will have such a platform as was erected by Solomon's craftsmen, upon which to build the temple.
The figure is not absolutely, correct, for there was a central core to the platform, viz.: the original Mount Moriah, and in the masonwork many large vaults and subterranean chambers were left. Now, when we describe the foundations of King Solomon's temple as still remaining, we allude to this stupendous base, the platform of thirty-six and a half acres, constructed in so substantial a manner that neither time, nor the devastation of barbarian force, nor the mighty bruit of earthquakes, has had power to break it up. So large are the stones of which the outer walls are built, so artistically are they laid together in relation to each other, and so firmly morticed at their interior edges and at their points of junction with the native rock, that it is safe to say that no power that human hands can apply will ever remove them, nor will any volcanic force affect them, less than that which would elevate the bed of the sea and sink the mountains into the depths.
On top of and along the outer walls of this inclosure or foundation were built the porticoes or covered walks, above which were galleries or apartments, supported by pillars of white marble, that overlooked the brook Kedron and the valley of Hinnom. They were magnificent structures, resembling the nave and aisles of Gothic cathedrals. But these were only the outer buildings of the temple area. The porticoes opened inwardly upon a court paved with marble and open to the sky. This was called the "Court of the Gentiles," because the Gentiles were admitted into it, but were prohibited from passing farther. It was the exterior court, and by far the largest of all the courts belonging to the temple. It entirely surrounded the other courts and the temple itself.
Passing through the court of the Gentile you enter the Court of Israel, which was divided bv a low stone wall into two divisions, the outer one being occupied by the women, from which an ascent is made of fifteen steps to the inner one, which was occupied by the men. In this court, and the piazza which surrounded it, the Israelites stood in solemn and reverent silence while their sacrifices were burning in the inner court, or "Court of the Priests," and while the services of the sanctuary were performed.
The "Court of the Priests" was within the Court of Israel and surrounded by it. Within this court stood the brazen altar on which the sacrifices were consumed, the molten sea in which the priwashed, and the ten brazen lavers for washing the sacrifices;.also the various utensils and instruments used for sacrificing. To this court the people brought their oblations and sacrifices, but none were permitted to enter but the priests who prepared and offered the sacrifice. From the Court of the Priests twelve steps ascended to the temple, strictly so called, which was divided into three parts, the porch, the sanctuary and the Holy of Holies. At the entrance to the porch of the temple was a gate made entirely of brass, the most precious metal known to the ancients. Beside this gate and just under the porch there were two pillars. Jachin and hoax. These pillars were twenty-seven feet high and six feet through. The thickness of the brass of each pillar was three inches. The one that stood on the right hand (or south) was called Jachin, and the other at the left hand (or north) was called Boaz.
It has been supposed that Solomon, in erecting these pillars, had reference to the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire, which went before the Israelites in their journey through the wilderness, and that the right-hand or south pillar represented the pillar of cloud and the left-hand or north pillar represented that of fire. Solomon did not simply erect them as ornaments to the temple, but as memorials of God's repeated promises of support to his people of Israel. For the pillar (Jachin), derived from the Hebrew words (Jah), "Jehovah," and (achin), "to establish," signifies that "God will establish his house of Israel"; while the pillar (Boaz), compounded of (b), "in," and (oaz), "strength," signifies that "in strength shall it be established." And thus were the Jews, in passing through the porch to the temple, daily reminded of the abundant promises of God, and inspired with confidence in his protection and gratitude for his many acts of kindness to his chosen people. If this symbolism be correct, the pillars of the porch, like those of the wilderness, would refer to the superintending and protecting power of Deity. (Calcott, Cand. Disg., 66.)
From the porch you enter the sanctuary by a portal, which, instead of folding-doors, was furnished with a magnificent veil of many colors, which mystically represented the universe. In the sanctuary were placed the various utensils necessary for the daily worship. The Holy of Holies, or innermost chamber, was separated from the sanctuary by doors of olive, richly sculptured and inlaid with gold and covered with veils of blue, purple, scarlet, and the finest linen. Into the most sacred place the high priest alone could dnter, and that only once a year, on the day of atonement.
If one looked upon Mount Moriah from the brow of Mount Olivet opposite, and beheld the city from the direction of Bethany, it must have been a sight which, for architectural beauty and grandeur, perhaps, has never been equaled, certainly not surpassed. It was an artificial mountain from the deep ravines below, wall, column, roof, pinnacle, culminating in the temple within and above all, and probably measuring between 500 and 600 feet in height.
James Fergusson, Esq., the distinguished architect, writes: "The triple temple of Jerusalem, the lower court standing on its magnificent terraces, the inner court raised on its platform in the center, and the temple itself rising out of the group and crowning the whole, must have formed, when combined with the beauty of the situation, one of the most splendid architectural combinations of the ancient world."
Josephus wrote: "If any one looked down from the top of the battlements he would be giddy, while his sight could not reach to such an immense depth." This passed for foolish exaggeration till recent explorations vindicated the statement.
Croley (in Salathiel), in his magnificent word painting, describes the mountain and its glorious occupant (Temple of Herod 1 ), the year of its destruction, A. D. 70, which was similar in structure to the Temple of Solomon, as follows : "I see the Court of the Gentiles circling the whole, a fortress of the purest marble, with its wall rising six hundred feet from the valley; its kingly entrance, worthy of the fame of Solomon: its innumerable and stately buildings for the priests and officers of the temple, and above them, glittering like a succession of diadems, those alabaster porticoes and colonnades in which the chiefs and sages of Jerusalem sat teaching the people, or walked, breathing the air, and gazing on the grandeur of a landscape which swept the whole amphitheater of the mountains. I see, rising above this stupendous boundary, the court of the Jewish women, separated by its porphyry pillars and richly sculptured wall; above this the separated court of the men; still higher, the court of the priests; and highest, the crowning splendor of all the central temple, the place of the sanctuary, and of the Holy of Holies, covered with plates of gold, its roof planted with lofty spearheads of gold, the most precious marbles and metals everywhere flashing back the day, till Mount Moriah stood forth to the eye of the stranger approaching Jerusalem, what it had been so often described by its bards and people, a mountain of snow studded with jewels."
All these buildings, porticoes, columns, pinnacles, altar and temple, have perished. "Not one stone remains upon another which has not been thrown down." The area alone remains, and the massive substructures for 3,000 years have been sleeping in their courses. The preservation has been due to the ruin. Buildings so vast have been toppled down the slopes of the Moriah, that the original defiles and valleys have been almost obliterated. What has been regarded as the original surface has been found to be debris from 70 to 90 feet deep.
With pickaxe and shekel British explorers have been down to the original foundations. Fallen columns have been met with and avoided, or a way blasted through them. The cinders of burnt Jerusalem have been cut through and turned up to the light rich moulds deposited by the treasures of Jewish pride. The seal of Haggai, in ancient Hebrew characters, was picked up out of the siftings of this deposit. The first courses of stones deposited by Phoenician builders have been reached, lying on the living rock. Quarry-marks, put on in vermilion, have been copied known to be quarry-marks by the trickling drops of paint, still visible only they are above the letters, showing that when they were written the stones lay with the underside uppermost.
The whole of Mount Moriah has been found to be fairly honeycombed with cisterns and passages. One of the cisterns, known as the Great Sea, would contain two millions of gallons, and all together not less than ten millions. The wall of Ophel has been exposed at the present time 70 feet high though buried in debris; and the remains of towers and houses have been lighted upon belonging to the age of the kings of Judah.
The seven successive objects that have occupied this sacred ridge, to which a Mason's attention is directed, are:
1. The Altar of Abraham.
2. The Threshine-floor of Oman.
3. The Altar of David.
4. The Temple of Solomon.
5. The Temple of Zerubbabel.
6. The Temple of Herod.
7. The Mosque of Omar. In the fourtenth century this building was described as a very fair house, lofty and circular, covered with lead, well paved with white marble.
The temple area is now occupied by two Turkish mosques, into which, until recently, neither Jew nor Christian was permitted to enter.
Ancient Temples.
The Egyptian form of a temple was borrowed by the Jews, and with some modifications adopted by the Greeks and Romans, whence it passed over into modern Europe.
The direction of an Egyptian temple was usually from east to west, the entrance being at the east. It was a quadrangular building, much longer than its width, and was situated in the western part of a sacred enclosure. The approach through this enclosure to the temple proper was frequently by a double row of Sphinxes. In front of the entrance were a pair of tall obelisks, which will remind the reader of the two pillars at the porch of Solomon's temple. The temple was divided into a spacious hall, where the great body of the worshipers assembled. Beyond it, in the western extremity, was the cell or sekos, equivalent to the Jewish Holy of Holies, into which the priests only entered ; and in the remotest part, behind a curtain, appeared the image of the god seated on his shrine or the sacred animal which represented him.
The Grecian temples like the Egyptian and the Hebrew, were placed within an inclosure, which was separated from the profane land around it, in early times, by ropes, l^ut afterwards by a wall. The temple was usually quadrangular, although some were circular in form. It was divided into parts similar to the Egyptian.
The Roman temples, after they emerged from their primitive simplicity, were constructed much upon the mode of the Grecian. The idea of a separation into a holy and a most holy place has everywhere been preserved. The same idea is maintained in the construction of Masonic Lodges, which are but imitations, in spirit, of the ancient temples. The Most Holy Place of the Egyptians and Jews was in the West, whereas now it is in the East.
Division of the Hebrew Nation.
Solomon died in the year 975 B. C. During his reign he peacefully consolidated and recaptured, fortified or built cities or stations for commerce or protection at strategic points. He built, reservoirs, aqueducts, many wonderful buildings, and laid out "paradises" and gardens. Many kings were his tributaries; untold wealth and the wonders and curiosities of many countries flowed into or through the land, so that "silver was nothing accounted of in his day." Many foreigners were attracted by his splendor and wisdom, notably Balkis (?), the queen of Sheba, with her marvelous retinue. To meet with Oriental ideas of his royal magnificence, his harem grew to number one thousand inmates, and, contrary to the law of Moses, he not only multiplied wives, but by his marriages formed alliances with many heathen nations. In his old age his "strange" wives led him to commit or permit gross and vicious idolatry. He was gifted with transcendent wisdom and the most brilliant mental powers, yet towards the end of his life he presented the sad spectacle of a common eastern despot, voluptuous, idolatrous, occasionally even cruel, and his reign can not but be regarded, both politically and financially, as a splendid failure. Before his death Edom and Syria revolted, tribal jealousies arose in Israel, and Jeroboam, of the tribe of Ephraim, who was superintendent of the public works, began to plot the division of the nation, in which he was aided by the alienation of the people coming through the intolerable oppression and taxation that were necessary to meet the enormous expenses of the court. For this conspiracy Jeroboam was forced to flee to save his life. He went to Egypt and placed himself under the protection of Shishak, the king.
Hardly had Solomon breathed his last when his people arose in revolt. Rehoboam, his son and successor, whose mother was Naamah, an Ammonite, adopted his father's methods as his own, and with a haughty air unwisely provoked the resentment which justice and policy called upon him to allay. Ten tribes, under the leadership of Jeroboam, what, after the death of Solomon, had returned to Jerusalem, seceded from his dominion and formed the nation or kingdom of Israel, and took up their residence in Samaria; while the remaining two, the tribes of Tudah and Benjamin, retained possession of the Temple and of Jerusalem under the name of the Kingdom of Judah. Thus, in 975 B. C, was effected the division of the Hebrew nation into peopies who ever afterwards maintained towards each other an attitude of estrangement and hostility. In the following year Jeroboam, king of Israel, abolished the worship of Jehovah and established that of the golden calves at Dan and Bethel. The priests and Levites and pious Israelites leave their possessions in the kingdom of Israel and are incorporated in the kingdom of Judah.
The Temple retained its splendor only thirty three years, for in the year 971 B.C., Shishak, the king of Egypt, made war upon the king of Judah, took Jerusalem and carried away the choicest treasures. From that time to the period of its final destruction the history of the Temple is but a history of alternate spoliations and repairs, of profanations and idolatry and subsequent restorations to a purity of worship.
After the completion of the Temple, having finished that great work, and filled all Judea with temples and palaces and walled cities (II. Chron. xi.;I. Kings ix.) , having enriched and beautified Gezer, Baalah and Tadmor with the results of their genius, many of these "cunning workmen," or members of the Fraternity of Architects, passed into Greece, Rome, Spain, and other countries, wherever their services could be employed in the erection of famous edifices for which the ancient world is justly celebrated.
About the year 721 B. C. the army of Shalmaneser IV., king of Assyria, invaded Samaria, the home of the descendants of the ten revolted tribes, captured the city of Samaria, the capital, and caused the downfall of the kingdom of Israel. Hoshea, its sovereign, was thrown into prison, the greater part of the inhabitants carried away captive into the far East, the mountainous regions of Media, and their place supplied by Assyrian colonists brought from Babylon, Persia, Shushan, Elam, and other places. These colonists brought with them the idolatrous creed and practices of the region from which they emigrated. They mingled with the remnant of the Israelites, intermarried and formed the mixed people called Samaritans. The Israelites who had been exiled never returned, and what became of them has always been, and we presume will always remain, matter of vaguest speculation.
Compiled by John R. Bennett in "The Origin of Freemansory and Knights Templar", Johnson & Hardim, Cincinnati, USA, 1907, excerpts pp.40-58. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.
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