XXXIV

OF THE TEMPLES

TEMPLES WERE not erected so soon as a God was acknowledged. The Arabians, the Chaldeans, the Persians, who revered the stars, could scarce have consecrated edifices immediately; they could only look up to heaven: this was their temple. That of Bel at Babylon is esteemed the most ancient of all; but those of Brama in India must be of more remote antiquity; this is, at least, supposed by the Bramins.

We find in the annals of China, that the first emperors sacrificed in a temple. That of Hercules at Tyre does not appear to be amongst the most ancient. Hercules was never considered by any people, but as a secondary divinity: the temple of Tyre is of much anterior date to that of Judea. Hiram had a very magnificent one, when Solomon, assisted by Hiram, built his own. Herodotus, who traveled amongst the Tyrians, says, that in his time, according to the archives of Tyre, the antiquity of this temple was but two thousand three hundred years. Egypt was full of temples for a long time. Herodotus also says, that the temple of Vulcan at Memphis had been erected by Menes about the time that corresponds to three thousand years before our era: and it is incredible that the Egyptians had erected a temple to Vulcan, before they had bestowed one upon Isis, their principal divinity.

I cannot reconcile with the common manners of men what Herodotus says in his second book; he avers that it was customary with all the other people, except the Egyptians and the Greeks, to lie with their wives in the middle of their temples. I suspect, that the Greek text has been corrupted; the most savage of men abstain from this action before witnesses. No man was ever known to caress his wife, or his mistress, in the presence of any for whom he had the smallest regard.

It is scarce possible that amongst so many nations, who were the most scrupulously religious, all the temples should be places of prostitution. I believe Herodotus meant to say, that the priests who inhabited the enclosure which surrounded the temple might lie with their wives in that enclosure, which was called the temple, as did the Jewish, and other priests; but that the Egyptian priests, who did not dwell within that enclosure, abstained from touching their wives when they were upon guard in the porches with which the temple was surrounded.

The people who were less numerous were a long time before they had temples. They carried their gods in boxes and tabernacles. We have already seen, that when the Jews inhabited the eastern deserts of the lake Asphaltides, they carried the tabernacle of the god Rempham, of the god Moloc, of the god Kiam, according to Jeremiah, Amos, and St. Stephen.

This custom was practiced by all the little nations of the Desert. This usage must be the most ancient of any, because it is much easier to have a box than to erect a great edifice.

These portable gods, probably, gave rise to the custom of processions, which took place with every nation: for it appears that it would not have been judged right to take a god out of his place in his temple, to carry him about the city; and his violence might have been looked upon as a sacrilege, if the ancient custom of carrying one’s gods in a cart, or upon a litter, had not been for a long time established.

The greatest part of the temples were, at first, citadels, wherein sacred things were securely deposited. Thus the Palladium was in the fortress of Troy; and the bucklers which descended from heaven were kept in the Capitol.

We find that the temple of the Jews was a strong house capable of sustaining an assault. It is said in the third book of Kings, that the edifice was sixty cubits in length, and twenty in breadth, which is about ninety feet long and thirty wide. There are scarce any public edifices smaller. But this house being built of stone, upon a mountain, might, at least, defend itself against a surprise; the windows, which were much smaller without than within, looked like slaughtering holes.

It is said that the priests lodged in wooden sheds, supported by the wall.

It is difficult to comprehend the dimensions of this architecture. We are told in the same book of Kings, that upon the walls of this temple there were three wooden floors: that the first was five cubits wide, the second six, and the third seven. These proportions are not the same as ours: these floors would have astonished Michelangelo and Bradamante. Be this as it may, it should be considered, that this temple was built upon the declivity of the mountain of Moria, and consequently that it could not be of any great depth. A person must have went up several steps before he could gain the little esplanade, where stood the long sanctuary of twenty cubits. Now a temple wherein a person must go up and down is a barbarous edifice. It was to be admired for its sanctity; but not for its architecture. It was not necessary to accomplish God’s designs, that the city of Jerusalem was to be the most magnificent of all cities, and his people the most powerful of all people; nor was it necessary that its temple should surpass that of all other nations: the finest temple is that wherein the purest devotions are paid to him.

The greatest part of commentators have taken the trouble to delineate this edifice, each in his own way. There is reason to believe, that not one of these draftsmen ever built a house. We conceive however, that these walls which supported these three floors being stone, people might make a defense in this little retreat, for two or three days.

This little fortress of a people deprived of arts did not hold out against Nabuzardam, one of the captains of the king of Babylon, whom we call Nabuchodnosor or Nabuch-aednosor.

The second temple erected by Nehemiah was neither so great nor sumptuous. We learn in the book of Esdras, that the walls of this new temple had only three rows of rough stone, and that the rest was of wood only. It was rather a barn than a temple. But that which Herod afterwards built was a real fortress. He was obliged, as Josephus tells us, to demolish the temple of Nehemiah, which he calls the temple of Aggea. Herod fitted up part of the precipice, at the bottom of the mountain of Moria, to make a platform, which was supported by a very thick wall, whereupon the temple was erected. Near this edifice stood the tower of Antonia, which he again fortified; so that this temple was a real citadel.

In effect, the Jews had resolution enough to defend themselves against Titus’s army, till a Roman soldier having thrown in a flaming piece of timber, the whole edifice immediately took fire. This proves that the internal buildings of the temple consisted of nothing but wood in the time of Herod, as well as in the reigns of Nehemiah and Solomon.

These fir buildings are somewhat contradictory to that magnificence which Josephus, so fond of exaggerating, speaks of. He says, that Titus having entered into the sanctuary admired it, and owned that its riches surpassed its fame. It is not very probable that a Roman emperor, in the midst of carnage, marching over heaps of slain, should amuse himself in considering with admiration an edifice twenty cubits long, as was the sanctuary; and that a man who had seen the Capitol should be surprised at the magnificence of a Jewish temple. This temple was doubtless very holy; but a sanctuary twenty cubits long was not built by a Vitruvius. The fine temples were those of Ephesus, Alexandria, Athens, Olympus, and Rome.

Josephus, in his declamation against Appion, says, “that the Jews wanted only one temple, because there is but one God.” This reasoning does not appear conclusive; for if the country of the Jews, like that of many other people, had been seven or eight hundred miles in circumference, they must have passed their whole lives in travelling, to sacrifice in this temple once a year. It follows from there being only one God, that all the temples of the world should be dedicated to him only; but it does not follow, that there should be only one temple upon earth. Superstition is always supported by false logic.

Besides, how could Josephus say that the Jews wanted only one temple, when they had from the reign of Ptolemy Philometor a temple well enough known, of the Onion, at Bubastis in Egypt?