§ I The Temple of Jerusalem
The city of Jerusalem occupies at the present day the southern extremity of a plateau bounded on the east by the Valley of Kedron, and on the west and south by the Valley of Hinnom. This plateau is cut in two from north to south by a ravine called the Tyropœon Valley, so that it forms two hills—one on the east, Mount Moriah, the southern extremity of which, called Ophel, was Sion or the city of David; the other on the west, of much larger extent, to which the name of Sion is improperly given at the present day, and to which the city began to extend only under the kings of Judah. When Solomon ascended the throne, Jerusalem consisted only of Sion or the city of David—that is to say, the narrow hill of Ophel, between the Kedron and Tyropœon valleys. Mount Moriah, on the north, was given up to cultivation, and a rich man of Jerusalem, Araunah, possessed some ground there, with a threshing-floor on which camels and oxen trod out the corn at the time of harvest. David had bought the field of Araunah in order to build upon it the Temple of the true God, and before beginning the construction he had erected an altar on the threshing-floor in order that sacrifice might at once be offered to Jehovah. The materials were collected in great part before the work began; architects, workmen and artists recruited at Tyre, thanks to the assistance of King Hiram, hastened to the spot, and the building began in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign (B.C. 1013).
The summit of Mount Moriah, the centre of which formed the threshing-floor of Araunah, had to be levelled in order to serve as the site of the structure of the temple. In one place the hollows had to be filled, in another the ridges had to be cut away. The central crest was therefore surrounded by an immense quadrangular rockwork bounded by Cyclopean walls of the height of the truncated summit. These supporting walls, extraordinarily thick, formed of enormous blocks fastened by iron clamps, were also embanked on the outside at the base, and all the empty spaces and interstices between the interior wall and the living rock were filled up with a nucleus of rockwork, so as to form on the upper part a square platform. A F G L is the threshing-floor thus surrounded. At the north-western angle—that is to say, A B C D—it was necessary not to construct a supporting rampart and fill up the declivity of the mount, but, on the contrary, to cut away the natural rock into the form of an angle, so that at this point the enclosure of the temple was bounded by a natural wall rising perpendicularly to the height of 26 ft. A trench dug by the English explorers at the north-eastern angle B L K proved that at this point, on the contrary, the artificial rockwork of the temple basement must have reached the colossal height of 123 feet. On the south, at E F G H, a labyrinth of vaults and corridors, supporting a mass of collected material, was contrived in the substructure, which at the south-eastern angle, at the point G, forms at the present day a terrace 45 ft. high; and yet the accumulated rubbish causes the foot of the wall to be more than 65 ft. below the present surface of the ground! By the system of levelling which we have described an irregular quadrilateral was obtained, the eastern and southern sides of which are 1520 ft. and 1611 ft. long, and the northern and southern side 1017 ft. and 921 ft.
As Mount Moriah extended in a northern direction beyond the temple enclosure, the platform was on this side accessible to all comers. To remedy this inconvenience, and turn the new structure into an isolated citadel as well as a temple, a broad trench was hewn in the rock on the north-east, A B; and on the north-west, B L, a gigantic moat called Birket-Israîl, which at the present day, though filled up to the extent of two-thirds, is still 104 ft. broad and 65 ft. deep. “Thus,” concludes M. de Vogüé, “we have a large quadrilateral excavated on the north, supported on the south by vaulted substructures, and surrounded on three sides by terraces and on the fourth side by a broad moat. Such is the entirely homogeneous whole of the Haram esh-Sherif; such almost it has existed for long centuries, for successive destructions and rebuildings have little altered the primitive plan.”79 We shall see directly, in the company of the same scholar, that this immense pedestal, the work of Solomon, was only modified and enlarged by Herod on one of its sides.
However, the platform thus prepared was not quite level with the natural crest of rock which crowns Moriah. The culminating point of this rock, called Sakhra, still rose 16 ft. above the terrace. Instead of sapping this peak of chalky limestone and removing it, it was taken as the level of a second platform above the first, but concentric with it and much smaller. This is the upper terrace which at the present day supports the domed building improperly called the Mosque of Omar, which would better be designated by its true name, Kubbet es-Sakhra, “Dome of the Rock.” According to M. de Vogüé, the threshing-floor of Araunah, on which David set up the altar of Jehovah, was a little to the north of the Sakhra, where later the altar of burnt-offerings was placed.
After building the platform, Solomon occupied himself with the structure properly so called. The temple, or more plainly, the house of Jehovah, was to be enclosed in two concentric courts. Solomon had only time to finish the first court,—that which immediately surrounded the edifice, and then the eastern side of the second; this was not completed till long after his death, in the reign of Manasseh. As soon as the interior building was ready, Solomon resolved to devote it to the worship of God, without waiting for the completion of the second court. He celebrated the solemn dedication of the temple only seven years after the laying of the first stone of the substructure. The Bible has bequeathed to us the description of the interior magnificence of this sanctuary, built and decorated by Phœnician workmen, and of the works of art collected within it by the most sumptuous of Jewish monarchs. The architecture and the interior ornaments were all Egyptian in style, like the Phœnician temples themselves. But nothing is left of the building of Solomon except the cisterns and the eastern side of the second court. This court is decorated with a portico, under which Solomon had the royal throne placed on which he sat when he was present at public ceremonies; it was still called, even after Herod, the Porch of Solomon.
Under the kings of Judah there were numerous works of enlargement and restoration; but all was destroyed in B.C. 588, when Jerusalem was taken by the Chaldæans. Nebuzar-adan, Nebuchadnezzar’s lieutenant, caused the temple to be set on fire, and all was over with the legendary magnificence of the son of David.
Fifty-two years later the Jews who had been taken captive to Babylon were set free by Cyrus, and their leader Zerubbabel at once undertook to restore the temple of the true God. The work, hindered by the jealousy of the Samaritans, was not finished till B.C. 516. Sufficiently similar in plan to that of Solomon, the new temple was less beautiful and less grand in its proportions; the old men wept when they remembered the former house. In the course of centuries the new temple underwent many modifications, at least in its exterior, although the original plan was not upset to any considerable extent. For instance, in the time of the Maccabees, the exterior enclosure was extended on the north, and at the north-eastern angle the fortress named Baris was built, which Herod altered in later times and which became the famous tower of Antonia. However the temple of Zerubbabel lasted for nearly five centuries without being destroyed, and had the good fortune, rare in the ancient East, to pass through the period of Seleucid rule and the Roman conquest under Pompey, without being either pillaged or demolished. Herod, a man of Idumæan race, appointed king of the Jews by the Romans, conceived the project of making himself popular among his people by rebuilding the temple in all the splendour which Solomon had originally bestowed upon it. In the first place, he brought all his efforts to bear upon the enclosure, which he resolved to enlarge; he doubled it, according to Josephus. Instead of four stadia in circumference it grew to six, preserving its former length on the smallest side, so that in fact it became geometrically double in area. This enlargement took place on the south, towards Ophel, so that the actual edifice of the temple, instead of standing in the middle of its peribolus, was removed to the north. The tower of Baris or Antonia continued to form the northern boundary. In the annexed figure, A B C D is the ancient peribolus, T the temple, and C D E F the square portion added by Herod.
“In order to carry out this plan,” says M. de Vogüé, “Herod had the ancient terraces rased to the ground and rebuilt, as well as the colonnades which crowned them. Only he respected and enclosed the eastern colonnade called the Porch of Solomon and its fine supporting wall. This is the only part of the former temple that he seems to have preserved: all the rest was destroyed in order to be born again, restored to youth, and enlarged; the inner sanctuary was demolished to its foundations.”80 The work undertaken by Herod began about the year B.C. 18. Ten thousand workmen were employed upon it under the direction of a thousand priests, who alone might work with their hands in the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. Eighteen months were enough to raise the inner building, but eight years were required to rebuild the court and the colonnades. The accessory structures were not finished till the year 64 after Christ, in the reign of Nero; at this date the work was occupying eighteen thousand workmen.
The foregoing historical considerations compel us to conclude, with M. de Vogüé, that the Haram-esh-Sherif represents the very enclosure enlarged by Herod. In fact, the southern side of the Haram is 919 ft. long, the circumference is 5,006 ft., which, with the addition of 508 ft. for the projection formed by the tower of Antonia, make 5,514 ft.—that is to say, six times the length of the southern side. Besides, Herod could not develop the enclosure on the north on account of the tower of Baris and the gigantic moat Birket-Israîl, which bounded it on that side, nor on the east on account of the abrupt declivity which forms the side of the valley of Kedron, nor on the west where the Tyropœon valley is. The enlargement could only take place on the south, and, moreover, as the ground was sloping, it was necessary, in order to remove the declivity, to proceed as Solomon had done: that is to say, to construct an immense artificial platform, supported on three sides by high terraces. The great substructures of the Haram esh-Sherif are the remains of Herod’s gigantic work. If since the time of that prince the structure of the temple has been several times overthrown from top to bottom and continually rebuilt, these successive restorations have not altered the original plan of the substructure; the fragments of wall which remained in place served as bases for the new edifices. The consequence of this is that in these walls different layers of masonry are perceived one above the other like geological strata, the original Herodian courses being naturally the lowest.
The most ancient masonry visible, the lowest, is formed of the largest blocks; the courses are from a yard to two yards high; the length of the blocks varies between 7½ yds. and 2½ ft. One block is to be observed at the south-eastern angle which is 13 yards long. Each layer recedes 2 in. from that beneath it; the stones, carefully trimmed, are laid without mortar. These large blocks are marginal-drafted—that is to say, each stone is, as it were, bounded by a groove which marks the courses and the joints. Besides the groove, each block is framed in a chiselled band smooth but not deep, which forms a second frame, carved within the groove round the surface of the hewn block. The lower masonry of the temple is, then, drafted and chiselled at the edge; besides, at intervals, the surface of the blocks is provided with projecting tenons, no doubt contrived to facilitate the placing of them. The best preserved portion of this masonry is the Heit el Maghreby, “the western wall,” where the Jews come every Friday to weep over the destruction of Jerusalem and to await the Messiah; it is the Wailing-place. Recent English excavations, carried 107 ft. below the present surface of the ground, have proved that this masonry is to be found all round the enclosure of the Haram.
The system of construction immediately above the drafted blocks is characterised by Roman masonry formed of smooth stones without grooves, their outer surface being carefully fluted by means of a chisel with very fine teeth. The blocks, about a yard square, are laid with sharp-edged joints. This system is especially remarked on the western and southern sides. The following systems, in the order of their position one above the other, do not deserve to be described; they are relatively modern and belong to all epochs, but chiefly to the Saracenic period.
Not far from the Wailing-place, 39 ft. from the south-eastern corner, is the celebrated beginning of the bridge which united the temple to the city, crossing over the Tyropœon; it belongs to the first system of the substructure, and forms part of it. The English excavations have brought one of the piers to light; they have shown that the roadway of the bridge is 295 ft. long, and that the breadth of each arch amounts to 16 yards. While digging at the foot of the pier a pavement was discovered which no doubt represents the street which passed along there before Herod’s epoch, or rather even before the destruction of the Temple by the Chaldæans. Some foundation is formed for this conjecture by the fact that when the English broke up this pavement and dug lower still they found the extrados of a vault: this was nothing less than the arch of another bridge of colossal masonry, which in the course of centuries had been buried under masses of rubbish: Herod, and perhaps Zerubbabel before him, built over the ruins without even trying to clear away the bridge. Who knows whether this arch, called Robinson’s arch, from the excavator’s name, is not the remains of a bridge erected by Solomon?
In the mass of substructure beneath the Haram, the existence of vaults and of a network of corridors of drafted masonry has been proved, and these must, from the character of the work, be contemporary with Herod. On the platform, two cisterns are seen which probably date from Solomon’s time, if they are not even earlier, though it must be admitted that they have been subjected to successive restorations. One is under the rock Sakhra, the other in front of the mosque of El Aksa: the latter, especially, which is the largest, is a superb artificial grotto, upheld by pilasters contrived in the side of the rock. The descent into that under the rock Sakhra is by a flight of fifteen steps; in the centre is a well which by means of a subterranean canal opens into the valley of Kedron, and was perhaps used by Araunah the Jebusite.
The outer enclosure built by Herod was pierced by several gates giving access to the terrace, which are still partly preserved. They are subterranean with regard to the platform; their threshold was of course on a level with the ground outside, and they opened on the staircases formed in the thickness of the terrace. At the present day, as the ground outside has been raised by rubbish of all kinds, Herod’s doorways are filled up either entirely or partly. The Western Gate (fig. 171), near the Wailing-place, is at the present day buried to the extent of two-thirds. It is surmounted by a great monolithic lintel 16 ft. long, and its structure belongs to the Herodian system of masonry, but it has undergone subsequent alterations within.
The two most important of the ancient gates are on the southern side; they are called the Double Gate and the Triple Gate, on account of the number of their arches.
The two arched apertures of the Double Gate give access to a large vestibule, the vaulting of which is supported by an enormous central column; here the hottest hours of the day might be passed in comfort. From this vestibule there is an ascent to the upper platform by two parallel flights of steps separated by a row of pillars. There is nothing left of the time of Herod but the two outer jambs of the door, the middle pier, two monolithic lintels similar to those of the Western Gate, and, lastly, the central column of the vestibule. This column is squat, for it is only four of its own diameters in height; it has no base. Its capital, which broadens into the form of a basket, is decorated with acanthus leaves in very low relief all round.
The Triple Gate, also situated on the southern side of the Haram, 67 yards from the Double Gate, is similar to the latter, except that instead of two arches it has three; besides this, a triple sloping corridor led to the upper platform.
The Golden Gate,81 opened in the eastern side of the enclosure, was in its original form similar to the Double Gate and the Triple Gate; and, like them, it is about 6½ yds. below the level of the platform to which it gave access; nothing is left of the first structure except the two monolithic jambs 10 ft. and 13½ ft. high, which seem to be even earlier than Herod’s building. On the north, there was only one entrance, on a level with the platform, which communicated with the outside by a bridge thrown across the great moat.
Now that we have arrived at the terrace we are going to pass through the different parts of the buildings. They are commanded by the tower of Antonia, which was built by the Asmonæan kings, under the name of Baris, and enlarged and embellished by Herod; it occupied the north-eastern angle of the structure. Its base was a scarped rock, the flanks of which had been cut away by human hands; its outer wall of enclosure was three cubits thick. An enormous trench cut in the rock isolated the fortress on the north, and four turrets flanked the outer curtains at the angles. Two flights of steps led straight down from the fortress into the outer court of the Temple.
The great outer court was on three of its sides surrounded by a double portico—that is to say, by two rows of columns of the Doric order, 25 cubits high; the roof, upheld by this double portico, which was 30 cubits broad, rested upon the outer wall. Or the south, instead of a portico there was a basilica, that is to say, “a building with three naves of unequal height, supported by columns.” The aisles were 32 ft. broad and 50 ft. high; the central nave was 48 ft. broad and 100 ft. high. There were 41 columns in each row, which gave 754 ft. for the whole length of the basilica. The central nave was supported by three rows of Corinthian columns, and there were columns attached to the side walls which corresponded to each row. The building had a panelled ceiling of carved wood. The basilica opened on the bridge which cut the valley of the Tyropœon, and its axis was in a straight line with the axis of the bridge.
Such was the court of the Gentiles, accessible to all visitors. A barrier, only three cubits high, prevented profane intruders from penetrating into the enclosure reserved for the Israelites, which was contained within that of the Gentiles. M. de Vogüé thinks that this low wall of separation, on the southern side, must have corresponded to the boundary of the outer enclosure of the ancient temple of Solomon.
The enclosure reserved for the Israelites included the women’s court and the men’s court, or that of Israel. From the Gentiles’ court access was obtained to the women’s court by a flight of fourteen steps. This court had, at its four angles, square chambers which served for the stores of the Temple, for the ablutions and other pious exercises; there was also the Treasury chamber, in which the specie was kept which was coined for the exclusive use of the temple. Between these chambers rose porticoes. On the inner side, the women’s court was separated from the court of Israel by a series of buildings which opened on the court of Israel, and the entrance into this court was by three gates, each provided with porches and five steps. The principal gate, celebrated under the name of the Gate of Nicanor, on account of its fine architectural proportions and the richness of its construction, was a folding gate of Corinthian bronze: twenty men were needed to open and shut it; before it was a semicircular flight of fifteen steps.
The court of Israel, reserved for the men who had accomplished certain acts of purification, was 11 cubits broad. The chambers which surrounded it on three sides were used as appendages to Divine worship; their façade was provided with porches. Each of them was consecrated to a special service: the skins of victims were salted and washed in them, musical instruments, salt, the perpetual fire, and wood were kept in them; the hall in which the Sanhedrim held its sessions was one of them.
A step one cubit broad, which the priests alone might cross, separated the court of Israel from the court of the priests, and, in the middle of this court, the temple properly so called and the altar of burnt offerings stood. “The altar of burnt offerings was formed of three stages of rough-hewn stone, each stage a cubit less on all sides than that beneath it; the base formed a square of 32 cubits; the total height was 15 cubits high; the ascent was by an incline situated on the south, 30 cubits long; two smaller staircases led to the intermediate platform. On the upper surface the sacrificial fire burnt, and at the four corners were horns on which the blood was sprinkled and libations of wine and water were poured. A conduit situated at the southern corner of the altar received these liquids, and carried them off into the subterranean drains, and thence into the valley of Kedron.”83 At the north of the altar of burnt offerings six rows of iron rings were seen fixed to the ground in order to fasten the animals to them; there were also eight small columns to which the victims were suspended that they might be cut to pieces and flayed, and eight tables upon which the flesh was placed.
The temple properly so-called, which stood 22 cubits to the west of the altar of burnt offerings, was built on a terrace six cubits high, mounted by a flight of twelve steps. There was thus a difference of 27½ ft. between the level of the temple platform and the court of the Gentiles. As for the architectural arrangement of the building, it was similar to that of Solomon. The anterior pylon was 100 cubits high and 20 deep; at each extremity there were chambers in which the sacred knives were kept, which were used for slaying the victims. The Holy Place or Hekal, and the Holy of Holies or Debir, only separated by a veil, were both 60 cubits high, 30 broad, and together 65 cubits long measured from outside. “A series of thirty chambers and three stories was attached to the sanctuary, as in the ancient temple, for a length of 15 cubits, measured without, and this gave to the sanctuary outside the appearance of a basilica. The whole edifice was roofed with terraces, on which gilded points were fixed to drive away the birds.”84
The Jewish Temple was one of the grandest architectural works that the genius of the ancients produced. The successive enclosures raised one above the other, and crowned by the gigantic pylons of the sanctuary, built of white marble, were the result of an inspiration of genius that has never been realised except in this instance, and all antiquity had but one voice to proclaim its imposing majesty. “When the rays of the rising sun struck upon the metal plates which covered the doors and roof of the sanctuary, when they illuminated the gilding on the façade, and the gigantic golden vine which spread its tendrils over the white marble of the pronaos, the spectator’s eyes were dazzled, and he was forced to turn them away, and the stranger who perceived the temple in the distance thought he saw a mountain covered with glittering snow.”85
Such was the temple of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, restored by Herod, in which many of the scenes of the Gospels took place, and which was destined for so dramatic and mournful a fate. At once a public market, a house of prayer, and a fortress, it was condemned to be the tomb of Jewish nationality. Besieged and taken by the Romans, after a resistance unique in the annals of antiquity for its heroic desperation, it succumbed before the violence of Titus, and was profaned by Roman legionaries with torches and pickaxes in their hands. The echo of its fall, solemnly marked in the pages of human destiny, still resounds among us, for it was the overthrow of antiquity, and the irreparable destruction of the old civilisation of the East.