§ II The Decoration and Furniture of the Temple
The house of the Eternal was adorned with unheard-of splendour; precious woods, gold, silver, ivory and gems—nothing was spared by this people, jealous for the honour of their God; the accessories also of the worship of Jehovah, sacred vessels, knives, basins and utensils of every kind were works of art in which the chiseller and the metal-founder had each emulated the other’s skill. But the artists who decorated the former temple, let us not forget it, were Phœnicians. Now, the Phœnicians always confined themselves to the imitation of Egypt and Assyria; their technique has a hybrid character, which is, like Syria itself from a geographical point of view, a sort of compromise between Asia and Egypt. On these principles of criticism alone can we attempt to restore the decoration and furniture of Solomon’s temple.
The veil hung between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, and concealing the latter from sight, was a large piece of silk, on which the skilful hand of Eastern embroideresses had represented the image of the world; the four colours which entered into its composition were the symbols of the elements: purple represented the sea, saffron fire, hyacinth air, byssus earth. The inner walls were panelled with carved planks of cedar. In the Holy Place these wood-carvings represented colocynths and open flowers; in the Holy of Holies, palm-trees and fantastic animals or cherubim were mixed with the flowers. This decoration was relieved by plates of gold fixed on the wood with nails of the same metal. The Ark of the Covenant, in the Holy of Holies, was sheltered under the wings of two immense cherubim of wood overlaid with plates of gold. The different parts of these monstrous figures were borrowed from the animal world, like those of the winged bulls in the Ninevite palaces. According to the Bible, the cherubim are winged and have bulls’ feet; they draw Jehovah in his chariot or carry Him upon their back, like the Assyrian deities. Each cherub has at the same time a human face and a lion’s face. They form a silent procession upon the cedar panels, the leaves of the olive-wood doors, and the veil before the Holy of Holies, alternating with palms and colocynths, which, at Jerusalem, are substituted for the Egyptian lotus.
In the Holy of Holies there were two colossal statues of cherubs, 10 cubits high, overlaid with gold, which guarded the Ark of the Covenant. Each cherub had two gigantic wings, one outspread and drooped over the ark which it overshadowed, the other symmetrically outspread in the opposite direction and raised towards the ceiling. M. de Vogüé ingeniously compares with this description the Egyptian representations of two figures with long wings, kneeling on each side of the symbolic scarabæus or the solar disk supported by uræi, which they cover with their wings.
The Ark of the Covenant itself resembled those naoi or bari which we see carried by Egyptian priests upon their shoulders. It was of acacia-wood (shittim), covered with plates of gold both inside and outside. It was about 1¾ yards long, 2 ft. 8 in. broad and high. The lid was called the Throne of Jehovah. The ark contained the two tables of stone upon which the law of Sinai was engraved.
In the Holy Place was the altar of incense, on which incense was burnt in honour of Jehovah; this was probably a sort of tripod, surmounted by a bowl with a lighted brazier. There was also the table of shew-bread and the seven-branched candlesticks. The table, on which twelve loaves were placed every week, was undoubtedly analogous to the tables of offerings to the gods so often represented in Egyptian bas-reliefs, with loaves piled upon wine-pitchers; furniture of the same kind also seems to be spoken of in the cuneiform inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzer. The bas-relief on the Arch of Titus at Rome represents Jewish captives carrying on their shoulders the furniture of their ruined temple, and among this spoil figures the table of shew-bread such as it was in Herod’s Temple, under the form of a square cippus.
The seven-branched candlesticks, ten in number, had a peculiar form, also revealed to us by the Arch of Titus and some other monuments. On the base with two steps a central stem is fixed, to which six branches are fitted, three on each side, arranged in the shape of a fan. Each of the seven branches is adorned with three flowers and a socket. On the base, fantastic animals are seen in relief. Hiram-Abi, the famous worker in metals from Tyre, in Solomon’s pay, also “made lamps and tongs of gold, and bowls and snuffers and basons and spoons and censers of pure gold,”86 shovels and goblets of bronze. The candlesticks and other treasures of the Temple, carried away to Rome by Titus, were seized by Genseric during the sack of the city by the Vandals (A.D. 455). They were removed to Carthage, but, on the conquest of the Vandals by Belisarius, were taken in triumph to Constantinople. The Jews petitioned the Emperor Justinian to restore these treasures to the Holy City, to which they rightfully belonged, and he is said to have ordered that they should be sent to one of the Christian Churches in Jerusalem, but we hear no more of their fate in the pages of history.87
In the court of the priests, before the vestibule of the Temple, there were two separate bronze columns, reminding us of Egyptian obelisks, named Jachin and Boaz. The restoration of these two columns, marvels of Phœnician art, and invested in the eyes of the Jews with a talismanic power, has often been attempted. They were hollow, and their metal walls were 3⅓ in. thick. “Their capital, 5 cubits high, had the form of fleur-de-lis, the lower part of which, swelling outwards, was covered with a reticulated ornament enclosed within two rows of pomegranates.”88 The total height of each column was 41 ft., the diameter of the shaft was 6 ft. 5⅓ in., the pomegranates, 200 in number, formed a double collar round each capital.
In the court of the priests, near the altar of burnt-offerings, which was itself covered with bronze, the famous brazen sea was placed, a great reservoir from which the priests drew water to purify themselves before the sacrifice. This bronze basin, which resembled the calyx of a tulip, was five cubits high (8 ft. 7 in.), and ten cubits (17 ft. 2 in.) in diameter; its exterior was decorated with two rows of colocynths in relief: the wall was 3⅓ ft. thick, as in the bronze columns; it contained at least 8,800 gallons. Instead of feet, the brazen sea was upheld by twelve bronze figures of oxen, in groups of three, which, in accordance with the proportion of the basin, must have been larger than life.
This gigantic basin was fixed and immovable; for the purpose of drawing water, wheeled basins had been constructed, ten in number, also of bronze, into which the water intended for ceremonial purposes was poured. Each had four wheels, like a chariot; the wheels supported a square box, above which was placed the cylindrical basin, large enough to contain from 150 to 170 gallons. The walls of the receptacle and of the box which supported it were decorated with palms, colocynths, oxen and winged lions in relief.
Such were the principal features of the temple furniture; smaller utensils, knives, pincers, tongs, dishes, are scarcely known to us. An exact idea of them can, however, be formed by an examination of the products of Egyptian and Assyrian industry, especially of the dishes, vases, and utensils found among the substructures of the Phœnician temples in the island of Cyprus.
Various passages in the Bible enumerate the ornaments of the priests, such as the ephod, which, in certain cases, signifies the liturgical vestment; in others a sort of sacred casket, containing two talismanic cubes, called urim and thummim. The priestly costume of Aaron is an embroidered garment in which gems are set, according to the Book of Exodus. As early as the period of Genesis, we see the children of Israel making use of seals of precious stone, precisely as their neighbours the Egyptians and Chaldæans did. A certain number of gems carved in intaglio have come down to us which bear names apparently Jewish: Shebaniah, Nathanyahu, Hananyahu, Obadyahu. These seals for the most part only bear the name of their possessor; they have neither ornament nor symbol.