“There stood a grove within the city’s midst,Delicious for its shade; where when they cameFirst to this place, by waves and tempest tossed,The Carthaginians from the earth dug upAn omen royal Juno had foretoldThat they should find, a noble horse’s head;Thus intimating that this race would shine,Famous in war, and furnished with suppliesFor ages. Here the great Sidonian queenA temple built to Juno, rich in gifts,And in the presence of the goddess blessed.A brazen threshold rose above the steps,[381]With brazen posts connecting, and the hingeCreaked upon brazen doors.”[382]
“There stood a grove within the city’s midst,Delicious for its shade; where when they cameFirst to this place, by waves and tempest tossed,The Carthaginians from the earth dug upAn omen royal Juno had foretoldThat they should find, a noble horse’s head;Thus intimating that this race would shine,Famous in war, and furnished with suppliesFor ages. Here the great Sidonian queenA temple built to Juno, rich in gifts,And in the presence of the goddess blessed.A brazen threshold rose above the steps,[381]With brazen posts connecting, and the hingeCreaked upon brazen doors.”[382]
“There stood a grove within the city’s midst,Delicious for its shade; where when they cameFirst to this place, by waves and tempest tossed,The Carthaginians from the earth dug upAn omen royal Juno had foretoldThat they should find, a noble horse’s head;Thus intimating that this race would shine,Famous in war, and furnished with suppliesFor ages. Here the great Sidonian queenA temple built to Juno, rich in gifts,And in the presence of the goddess blessed.A brazen threshold rose above the steps,[381]With brazen posts connecting, and the hingeCreaked upon brazen doors.”[382]
“There stood a grove within the city’s midst,
Delicious for its shade; where when they came
First to this place, by waves and tempest tossed,
The Carthaginians from the earth dug up
An omen royal Juno had foretold
That they should find, a noble horse’s head;
Thus intimating that this race would shine,
Famous in war, and furnished with supplies
For ages. Here the great Sidonian queen
A temple built to Juno, rich in gifts,
And in the presence of the goddess blessed.
A brazen threshold rose above the steps,[381]
With brazen posts connecting, and the hinge
Creaked upon brazen doors.”[382]
The churches of Abyssinia always stand on a hill, and in a grove–like the temple at Carthage. “When you go to the church you put off your shoes before your first entering the outer precinct.... At entry, you kiss the threshold and two door-posts, go in and say what prayer you please; that finished you come out again, and your duty is over.”[383]
The yard of an Abyssinian church has been compared to “thelucusor sacred grove of the pagan temple.” “The church itself is square, and built of stone with beams stuck in to support them. At the porch, the wooden lintels, which the pious kiss with intense earnestness,–in fact, kissing the walls and lintels of a church is a great feature in Abyssinian devotion, so much so that, instead of speaking of ‘going to church,’ they say ‘kissing the church,’–are carved with quaint and elaborate devices.”[384]
At Yeha, near Aksum, are the remains of a ruined temple, within the area of which a church was at one time built. “In front of the vestibule stood two rude monoliths, at the base of one of which is an altar with a circular disk on it, presumably, from the analogy of those at Aksum, for receiving the blood of slaughtered victims.” Obviously, the altar of this temple was at its threshold.
Marriages are said to be celebrated in Abyssinia at the church door–the wedding covenant being thus made before the threshold altar.[385]
And so in the earlier temples of Egypt, of Carthage, and of Abyssinia, and in Christian and Muhammadan places of worship, the doorway is held sacred, and, most of all, the threshold, or “floor of the door.”
5. TEMPLE THRESHOLDS IN EUROPE.
Traces of the primitive sacredness of the doorway and the threshold, in places of worship, are to be found in Europe, ancient and modern, as in Asia and Africa.
The term “threshold” occurs in such prominence in connection with temples, in the earliest Greek literature, as to show that its primitive meaning included the idea of altar, or of sanctuary foundation. Thus the House of Zeus on Olympus is repeatedly spoken of as the “House of the Bronze Threshold.”[386]In these references, “the nature of the occurrences, the uniformity of the phrase, the position of the words in the verse, all point to this as an old hieratic phrase, and the meaning evidently is, ‘the house that is stablished forever.’”[387]
This term “bronze threshold” occurs more than once in reference to the temple-palace of Alcinoüs.[388]Tartarus is described as having gates of iron and a “bronze threshold.”[389]Night and day meet as they cross the “great threshold of bronze;” and Atlas upholds heaven at the threshold of the under-world.[390]
The treasures of Delphi are described as “within the stone threshold of the archer god, Phoebus Apollo, in Rocky Pytho.”[391]And he who seeks counsel at that oracle is spoken of as one who crosses “the stone threshold.”[392]
In Sophocles’ “Oedipus at Colonus” the Athenian warns the stranger Oedipus that he is on holy ground, in the realm of Poseidon, and that the spot where he now treads is “called the brazen threshold of the land, the stay of Athens.”[393]In other words, the bronze threshold is an archaic synonym for the enduring border, or outer limit, of spiritual domain.
This prominence given to the threshold in earlier Greek literature is not, it is true, continued in later writings; yet there are traces of it still in occasional poetic references to the “threshold of life,” and the “threshold of the year,” and the “threshold of old age.” When Homer refers “to houses, to rooms in houses, or to courtyards, the ‘threshold’ is constantly spoken of: a man steps over a threshold, stands at a threshold, sits at a threshold, etc. And so important is the threshold that its material is almost regularly mentioned; it is ash, oak, stone, bronze, etc. In later times all these locutions disappear; men go throughdoorways, enter, stand in porches, etc., instead.”[394]Yet it is the archaic use that points to the primitive prominence of the threshold.
In historic times, however, as in earlier, the altar of sacrifice was to be found, in Grecian and Roman temples, near the threshold of the door. While there were smaller altars, for the offering of incense and bloodless sacrifices, in the interior of temples, the larger and more important altars, for the offering of animal sacrifices, whether of beasts or of men, were before the temple, in front of the threshold,–bomoi pronaoi.[395]
A ruined temple of Artemis Propylæa, at Eleusis, shows the main altar immediately before the threshold, between the antæ. The altar of the temple of Apollo at Delphi was in a like position; as shown in the fact that “when Neoptolemus is attacked by Orestes in the vestibule of the temple at Delphi, he seizes the arms which were suspended by means of nails or pins from one of the antæ, takes his station upon the altar, and addresses the people in his own defense.”[396]
When the “priest of Jupiter, whose temple wasbefore the city” of Lystra, would have given divine honors to Paul and Barnabas, he brought the garlanded oxen “unto the gates,” to sacrifice them there. At the gate of the city, within which the supposed gods were to be found, seemed the proper place of sacrifice.[397]
There are references in classic story, as in Babylonian legends, in Phenician and Syrian beliefs, and in the Hebrew prophetic visions, to life-giving waters flowing out from under the threshold of the sanctuary. In the garden of the palace-temple of Alcinoüs “are two springs, the one ripples through the whole garden, the other opposite it gushes under the threshold of the courtyard to the lofty house, and from it the citizens draw their water.”[398]On “the apple-growing shores of the Hesperides,” where Atlas upholds “the holy threshold of heaven,” according to the poets, “springs of ambrosia pour from the chamber of Zeus, from his bedside,” and give a rich blessing to the life-giving earth.[399]And of Delphi it is said: “Going toward the temple we come upon the spring Cassotis: there is a low wall about it, and you ascend to the spring through the walls. The water of this Cassotis they say sinks underground, and in the shrine of the god [Apollo] makes the woman prophetic [is inspiration to her.]”[400]
In the early churches of Europe, the threshold marked a sacred boundary of the edifice, to cross which indicated a certain covenant right to participate in the privileges of the house of God. As the structure of the churches changed, in the progress of the centuries, the threshold of the sanctuary came to be in a different portion of the building, or series of buildings; but its sacredness remained, wherever it was supposed to be. The term “altar” also changed, from the border line of the place of worship, to the holy table within the sanctuary.
Speaking of the growth of the early church buildings, Bingham says: “In the strictest sense, including only the buildings within the walls, they were commonly divided into three parts: (1.) Thenarthexor ante-temple, where the penitents and catechumens stood. (2.) Thenaosor temple, where the communicants had their respective places. And (3.) thebēmaor sanctuary, where the clergy stood to officiate at the altar. But in a larger sense there was another ante-temple ornarthexwithout the walls, under which was comprised the propylæa, orvestibulum, the outward porch; then theatriumor area, the court leading from that to the temple, surrounded with porticos or cloisters.... There were also severalexedræ, such as the baptistery, thediaconicum, thepastophoria, and other adjacent buildings, which were reckoned to beeither without or within the church, according as it was taken in a stricter or a larger acceptation.”[401]
In the early churches, the place of baptism was outside of the church proper, or thenaos, it is said. “There is nothing more certain than that for many ages the baptistery was a distinct place from the body of the church, and reckoned among theexedræ, or places adjoining to the church.”[402]“The first ages all agreed in this, that, whether they had baptisteries or not, the place of baptism was always without the church.”[403]Even in mediæval times, in the churches of England, baptisms were on the outer side of the threshold of the church proper, “the child being held without the doors of the church”[404]until baptized. In many churches of Europe at the present time the baptismal font is at or near the door of the church.
In 1661, a formal reply of the Church of England bishops to a request of the Presbyterians that the font might be placed before the congregation, that all might see it, was: “The font usually stands, as it did in primitive times, at or near the church door, to signify that baptism was the entrance into the church mystical.”[405]
Marriages, like baptisms, were at the church porch or outside of the threshold. “The old missals direct the placing of the man and the woman at the church door during the service, and that at the end of it they shall proceed within up to the altar.”[406]The idea would seem to be that a holy covenant like marriage, which is the foundation of a new family, must be solemnized at the primitive family altar,–the threshold.
Describing the marriage rites of Germany in the middle ages, Baring-Gould says: “In a Ritual of Rennes, of the eleventh century, we find a rubric to this effect: ‘The priest shall go before the door of the church in surplice and stole, and ask the bridegroom and bride prudently whether they desire to be legally united; and then he shall make the parents give her away, according to the usual custom, and the bridegroom shall fix the dower, announcing before all present what (witthum) he intends to give the bride. Then the priest shall make him betroth her with a ring, and give her an honorarium of gold or silver according to his means. Then let him give the prescribed benediction. After which, entering into the church, let him begin mass; and let the bridegroom and bride hold lighted candles, and make an oblation at the offertory; and before the Pax let the priestbless them before the altar under a pall or other covering [the wedding canopy], according to custom; and lastly, let the bridegroom receive the kiss of peace from the priest, and pass it on to his bride.’”[407]
“In ancient times the people of France were married, not within the church at the altar as now, but at the outer door. This was the case in 1599, in which year Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry II., was married to Philip II. of Spain; and the Bishop of Paris performed the ceremony at the door of the cathedral of Notre Dame. Another instance of this kind occurred in 1599 in France. Henrietta Maria was married to King Charles by proxy at the door of Notre Dame, and the bride, as soon as the ceremony was over entered the church, and assisted at [attended] mass.”[408]
“The pre-Reformation rule was to begin the marriage service at the door of the church. In his ‘Wyf of Bathe,’ Chaucer [in the days of Edward III.] refers to this custom:–
‘Housbandes atte chirche dore I have had fyve.’
‘Housbandes atte chirche dore I have had fyve.’
‘Housbandes atte chirche dore I have had fyve.’
‘Housbandes atte chirche dore I have had fyve.’
This old usage was abandoned by authority in the time of Edward VI. Yet there is reason for thinking that it was not entirely given up. “There is a poem of Herrick’s, written about 1640, which is entitled,‘The Entertainment or Porch Verse at the Marriage of Mr. Hen. Northly.’”[409]
“When Edward I. married Marguerite of France, in 1299, he endowed her at the door of Canterbury Cathedral.” Selden declares that “dower could be lawfully assigned only at the door;” and Littleton affirms to the same effect.[410]
“At Witham in Essex it is, or was, the custom to perform the first part of the marriage service at the font [near the door]. When the Rev. A. Snell was appointed to the benefice in 1873, he spoke to a bridegroom about this usage, and he (the bridegroom) particularly requested that he might be married at the font, as he liked old customs.”[411]
Another survival of the primitive rite of threshold covenanting seems to be shown in certain customs observed in various parts of Europe, which look like the substitution of an altar-stone for a threshold altar, in the marriage ceremony.
“Thus in the old temple of Upsal [in Sweden], wedding couples stood upon a broad stone which was believed to cover the tomb of St. Eric.”[412]Corresponding customs in other regions would go to showthat the earlier practice was to leap over the stone, as a mode of threshold covenanting, instead of standing on it. The latter was a change without a reason for it.
For instance, just outside “the ruined church, or abbey, of Lindisfarne, is the socket or foot-stone, in which was mortised a ponderous stone cross, erected by Ethelwold, and broken down by the Danes. This socket stone is now called the “petting stone,” and whenever a marriage is solemnized in the neighborhood, after the ceremony the bride is obliged to step upon it; and if she cannot stride to the end thereof, the marriage is deemed likely to prove unfortunate and fruitless.” While this would seem to point to the custom of standing upon the stone, in the modern marriage customs of the same region, a barrier is “erected at the churchyard gate, consisting of a large paving-stone which was placed on its edge and supported by two smaller stones. On either side stood a villager, who made the couple and every one else jump over it.”[413]
“In Lantevit Major Church was a stone called the ‘marriage stone,’ with many knots and flourishes, and the head of a person upon it, and this inscription:
‘Ne Petra calceturQu[a]e subjacet ista tuetur,’
‘Ne Petra calceturQu[a]e subjacet ista tuetur,’
‘Ne Petra calceturQu[a]e subjacet ista tuetur,’
‘Ne Petra calcetur
Qu[a]e subjacet ista tuetur,’
Brides usually stood upon this stone at their marriages.”[414]Yet the inscription itself:
“Let not the stone be trodden upon;What it lies under, it guards,”
“Let not the stone be trodden upon;What it lies under, it guards,”
“Let not the stone be trodden upon;What it lies under, it guards,”
“Let not the stone be trodden upon;
What it lies under, it guards,”
forbids standing upon this threshold altar; and it is probable that in earlier times it was stepped over in marriage covenant, and not upon.
At Belford, in Northumberland, it is still the custom to make the bridal pair, with their attendants, leap over a stone placed in their path outside the church porch. This stone also is called the “petting stone,” or the “louping stone.” At the neighboring village of Embleton, in the same county, two stout young lads place a wooden bench across the door of the church porch, and assist the bride and groom and their attendants to surmount the obstacle; for which assistance a gift of money is expected. In some places a stick has been held by the groomsmen at the church door for the bride to jump over. And again a stool has been placed at the churchyard gate, over which the whole bridal party must jump one by one; and this stool has been called the “parting-stool.”[415]
A “mode of marriage” current in Ireland, untilrecent times, was that of jumping over a form of the cross;[416]and jumping over a broomstick as a form of marriage would seem to be a survival of this custom of leaping across the threshold-stone, in token of a covenant. “Jumping the broomstick” is sometimes spoken of as an equivalent of marriage.
These various obstacles to progress, at wedding time, would seem to be as suggestions of the threshold altar, which must be passed in the marriage covenant. The church threshold, like the home threshold, is a temporary hindrance to an advance. Unless it is stepped across, the covenant is incomplete.
An illustration of the popular idea of the sacredness of the church threshold, and of the impropriety of stepping on it, in its passing, is found in a Finnish mode of judging a clergyman. “In Finland, it is regarded as unlucky if a clergyman steps on the threshold, when he comes to preach at a church.” A writer on this subject says: “A Finnish friend told me of one of his relations going to preach at a church, a few years ago,–he being a candidate for the vacant living,–and the people most anxiously watched if he stepped on the threshold as he came in. Had he done so, I fear a sermon never so eloquent would have counted but little against so dire an omen.”[417]Here is a new peril for pulpit candidates, if this primitive test becomes widely popular!
Even to the present time, it is customary, in portions of Europe, for Jews to rub their fingers on the posts of a synagogue doorway, and then kiss their fingers. Quite an indentation in the stone at the door of the synagogue in Worms is to be seen, as due to this constant sacred rubbing.[418]
In the West, as in the East, traces of the primitive sacredness of the threshold and the doorway are to be found. The stepped pyramid, or uplifted threshold, with the sanctuary at its summit, was the earliest form of temple or place of worship in Mexico, and in Central and South America. In the later and more elaborate temples there was no altar within the building, although an image of the god was there.
The altar, or stone of sacrifice, was without, before the door of the sanctuary.[419]When a sacrifice was offered on the altar, the blood of that sacrifice was smeared on the doors of the temple of the god.[420]Human sacrifices were included in these offerings,in earlier times.[421]Even when larger temples were erected, and altars were enclosed within them, human victims were brought to the temple entrance into the hands of the priests; and from the threshold they were borne by the priests themselves, to be laid on the altar.[422]
Among the Pipiles, a Maya people, in Central America, there were “two principal and very solemn sacrifices; one at the commencement of summer, and the other at the beginning of winter.” Little boys, from six to twelve years old, were the victims of sacrifice. At the sound of trumpets and drums, which assembled the people, four priests came out of the temple with braziers of coals on which incense was burning, and after various ceremonies and religious exercises they proceeded to the house of the high-priest, near the temple, and took from it the boy victim of the sacrifice. He was then conducted four times round the court of the temple, with dancing and singing.
When this ceremony was finished, the high-priest came out of his house with the second priest and his major-domo, and they proceeded to the temple steps, accompanied by the principal men of the locality, who, however, stopped at the threshold of the temple.Then and there the four priests “seized the victim by his extremities, and the major-domo coming out, with little bells on his wrists and ankles, opened the left breast of the boy, tore out his heart, and handed it to the high-priest, who put it into a little embroidered purse, which he closed.”
The blood of the victim was received by the priests in a vessel made of a gourd, and was by them sprinkled in the direction of the four cardinal points. Then the heart, in its purse, was put back into the body of the victim, and the body itself was interred inside of the temple. This sacrifice, at the threshold altar, was performed at the threshold, or the beginning, of each of the two chief seasons of the year.[423]
In the temples of Central America, generally, the doorway was hardly less prominent than in the temples of Egypt. There were massive decorations on and above the lintels; the door jams were richly sculptured; and there were male and female figures, or figures of animals, as guardians on either side of the entrance. In some instances a winged globe was above the door; and the uplifted hand was found over the doorway or at the sides.[424]
Among the Natchez Indians, along the lower Mississippi, there was an annual “Harvest Festival,” or “Festival of New Fire,” which was celebrated with great ceremony. An altar was in front of the temple, just before the door. On this occasion the priest of the sun stood on the threshold of the temple in the early morning, watching for the first rays of the rising sun. The chiefs, and braves old and young, stood near the altar. The women with infants in their arms stood in a semicircle facing the priest. When he gave the signal of his recognition of the sun, by rubbing two pieces of wood to start a new fire for the altar, they faced about to the east and held up their infants to the sun. Other exercises of worship followed. The priest’s place in this ceremony was on the threshold, before the altar of that temple.[425]
In America, as in the other continents, there are survivals of the primal sacredness of the threshold of a place of public worship, in the formal ceremonies attending the laying of the corner-stone, or threshold-stone, of a new church building of any denomination; and in the use of holy water at the doorway on entering Roman Catholic churches. More or less importance is attached in Protestant Episcopal churches to the location of the baptismal font near the door, andto the beginning of the marriage service before the bridal party approaches the threshold of the sanctuary proper.
If indeed, there be found no trace of the fountain of life flowing from under the threshold sanctuary of the gods worshiped by the aborigines of America, such a fountain was searched for in this land by Ponce de Leon and his followers.
There is a certain resemblance in the plan of some of the temples of the South Sea Islands to those of Central America. A stepped pyramid in a large court was the central shrine; “in front of which the images were kept, and the altars fixed.”[426]In both cases the altars were outside of the shrine,–at its threshold, as it were. A method of sacrificing was by bleeding a pig to death before the altar, “washing the carcass with the blood, and then placing it in a crouching position on the altar.”[427]An uplifted hand was one of the symbols on these stepped pyramid shrines.[428]The temple foundation, or the threshold of the sacred building, was formerly laid in human blood.[429]
A recognition of the threshold, in a sacred service, and in a form of covenanting, is found in the ceremoniesof circumcision as observed in Madagascar. This rite is not at infancy, as among the Jews, but is at the threshold of young manhood. Its period is fixed by the king, who, on “an application from the parents or the friends of any number of children in a given province, appoints a time, and orders the observance of the rite.” He is the “high-priest on this occasion.” The rite marks the transition of the boy from his dependence on his parents to his personal service of the king, as a member of the community.
Holy water is brought from a distance to the house of the master of ceremonies, as the sanctuary for the occasion. A sheep is killed immediately before this house, and the boys are caused to step across its blood. This sacrifice is called “fahazza,” or “causing fruitfulness,” and it is supposed to be the means of causing fruitfulness in all the women who obtain a share of it.
A tree is planted at the northeast corner of the house, and a lamp is fixed on it. Honey and water are poured upon the tree, and the boys partake of this mixture. The next day the persons present walk three times round the house, with various ceremonies, and then stop at the doorway. The rite of circumcision is performed on each boy as he sits on a drum at “the threshold of the door,” held firmly by several men. The knife with which it is performed is previouslydipped in the blood of a young bullock, an ear of which is slit by the operator. A covenant of fealty to the king is entered into by the youth on this occasion. Sacrifices and feasting follow this ceremony.[430]
One of the ancient gods of Maui, an island of Hawaii, was Keoroeva. “In all the temples dedicated to its worship, the image was placed within the inner apartment, on the left-hand side of the door; and immediately before it stood the altar, on which the offerings of every kind were usually placed.”[431]The altar was at the doorway, in this case, as so generally elsewhere. Tiha was a female idol, as Keoroeva was a male, and much “the same homage and offerings” were given to her as to him.[432]
In Kohala, one of the large divisions of Hawaii, stood a prominent temple called Bukohōla, built by King Kamehameha, at the time of his conquest of the Sandwich Islands. “At the south end of this great edifice was a kind of inner court, which might be called thesanctum sanctorumof the temple, where the principal idol used to stand, surrounded by a number of images of inferior deities.” “On the outside, near the entrance to the inner court [at the threshold of thesanctum sanctorum] was the place of therere[orlélé](altar), on which human and other sacrifices were offered.”[433]
Human victims were ordinarily slain in sacrifice outside of the sanctuary proper, and then their bodies, carefully preserved whole, were taken within to be presented to the idol.[434]
There were Hawaiian cities of refuge, orpuhonuas, as sanctuaries for guilty fugitives. A thief, or a murderer, might be pursued to the very gateway of one of those cities, but as soon as he crossed the threshold of that gate, even though the gate were open, and no barrier hindered pursuit, he was safe, as at the city altar. When once within the sacred city, the fugitive’s first duty was to present himself before the idol, and return thanks for his protection.[435]This was substantially the Hebrew law as to the cities of refuge.[436]Safety was only within the threshold.
There are traces of the primitive idea of a spring of life-giving waters flowing from under the threshold of the goddess of life, in the Islands of the Sea. According to the myths of that region, Vari, or “The-very-beginning” of life was a woman. She plucked off apiece of her right side and it became a man, or part man and part fish, known as Vātea, or Avatea. From the under-world there came to Vātea a supernatural woman called Papa, or Foundation. From this union the human race began. Rongo was the first-born son. The Hades of Polynesia is Avaika, or Hawaika. In the days of Rongo, and later, there was an opening from earth to Avaika; but because of the misdoings of the denizens of that realm, coming up through that passage-way, Tiki, a lovely woman, a descendant of Rongo, “rolled herself alive down into the gloomy opening, which immediately closed upon her.” She was the first to die. And now “Tiki sits at the threshold” of her home below, to welcome the descendants of Rongo, who bring her an offering. A sacred stream of water, “Vairorongo,” comes up from below into the sacred grove devoted to the worship of Rongo, and near that stream it is possible for a spirit to be returned to life and to a home on earth again.[437]
It is obvious that the idea of the sacredness of the threshold, in home, in temple, or in sanctuary, is not of any one time or of any one people, but is of human nature as human nature everywhere. It shows itself all the world over, and always. And it has to do with life, and its perpetuation or reproduction.
8. ONLY ONE FOUNDATION.
An idea tangent to, rather than identical with, the thought of the altar sacredness of the temple threshold, as found among primitive peoples, is that the first temple foundation is the foundation for all subsequent temple building at that place. And it has already been shown that the threshold, or hearthstone, or corner-stone, is considered the foundation.[438]
In ancient Babylonia a temple, however grand and extensive, was supposed to be built on the foundation of an earlier temple; the one threshold being the first threshold and the latest. If, indeed, there was a variation from the original foundation in the construction of a new temple, there was confusion and imperfectness in consequence, and the only hope of reformation was in finding the first temple threshold and rebuilding on it.
There is an illustration of this in an inscription discovered in the foundation of a temple at “Ur of the Chaldees.”[439]Nabonidus (556–538 B.C.), the last Babylonian king, tells with interest of his search for the old foundation, or outline plan, of the ancient temple, Eulbar, or, more properly, Eulmash, of the goddess Istar of Agade, as follows:[440]
The foundation of Eulmash in Agade had not been found from Sargon, king of Babylon (3800 B.C.), and Narâm-Sin, his son, kings living formerly, until the government of Nabunaʾid king of Babylon.
King Kurigalzu (II.), about 1300 B.C., had, in his reign, searched for this foundation, but had failed to find it, and he had left this record: “The foundation of Eulmash I sought, but did not find it.” Later on, Esarhaddon, king of Assyria and Babylonia (681–669 B.C.), searched for it, but without success. Again, Nebuchadrezzar (605–561 B.C.) mobilized his large armies, and ordered them to search for the foundation stone, or threshold, but all his efforts were in vain. Finally Nabunaʾid, the last king of Babylon before its fall under Cyrus, gathered his many soldiers, and ordered them to search for the foundation stone. For “three years in the tracks of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon,” says Nabunaʾid, “I sought right and left, before and behind, but did not find it.”
Encouraged by a prompting from the moon-god Sin, Nabunaʾid tried at another time and in another place, and this time with success. He found the inscription of King Shagarakti-Buriash (1350 B.C.), which tells that he had laid a new foundation exactly upon the old one of King Zabû (about 2300 B.C.). Then Nabunaʾid made sure to preserve the exact outline of the old shrine. He laid the foundation, andrestored the ancient temple, so that “it did not deviate an inch to the outside or the inside.”[441]
There are indications of the same high value set upon the primal foundation of a temple in the records of ancient Egypt. A temple at its highest grandeur is in the location of a prehistoric sanctuary. “The site on which it is built is generallyholy ground,[442]that is, a spot on which since the memory of man an older sanctuary of the god had stood. Even those Egyptian temples which seem most modern have usually a long history,–the edifice may have seemed very insignificant, but as the prestige of the god increased larger buildings were erected, which again, in the course of centuries, were enlarged and rebuilt in such a way that the original plan could no longer be traced. This is the history of nearly all Egyptian temples, and explains the fact that we know so little of the temples of the Old and of the Middle Empire; they have all been metamorphosed into the vast buildings of the New Empire.”[443]
While early Vedic and Brahmanic religion makes no mention of temples as such, fire from an ancestral altar was borne to a newly erected altar, in order to secure a continuance of the sacred influences issuingfrom that original family threshold.[444]And Vishnooism takes old temples from Booddhism for its centers of worship, prizing the old sacred foundation.
“Buddha-Gaya,” or “Bodhi-Gaya,” in Upper India, is famous as the locality of the holy pipal tree, or the Booddha-drum (“Tree of Knowledge”), under which for six years sat Sakya Sinha, in meditation, before he attained to Booddha-hood. A temple still standing on that site is supposed to have been rebuilt A.D. 1306, on the remains of one visited by Hwen Thsang, a Chinese traveler, in the seventh century of our era, which, in turn, had been built by Amara Sinha, or Amara Deva, about A.D. 500. This earlier temple is said to have been built by a command of Booddha himself conveyed in a vision, or by a command of the Brahmanical Mahâdeva, on the site of a still earlier sanctuary, or monastery, erected by Asoka between 259 and 241 B.C., on the site of Booddha’s meditations, about 300 B.C.[445]The existing temple has been called at different times “Buddha-pad” and “Vishnu-pad,” “Booddha’s foot” and “Vishnoo’s foot.”
Kuru-Kshetra, or the “Plain of Kuru,” near Delhi, India, has been deemed holy ground from time immemorial.At Thâvesar, on this plain, a temple of Siva was built on a site that was sacred long before Sivaism was known. It is even believed that the sacredness of this site runs back to the ancient times of the Rig Veda. The boundaries of this “Holy Land” are given in the great Hindoo epic, the Mahabharata. This plain is said to comprise three hundred and sixty holy shrines, each of which is erected on a foundation sacred from the times of the gods themselves.[446]
So general, in India, is this habit of building a sanctuary on an old sacred foundation, that it is said that “the erection of a mosk by a Muhammadan conqueror always implies the previous destruction of a Hindu temple.”[447]Thus a mosk erected by the emperor Altamash, A D. 1232, is supposed to have been on the foundation of a temple of the sun, built for Raja Pasupati about A.D. 300.[448]Not a new foundation, but an old one, was sought, in India, for a new temple, even to a god newly worshiped there.
Fourteen centuries before Christ, Pan-Kăng, an emperor of China, moved his capital from north of the Ho to south of it because he had ascertained that the original foundation was attempted to be laid there by his ancestor Thang in the Shing dynasty, seventeen reigns before him; hence the removal back to thatfirst foundation would renew the blessing of Thang upon his descendants.[449]
A temple has added sacredness in China according as its foundation is on a spot originally chosen or honored by a representative of Heaven as a threshold of a place of worship. Thus Tai Shan, or the “Great Mount,” in the province of Shantung, China, is mentioned in the Shoo King, or Book of Records, as the site of the great Emperor Shun’s altar of sacrifice to Heaven, 2254 B.C., or, say, three centuries before the time of Abraham. On this holy mountain, as the earliest historic foundation of Chinese worship, “is the great rendezvous of devotees, every sect has there its temples and idols, scattered up and down its sides;” and great multitudes come thither to worship from near and far.[450]
This idea shows itself in modern discoveries among the ruins of ancient Greece. It appears that when Pericles (437 B.C.) began his building of the new Propylæa on the Acropolis, he would have cleared away the remains of such ancient sacred structures as stood within its outline. “The plan of Mnesikles the architect was very simple, and is still clear enough, though it was never fully carried out.” “That the original plan of Mnesikles had undergone modificationswas long ago seen by every architect who made the Propylæa matter of serious study.” Dr. Dörpfeld thinks he has discovered how the plan was modified, and why. The enforced departure from the original plan seems to have been because that plan involved the destruction of shrines on an earlier foundation, with a threshold that might not be moved. The gate of Cimon, with its “statue of some guardian god of the gate,–it may be Hermes Propylaios himself,”–was within that outline, and also other sacred sites.
“Against such intrusion it is very likely the priesthood rose and protested, and, before even the foundations were laid, he had to give up, at least for the time, the whole of the southeast hall, and a part of the southwest wing.” This conclusion is the result of recent investigation by careful scholars, and it is in accordance with the ascertained fact that in primitive thought an original foundation for a temple or shrine is counted sacred for all time as the foundation there for such a place of worship, not to be swept away or ignored in any rebuilding or new building.[451]
When from any reason, in early Europe, an ancient shrine must be removed from its primitive foundation, it was deemed desirable to remove to the new site a portion of the foundation itself, as well as the sanctuary or altar above that foundation. Thus, for example,when Thorolf of Norway, who had charge of the temple of Thor in Mostur, removed to Iceland in A.D. 833, he took with him the temple posts and furniture “and the very earth on which the altar of that idol had been erected.” And when he landed in Iceland, Thorolf built a new temple of Thor, with an altar on the foundation which he had brought from the earlier shrine. A thousand years after this the foundation-site of that second temple was still pointed out near Hofstad, in Iceland.[452]
Bible language and narrative abound with incidental evidence of the commonness of this primitive idea. When Jacob, on his way to Haran, came to Beth-el–a House of God–he lighted on “the place” (hammaqâm) where,[453]long before, his ancestor Abraham had worshiped, as he came from Egypt by way of the Negeb.[454]And yet earlier Abraham himself, as he came a pilgrim from Haran and Ur, had there “builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord.”[455]And if that place were already known as Beth-el it must have been a sanctuary before Abraham’s day.
Moses, in the wilderness of Sinai, is told that the ground whereon he stands is “holy ground,” and that he is to bring the Hebrews out of Egypt to worshipGod in that mountain.[456]And the Egyptian records give reason for supposing that that region of Mt. Sinai, perhaps of the moon-god “Sin,” was known as holy ground, and as the “land of God,” or of the gods, before the days of Moses.[457]
At Jerusalem the Temple was built on Mt. Moriah, where the ark of the covenant rested after its return from Philistia,[458]and where David erected an altar to the Lord after the staying of the pestilence from Israel.[459]And it is supposed that this same Mt. Moriah was where Abraham offered a sacrifice to God on an altar he had built for the sacrifice of his son.[460]And this site of the Temple at Jerusalem is held sacred to-day, in view of its being deemed by multitudes a holy place from the beginning of the world.[461]
When Naaman the Syrian was healed of leprosy by Elisha, the prophet of Israel, he desired thenceforth to worship Jehovah in his Syrian home. To this end he asked of Elisha the gift of “two mules’ burden of earth” from Samaria, in order that he might on that sacred foundation erect in Syria an altar to Jehovah.[462]
In a prophecy of the Messiah as the foundation, or threshold, of a new temple, it was declared by theLord: “Behold, I lay [or, I have laid] in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone of sure foundation.”[463]Again, it was the promise of God to the Israelites that they should be restorers of worship on former foundations. “They that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.”[464]
New Testament phraseology makes frequent reference to this same idea. “According to the grace which was given unto me, as a wise master-builder, I laid a foundation,” says Paul. “But let each man take heed how he buildeth thereon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus.”[465]The Christian saints of the “household of God,” as “living stones,”[466]are “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone; in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord.”[467]
Muhammadanism, which shows many survivals of primitive ideas and primitive customs, emphasizes the importance of the first foundation as the only foundation, in the traditions and legends of the holy placesof its most sacred city. Everymasjid, or “place of prostration,” in that vicinity is on a site counted holy long centuries before the days of the Prophet of Islam.
The Kaʿbah, or Holy House, in the mosk at Meccah is said to have been built by Adam himself, on the model of a similar structure in heaven. It would seem as if no earthly foundation, or threshold, could have been earlier than that; indeed, the Qurân declares: “The first house appointed unto men to worship in was that which was in Beccah [or Meccah];”[468]yet there is a tradition that Adam erected a place of prayer even before he built the Kaʿbah. In the Deluge the Holy House was destroyed; but Abraham was directed to rebuild it, and on digging beneath the surface of its site he discovered the original foundation, and the Kaʿbah was newly built up on that.
According to Muhammadan traditions, it was while Hagar was near the site of the Holy House, with her famishing son Ishmael, that a spring of water gushed forth with its life-giving stream from beneath that holy site. And that spring is the well Zemzem, or Zamzam, whose waters are deemed sacred and life-giving to-day.
Mount Arafat, a holy hill near Meccah, is another place of pilgrimage, and its sacredness dates from even an earlier day than the laying of the first foundationof the Holy House at Meccah by Adam. When our first parents were cast out of their heavenly paradise, Adam lighted in Ceylon, and Eve in Arabia. Seeking each other, they met on Mount Arafat, or the Mount of Recognition, and therefore that spot of their reunion and new covenanting is a place of pilgrimage and worship for the faithful of all the world at this time.[469]Adam is said to have built amadaa, a place of prayer, on Mount Arafat, before he built the Kaʿbah.[470]The religion of Islam thus teaches its subjects to worship at the earliest threshold laid by our first parents in their primal covenanting, and all other religions recognize the importance of a similar idea.