in such a manner as to leave no doubt that its position and limits, with several of its leading features, were sufficiently marked in his day. But from this time forward I have not met with any clear notices of the site, until shortly before the Saracenic conquest, when Antoninus Placentinus (cir. 600) distinctly alludes to the ruins of the Temple of Solomon'. It has been stated that Omar, having enquired for the Mosk of David, was conducted, after some hesitation, to a neglected and polluted site, where traces of ancient masonry still existed. Over these he commenced the erection of his Mosk, which with its more splendid successor has perpetuated the tradition unto this day. The Patriarch Eutychius (A. D. 940) accounts for the desertion and desecration of the site as follows: "When the Greeks embraced the Christian faith, Helena the mother of Constantine built Churches in Jerusalem. But the Sakhrah and the parts about it were then covered with Sanctcrum loco usque in præsentem diem stetit. Abominatio quoque secundùm veterem Scripturam, idolum nuncupatur: et idcirco additur, desolationis; quòd in desolato Templo atque destructo idolum positum sit. Comment. in loc. Op. Tom. IV. col. 115. See p. 127, note 4, for the passage relating to the Temple area, and the gates leading to Siloam; and p. 335, note 8. 4 It is to be regretted that we have no trustworthy notices of Jerusalem between S. Jerome (cir. 400) and Arculfus (c. 697), except such as are scattered in the pages of Cyril of Scythopolis, and writers of that class. Antoninus Martyr certainly wrote before the time of Mohammed, for he speaks of the Saracens as idolaters, and describes their idol, of snow-white marble but 66 5 See the account in Vol. I. p. 316, and notes. 6 Eutychii Annales, Arab. et Lat. Oxon. 1658, 4to. Tom. 11. pp. 286, 289. ruins, and were so left. Indeed, they had cast soil on the rock, so that it became a large dunghill, and was altogether neglected by the Greeks, who did not reverence it as the Jews had done. Neither did they build any Church upon it; because our Lord Christ had said in the Holy Gospel, Behold, your house shall be left unto you desolate;' and again, 'There shall not be left one stone upon another which shall not be cast down and laid waste.' On this account the Christians had left it in ruins, and built no Church upon it." 6 Notwithstanding, however, this neglect and contempt, it may, I think, be safely admitted that the ruins would not allow the tradition to pass into complete oblivion, and that Omar did succeed in recovering the actual site, as the universal consent of Christian and Jewish writers attests. Nor can I doubt that the venerated pierced rock of the Jews, mentioned by the Bordeaux Pilgrim', is identical with the sacred Sakhrah of the Moslems, and that it marks the position-not of the Holy of Holies, as the later Christian, Jewish, and Moslem authors profess, but as an earlier Christian tradition consistently maintains of the brazen altar2 See the quotation above, p. 334, note 1. 2 I find a curious confirmation of the idea, that the lapis pertusus is identical with the Sakhrah, and that this rock marks the site not of the Holy of Holies, but of the brazen altar, in this, that while the Bordeaux Pilgrim places the lapis pertusus non longe de statuis, S. Jerome states that the statue occupied the place of the Holy of Holies, see p. 338, note 3. The Christians in later times seem to have fallen into confusion, by supposing that the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite, where David erected the altar (which they uniformly identify with the Sakhrah), became, in the arrangement of the Temple, the place of the Holy of Holies; not, as it really did, of the brazen altar. Compare 1 Chron. xxii. 1, with the preceding Chapter. P. Lemming, in his Specimen of Kemal-ed-din, has collected the various traditions of this Rock, pp. xvi_xxi. before the Porch of the Temple; for this confusion and disadjustment in detail, while the main tradition has remained fixed, is exactly what might have been anticipated, and remarkably parallel to what we have seen in the case of the Holy Sepulchre. The following considerations will, I think, set this matter at rest, and establish an important starting-point for our further investigations. I find, then, the following curious coincidences result from a comparison of the raised platform of the modern Haram with the Rabbinical specifications of measures and with the notices of Josephus. The general dimensions of this platform as given by Mr. Catherwood are 550 feet from North to South, and 450 from East to West. Now assuming the western boundary of this platform to be identical with that of the court of the inner Temple, and measuring Eastward 200 feet, (the approximate value of 133 cubits) the distance, i. e. of the brazen altar from the western boundary of the inner Temple', we come to the sacred rock, which I have mentioned as the probable place of the brazen altar, and idential with the lapis pertusus, the object of Jewish veneration in the time of Constantine. It is a happy suggestion of Professor Willis, that the excavated chamber. at the South-east corner of this rock, venerated by the Mohammedans as 3 Bartlett's Walks, p. 165. Another statement, privately made by the same gentleman, makes it 530 by 425. Mejr-ed-din (1. c. Tome II. p. 93) makes it 253 ziraas from North to South, and 189 from East to West: i. e. (reckoning the ziraa, as 2.2 feet English,) 556 feet by 416. Ali Bey (Travels, Vol. II. p. 218,) gives it as 460 Paris feet from North to South, and 399 from East to West, elevated 16 feet above the general plane of the Haram. 4 Middoth, cap. v. sect. i. p. 375, states it thus, measuring westward: from the Altar to the Porch 22 cubits, total length of the Temple 100 cubits: behind the Most Holy Place to the wall 11 cubits. the Noble Cave, is the cess-pool of the great Altar, the entrance to the canal through which the blood of the victims flowed off to the brook Kedron; for at the South-east horn of the altar was a place in the pavement, one cubit square, where a ring was fixed in a slab of marble, by which was a descent into a pit or chamber, for the purpose of cleansing the drain and removing obstructions'. The base of the altar was 48 feet. (32 cubits) square, and to the East of the altar we should require 235 feet (157 cubits) for the Court of the Priests, the Court of Israel, and the Court of the Women?. The sum of these numbers exceeds the measure of the present platform by about 20 feet; but considering the uncertainty of the reduction which I have followed3, Middoth, cap. III., sects. ii. & iii., Tom. v. p. 357. It is a singular fact that this descent still exists; Ali Bey, writing of the excavated chamber, says, "In the roof of the room, exactly in the middle, there is an aperture almost cylindrical through the whole thickness of the rock, about three feet in diameter. It is called the Place of the Prophet." Travels, Vol. 11. p. 221. There is a corresponding bore " in the centre of the rocky pavement" noticed by Catherwood as the Bir arruah (see above, p. 303). The present entrance was probably formed at a much later period. It is a remarkable coincidence that Middoth places the entrance to this canal at the S.E. horn of the altar, and that both Ali Bey (Vol. 11. p. 220) and Catherwood, 1. c. p. 167, expressly state that the cave is in the S. corner of the rock. So again, Richardson, Vol. 11. p. 301. 2 Given thus in Middoth, com mencing from the East: The Court of the Women 135 cubits, whence was an ascent by 15 semicircular steps to the Court of Israel (cap. II. sect. v. p. 341, 2), which was 11 cubits wide; beyond which, 2 cubits higher, was the Court of the Priests, also 11 cubits wide; then the base of the altar, (cap. II. sect. vi. p. 344. Comp. cap. v. sect. i. p. 375). 3 Reland (Palæstina, p. 397) has remarked that the Rabbinical cubit sometimes exceeds that of Josephus one-third, as e. g. the former state the height of the altar to be 10 cubits, the latter 15; the gates, according to the former, were 20 cubits high and 10 wide; according to the latter, 30 high and 15 wide. This he accounts for by supposing that Josephus, writing for the Romans, used the Roman measures: but then, as he truly remarks, his specifications elsewhere coincide with those of the Talmud; as e. g. when he states the height and width of the Temple to and the roughness of both the ancient and modern measurements, I think this excess need not prevent us from concluding, with considerable certainty, that the present platform, in its width from West to East, represents the length of the inner Temple. The 2021 feet (135 cubits), assigned by the Mishna as the width of the inner Temple', cannot be so clearly accounted for, but it would appear from Josephus that the oblong parallelogram, formed by the courts above specified, stood within a square area; so that there must have been a considerable space on the North and South, between the gates of the inmost court and the low wall of the sacred precinct. If this view be correct, it is very possible that the existing platform may represent, in its length as well as in its breadth, the dimensions of the inner Temple, understanding that expression in the be 100 cubits. I apprehend that the Hebrews in Roman times reckoned by Roman measure, and have assumed the cubit to be equivalent to 1.5 ft. English. 4 The Women's Court was a square of 135 cubits, the Court of Israel and the Court of the Priests were each 135 cubits long by 11 cubits wide, so that they must have extended along the whole West side of the Women's Court, (see the particulars in Middoth 11. cc.) 5 Considerable confusion has arisen from the apparent discrepancy between the two accounts of the Temple, furnished by Josephus in B. J. Lib. v. cap. v., and in Ant. Lib. xv. cap. xi. The following remarks will clear them, and reconcile them both with the Middoth. According to the former account, the second Temple or Holy Place was surrounded with a stone fence (δρύφακτος λίθινος) three cubits high. It was raised 14 steps above the first Temple, was square (TETράywvov), and had a wall of its own, the apparent height of which from without was 40 cubits, but within only 25; for the higher elevation of the stage reduced the apparent height of the wall. Above the 14 steps was a level space of 10 cubits, all plain; then five more steps to the gates; of which there were four on the North, four on the South, two on the East, and none on the West. In the Antiquities, ὁ ἐντὸς περίβολος, which is identical with this, has only three gates on the North, three on the South, and one on the East; the reason of which is, that the three gates of the Women's Court, on the West, the North, and the South, are excluded from the reckoning here, which were included before. |