Chapter II: Earliest Temple Altar (1)

1. FROM HOUSE TO TEMPLE.

A temple is only a more prominent house. As a house was the dwelling of the earlier priest of his household, who was in covenant for himself and his family with the guardian deity of that household; so, afterwards, a temple was a dwelling for the deity guarding an aggregation of families, and for the priests who stood between him and the community.

This is no new or strange truth; it is obvious. “In the Vedas, Yama, as the first man, is the first priest too; he brought worship here below as well as life, and ‘first he stretched out the thread of sacrifice.’”[261] The fire-altar of the home was first the center of worship in the family in India;[262] as later the fire-altar was the center of the worship of the community.

The same cuneiform characters in old Babylonian stand for great house, for palace, and for temple;[263] as similarly, in ancient Egypt, the same hieroglyph represented house or temple,–a simple quadrangular enclosure, with its one doorway.[264]

The oldest form of an Egyptian temple known to us through the inscriptions of the Ancient Empire indicates that the prehistoric houses of worship in that land were mere hovels of wood and lattice-work, over the doors of which was a barbaric ornamentation of bent pieces of wood.[265] The private house became the public temple.

“The design of the Greek temple in its highest perfection was ... a gradual development of the dwelling-house.”[266] Palace and temple were, indeed, often identical in ancient Greece.[267]

Strictly speaking, there were no temples in ancient Persia, any more than in early India. But the fire-altars that were first on the home hearth, or threshold, were made more and more prominent on their uplifted stepped bases, until they towered loftily in the sight of their worshipers.[268]

It is the same Hebrew word, _ohel_, that stands for the “tent” of Abraham, and for the “Tent” or Tabernacle of the congregation of Israel.[269]

In China “temple architecture differs little from that of the houses.”[270] The house of a god is as the house of a man, only grander and more richly ornamented. And Japanese antiquaries say that the architecture of Shinto temples is on the model of the primeval Japanese hut. The temples of Ise, the most sacred of the Shinto sanctuaries, are said to represent this primitive architecture in its purest form.[271]

The father of the family was the primitive priest in the Samoan Islands, and his house was the first place of worship. Then “the great house of the village,” or the place of popular assembling, was used as a temple; and afterwards there were special temple structures with attendant priests.[272]

The transition from house to temple seems to have been a gradual one in the primitive world. The fire-altar of the family came to be the fire-altar of the community of families. The house of a king became both palace and temple, and so again the house of a priest; for the offices of king and of priest were in early times claimed by the same person.[273]

2. SACREDNESS OF THE DOOR.

In all stages of the transition from house to temple, the sacredness of the threshold, of the door, of the entrance-way, of the gate, was recognized in architecture and in ceremonial. Often the door, or the gate, stood for the temple, and frequently the threshold was an altar, or an altar was at the threshold.

There are, indeed, reasons for supposing that the very earliest form of a primitive temple, or sanctuary, or place of worship, was a rude doorway, as covering or as localizing the threshold altar. This would seem to be indicated by prehistoric remains in different parts of the world, as well as in the later development of the idea in the earlier historic ages. The only exception to this was where, as in India or Persia, the fire-altar on an uplifted threshold stood alone as a place of worship.

Two upright stone posts, with or without an overlaying stone across them, and with or without an altar stone between or before them, are among the most ancient remains of primitive man’s handiwork; and a similar design is to be recognized, all the way along in the course of history, down to the elaborate doorway standing by itself as a memorial of the revered dead,[274] or to the monumental triumphal arch as an accompaniment of the highest civilization. And the very name of door, or gate, attaches persistently to the loftiest temple and to the most exalted personage. As the earliest altar was the threshold, the earliest temple was a doorway above the altar at the threshold.

When the first dwellers on the plains of Chaldea, after the Deluge, gathered themselves for the building of a common structure reaching God-ward,[275] they, in their phraseology, called that structure Bab-el, or Bâb-ilu, or Bâbi-ilu, the Door of God.[276] Ancient Egyptians called the sovereign head of their national family “_Per-ao_” (Pharaoh), the exalted House, or Gate, or Door;[277] as to-day the Sultan, who is spiritual father of the faithful Muhammadans, and autocrat of his realm, is widely known as the “Sublime Porte,” or the Exalted Door.[278] The modern Babists, in Persia and beyond, look up to their spiritual head as the “Bab,” or the “Door.”[279] “Throughout the East this word [‘Bab’] signifies the court of a prince [as a ruler by divine right].... The threshold of the gate is used in the same sense, and frequently it is qualified by some epithet of nobility, loftiness, or goodness.”[280]

Jesus Christ did not hesitate to say of himself as the Way to God: “I am the Door: by me if any man enter in he shall be saved.”[281]

In China, Japan, Korea, Siam, and India, a gate, or doorway, usually stands before Confucian and Booddhist and Shinto temples, but apart from the temple, and always recognized as of peculiar sacredness. These doorways, in many places, are painted blood-color.[282] They stand “at the entrance of temple grounds, in front of shrines and sacred trees, and in every place associated with the native _kami_”–or gods.[283] Yet, again, in all these countries, the temple gateway is a main feature, or a prominent one, in the chief sanctuaries.[284]

Swinging doors, or gates, are represented, in the religious symbolism of ancient Babylonia, as opening to permit the god Shamash, or the sun, to start out on his daily circuit of the heavens.[285] A door, or a doorway, appears as a shrine for a god in various cylinders from this region; and the god is shown standing within it, just beyond the threshold.[286] Indeed, the doorway shrine is a common form on the Babylonian and the Assyrian monuments, as a standing-place for the gods, and for the kings as representative of the gods.[287] Illustrations of this are found on the Balawat gates,[288] and the sculptures on the rocks at Nahr-el-Kelb[289]–which is itself a gateway of the nations, between the mountains and the sea, on the route between Egypt and Canaan, and both the East and the West.

In ancient Egypt the doorway shrine of the gods was prominent, as in Babylonia.[290] Moreover, a false door was represented in the earlier mastabahs, or tombs, of the Old Empire of Egypt. This representation of a door was toward the west, in which direction Osiris, the god of the under-world, was supposed to enter his realm as the sun went down. On or around this false door were memorial inscriptions, and prayers for the dead; and before it was a table, or altar, for offerings to the _ka_, or soul, of the dead.[291] Gradually this false door came to be recognized as the monumental slab, tablet, or stele, on which were inscribed the memorials of the deceased. As a doorway or a niche, square-topped, or arched, it was the shrine of the one worshiped; and as a panel, or independent stele, it was the place of record of the object of reverence.

“Even at the beginning of the Middle Empire the door form disappeared completely, and the whole space of the stone was taken up with the representation of the deceased sitting before a table of offerings, receiving gifts from his relatives and servants. Soon afterwards it became the custom to round off the stone at the top, and when, under the New Empire, pictures of a purely religious character took the place of the former representations, no one looking at the tomb stele could have guessed that it originated from the false door.”[292]

A “false door” was, in ancient Egypt, a valued gift from a sovereign to an honored subject. Doors of this kind were sometimes richly carved and painted, and were deemed of priceless value by the recipient.[293]

In Phenicia,[294] Carthage,[295] Cyprus,[296] Sardinia,[297] Sicily,[298] and in Abyssinia,[299] a like prominence was given to the door as a door, in temple and in tomb, and as a niche for the figure of a deity or for the representation of one who had crossed the threshold of the new life. And the door-form is a sacred memorial of the dead in primitive lands in various parts of the world, from the rudest trilithon to the more finished structures of a high civilization.[300]

In primitive New Zealand the gateway, or doorway, of a village, a cemetery, or a public building, is both a sacred image and a sacred passage-way. It is in the form of a superhuman personage, and it has its guardians on either hand.[301]

A doorway with an altar between its posts was a symbol of religious worship in ancient Mexico, as in the far East.[302]

It would seem that the “mihrab,” or prayer niche, pointing toward Meccah, in Muhammadan lands, and the Chinese honorary portals and ancestral tablets,[303] as well as the niches for images of saints in churches or at wayside shrines, or for heroes in public halls, in Christian lands, are a survival of the primitive doorway in a tomb.

And wherever the door is prominent as a door, the threshold is recognized and honored as the floor of the door, and as the primitive altar above which the door is erected. To pass through the door is to cross over the threshold of the door.

3. TEMPLE THRESHOLDS IN ASIA.

In all the modern excavations in the region of Babylonia and Assyria, including Tello, Nippur, Sippara, Borsippa, Khorsabad, and Nineveh, it has been found that the threshold, or foundation-stone, of the temple doorway is marked with inscriptions that show its peculiar sanctity; while underneath it, or near it, are frequently buried images and symbols and other treasures in evidence of its altar-like sacredness. On this point evidence has been furnished by Botta,[304] Bonomi,[305] Layard,[306] George Smith,[307] Lenormant,[308] and yet more fully by Dr. Hilprecht, in his later and current researches.

Bonomi suggests that the word “teraphim,” as an image of a household divinity, has its connection with the threshold or the boundary limit; and that the phrase “thy going out, and thy coming in,” which is common in Egyptian, Babylonian, and Hebrew[309] literature, has reference to the threshold and its protecting deities.[310] The outgoing and the incoming are clearly across the threshold and through the door.

The inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar II., concerning his building of the walls of Babylon, comprise various references to the foundations, to the thresholds, and to their guardians. He says: “On the thresholds of the gates I set up mighty bulls of bronze, and mighty snakes standing upright.”[311] Again of the gates of Imgur-Bêl and Nimitti-Bel, of these walls of Babylon, he says: “Their foundations I laid at the surface (down at) the water, with pitch and bricks. With blue enameled tiles which were adorned with bulls and large snakes, I built their interior cleverly. Strong cedars I laid over them as their covering (or roof). Doors of cedarwood with a covering of copper, a threshold (_askuppu_) and hinges of bronze, I set up in their gates. Strong bulls of bronze, and powerful snakes standing upright, I set upon (or at) their threshold (_sippu_). Those gates I filled with splendor for the astonishment of all mankind.”[312]

In a similar manner Nebuchadrezzar describes his work at the gates of “the royal castle of all mankind,” at Babylon,[313] and of his palace.[314] In connection with the shrine or chapel of Nebo (Ezida), within the walls of the temple of Merodach, in Babylon, he says: “Its threshold (_sippu_), its lock and its key, I plated with gold, and made the temple shine daylike.”[315] When he built Ezida (the “eternal house”), the temple of Borsippa, Nebuchadrezzar says: “The bulls and the doors of the gate of the sanctuary, the threshold (_sippu_), the lock, the hinge, I plated with _zarîru_”[316] (an unknown metal, a kind of bronze).

References to the foundations, to the thresholds, to the gates and doorways, and to bulls and upright serpents, as the guardians of the threshold of the temples and palaces of Babylonia and Assyria, are numerous on unearthed cylinders and tablets, and always in such a way as to indicate their peculiar sacredness. In the recent unearthing, at Nippur, of a small building or shrine, between two great temples, an altar was found in the eastern doorway.

It is to be borne in mind that many early temples in Babylonia, as in Mesopotamia, in Egypt, in Mexico, Central America, and Peru, and in the South Sea Islands, were in the form of a stepped pyramid, or a staged tower, with either inclined planes or stairways from each lower stage to the next higher, and with an altar, or a sanctuary or shrine, at the summit.[317] Herodotus, describing one of these temples in Babylon, says that the altars, larger and smaller, were outside the temple.[318]

Light is thrown on the dream of Jacob at Bethel by the shape of the ancient temple in the East. In his vision it was probably not a ladder, but a conventional stepped-temple structure, with its stairways rising heavenward, and its sanctuary, that Jacob saw.[319] The angel ministers were passing up and down the steps, in the service of the Most High God, who himself appeared above the structure. When Jacob waked he said: “Surely the Lord is in this place [or sanctuary]; and I knew it not.... How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven;” and he took the stone which had been his pillow at the threshold of that sanctuary, and set it up for an altar pillar.[320]

In the literature and legends of Babylonia, as of other portions of the ancient world, there is prominent the idea that an entrance into the life beyond this, as in the entrance into this life, the crossing of a threshold from the one world to the other, from the earlier state and the passing of a door, or gate, marks the change to the later, from the sacred to the more sacred. This is peculiarly illustrated in the famous legend of Ishtar’s descent into the under-world in order to bring back to earth her lover Dumuzi.

The Hades of the Babylonians was surrounded by seven high walls, and was approached through seven gates, each of which was guarded by a pitiless warder. Two deities ruled within it–Nergal, “the lord of the great city,” and Beltis-Allat, “the lady of the great land,”–whither everything which had breathed in this world descended after death. Allat was the actual sovereign of the country; and even the gods themselves could enter her realm only on the condition of submitting to death, like mortals, and of humbly avowing themselves her slaves.[321] “The _threshold_ of Allat’s palace stood upon a spring, which had the property of restoring to life all who bathed in it or drank of its waters.” Yet it was needful that another life should be given for one who would be reborn into this life, after crossing the threshold of the regions beyond.[322]

In the descent of the goddess Ishtar into Allat’s realm, in pursuit of her lover Dumuzi, Ishtar was gradually stripped of her garments and adornings at the successive gates, until she appeared naked, as at birth, at the final threshold of the new state.[323] But she was held captive by Allat until Ea, chief among the gods, exerted himself in her behalf, and sent his messenger to secure for both Ishtar and Dumuzi the waters of life which were underneath the threshold of Allat’s realm,–which must be broken in order to their outflowing.[324]

There would seem to be a reference to this primitive idea of the waters of life flowing from under the threshold of the temple, in the vision of the prophet Ezekiel, writing in Babylonia, concerning restored Jerusalem and its holy temple. “Behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward, for the forefront of the house was toward the east: and the waters came down from under, from the right side of the house, on the south of the altar.” (Evidently the altar in this temple was near the threshold.) These flowing waters from under the threshold were life-giving. “Upon the bank of the river,” as it swelled in its progress, “were very many trees on the one side and on the other;” and it was said of this stream: “It shall come to pass, that every living creature which swarmeth, in every place whither the rivers come, shall live; and there shall be a very great multitude of fish: for these waters are come thither, ... and every thing shall live whithersoever the river cometh.”[325] In a curse pronounced against Assyria by the prophet Zephaniah, it was declared that “drought shall be in the thresholds,”[326] instead of life-giving waters.

So, again, the waters of the life-giving Jordan flow out from the threshold of the grotto of Pan, a god of life.[327] And both at the beginning of the Old Testament, and at the close of the New, the waters of life start from the sanctuary of the Author of life.[328]

This Dumuzi of Babylonia has linkings with Tammuz of Syria, with Osiris of Egypt, and with Adonis of Greece, and there are correspondences in all these legends in the references to the door and the threshold of the under-world and the life beyond. Thus, for instance, the Lord’s prophet counts as most heinous of all idolatries the transfer of the weeping worship of Tammuz from the door in the hole of the temple wall to the door of the temple sanctuary.[329]

At the right hand of the entrance of the larger temple unearthed at Nineveh by Layard, a sculptured image of the Assyrian king, with his arm uplifted, was on a doorway stele just outside. And an altar for offerings was in front of that image. Altars

were found similarly situated, just outside the doorway, in a smaller temple in the same region.[330]

An exceptional reverence is shown to the doorway and threshold of their sanctuary, or temple, by the sect of the Yezidis, in the neighborhood of ancient Nineveh, at the present time. Describing an evening service which he attended, Layard says: “When the prayers were ended, those who marched in procession kissed, as they passed by, the right side of the doorway leading into the temple, where a serpent is figured on the wall.” Again, “Soon after sunrise, on the following morning, the sheikhs and cawals offered up a short prayer in the court of the temple.... Some prayed in the sanctuary, frequently kissing the threshold and holy places within the building.”[331]

When the sacred ark of the Hebrews was captured by the Philistines, and brought into the house of the god Dagon, the record is: “When they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again. And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands lay cut off upon the threshold.” It is added, in our present Bible text: “Therefore neither the priests of Dagon, nor any that come into Dagon’s house, tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod, unto this day.”[332]

It would seem, from the words “unto this day,” that this added statement was a gloss by a later writer or copyist. The original force of the wonder was in Dagon’s being overthrown at his very shrine, falling maimed on the threshold altar of his temple. But the suggestion of the gloss is that the unwillingness of the Philistines to tread on the threshold of the temple (which appears to have been of primitive origin) did not exist among the worshipers of Dagon prior to this incident. The Septuagint adds,[333] concerning the later practice of the Philistines at the threshold, “because leaping they leap over it.”

Leaping over the threshold is at times spoken of in the Bible as if it had a taint of idolatry. Thus Zephaniah, foretelling, in the name of the Lord, the divine judgments on idolaters, says: “In that day I will punish all those that leap over the threshold.”[334] This is explained in the Targum as “those that walk in the customs of the Philistines.” Yet the Bible sometimes refers to the temple threshold as a fitting place of worship, and its recognition as a holy altar as commendable.

Ezekiel prophesies that the restored Prince of Israel “shall worship at the threshold of the gate”[335] of the Lord’s house; and he sees, in vision, “the glory of the Lord ... over the threshold of the house.”[336] Again the Lord complains of the profanation of his temple by idolaters “in their setting of their threshold by my threshold, and their door-post beside my door-post, and there was but the wall between me and them.”[337]

That it was the threshold or doorway of the tabernacle which was counted sacred, is evident from the wording of the Levitical laws concerning the offering of blood in sacrifices. “This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded, saying, What man soever there be of the house of Israel, that killeth an ox, or lamb, or goat, in the camp, or that killeth it without the camp, and hath not brought it _unto the door of the tent of meeting_, to offer it as an oblation unto the Lord before the tabernacle of the Lord: blood shall be imputed unto that man; he hath shed blood; and that man shall be cut off from among his people: to the end that the children of Israel may bring their sacrifices, which they sacrifice in the open field, even that they may bring them unto the Lord, _unto the door of the tent of meeting_, unto the priest, and sacrifice them for sacrifices of peace offerings unto the Lord. And the priest shall sprinkle the blood _upon the altar of the Lord at the door of the tent of meeting_, and burn the fat for a sweet savour unto the Lord.... Whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among them, that offereth a burnt offering or sacrifice, and bringeth it not _unto the door of the tent of meeting_, to sacrifice it unto the Lord; even that man shall be cut off from his people.”[338]

It was _at the doorway_ of the tent of meeting that Aaron and his sons were consecrated to the holy priesthood;[339] and it was there that the bullock was sacrificed, and its blood was poured out as an offering at the base of the altar.[340] It was _at the doorway_ of that tent, above the threshold, that the pillar of cloud descended in token of the Lord’s presence, when Moses met the Lord there in loving communion, while the people stood watching from the doorways of their own tents.[341] The altar of burnt offering, at the base or foundation of which the blood of the offerings was outpoured, was itself at the doorway of the tent of meeting, and he who offered a sacrifice to the Lord offered it at that threshold.[342]

A post of honor in the temple was as a guardian of the threshold, as was also the place of a keeper of the gate. In the assignment of the priests and Levites to service, by Jehoiada the priest, in the days of Athaliah, a third part of them were in attendance at the “threshold,” and a third part “at the gate of the foundation.”[343] Later, in the days of Josiah and Hilkiah, the guardians of the threshold had the care of the money collected for the repairs of the Lord’s house.[344] And a keeper of the threshold, or of the door, of the house of God, was always mentioned with honor.[345] When the Psalmist contrasts the house of God with the tents of wickedness, he speaks of the honor of a post at the temple threshold, not of the humble place of a temple janitor, when he says:

“For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand [elsewhere].
I had rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God,
Than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.”[346]

In the Temple at Jerusalem, the altar of burnt offering was before the threshold of the Holy Place; and those who came with sacrifices must stop at that threshold, and proffer the blood of their offering to the priests, who then reverently poured it out at the altar-threshold’s base.[347]

When offerings were accepted for the repairs of the temple, in the days of Jehoash, king of Judah, it is said that “Jehoiada the priest took a chest, and bored a hole in the lid of it, and set it beside the altar, on the right side as one cometh into the house of the Lord. And the priests that kept [or guarded] the threshold put therein all the money that was brought into the house of the Lord.”[348] This would seem to decide the position of the altar as at the threshold, where “one cometh into the house of the Lord.”

An altar stood at the doorway, or before the door, of temples of later date in Phenicia and Phrygia, as shown on contemporary medals and coins.[349] And so in temples in other lands.

Among the early Christian remains unearthed in Asia Minor are indications of the former position of an altar on the threshold of a sanctuary. At the site of ancient Aphrodisias, “some of the sarcophagi of the Byzantine age are richly wrought, and although many are of Christian date, they appear to have retained the pagan devices.” At the end of one of these sarcophagi “appears an altar burning in front of a door,” standing indeed on the very threshold.[350]

An oath of peculiar sacredness among Hindoos is at the threshold of a temple, as at its primal altar. “Is a man accused of a great crime? He goes to the temple [threshold], makes his prostrations; he pauses, then steps over it, declaring at the same time that he is not guilty of the crime laid to his charge. It is therefore very common to ask a person who denies anything that he is suspected to have done, ‘Will you step over the threshold of the temple?’”[351]

Among the stories told in India of judgments at the temple threshold, is one of a thieving goldsmith, who had secreted himself in a pagoda of Vishnoo, in order to take from the sacred image one of its jewel eyes. Having obtained the precious stone, he waited for the opening of the pagoda doors in the morning, in order to escape with his booty. But as he attempted to cross the threshold, when the door was opened, he was stricken with death by Vishnoo “at the very threshold.”[352] Justice was administered at the very seat of justice.

Bloody sacrifices are still known at the temple thresholds in India, notwithstanding the prejudice of Hindoos against the shedding of blood. Within recent times an English gentleman, in an official position in India, discovered a decapitated child at the very door of a celebrated pagoda; and an investigation showed that a father had there sacrificed his son to avert an impending evil.[353]

When a famous idol was destroyed in the temple of Somnauth, during the Muhammadan conquest of India, pieces of the shattered image were sent by the conquerors to the mosks of Meccah, Medina, and Ghuznee, to be thrown down at the thresholds of their gates, there to be trodden under foot by devout and zealous Mussulmans.[354] The accursed idol fragments might be trampled on at the threshold, even while the threshold itself was counted sacred.

In Muhammadan mosks generally the threshold is counted sacred. Across the threshold proper, at the beginning of the sacred portion of the interior, “is a low barrier, a few inches high.”[355] Before this barrier the worshiper stops, removes his shoes, and steps over it, with the right foot first. In some smaller mosks a rod above the outer door-sill stands for this barrier.

Describing his visit to one of the mosks in Persia, Morier says: “Here we remarked the veneration of the Persians for the threshold of a holy place.... Before they ventured to cross it, they knelt down and kissed it, whilst they were very careful not to touch it with their feet.”[356]

On the tomb of the kings of Persia, at Com, the inscription appears: “Happy and glorious the believing one who in reverence bows his head upon the threshold of this gate, in imitation of the sun and moon.[357] All that _he_ will ask with faith in this gate, shall be as the arrow that reaches the mark.”[358] And on the tomb of Alee, son-in-law of Muhammad and one of his successors, there stands the declaration: “The angel messenger of the truth, Gabriel, kisses every day the threshold of thy gate; for that is the only way by which one can come to the throne of Muhammad.”[359]

Even among Christians in this primitive region, this reverence for the threshold as the earliest altar of the temple and the church manifests itself in various ways. Dr. Grant, an American missionary, tells of seeing the Nestorian Christians kissing the threshold of the church on entering the sanctuary for the Lord’s Day service.[360]

At Baveddeen, near Bokhara, is the tomb of Baha-ed-deen Nakishbend, the national saint of Turkestan, which is a place of pilgrimage second only to the tomb of Muhammad. “In the front of the tomb,” as a threshold, “is the famous _senghi murad_,” the “stone of desire,” “which has been tolerably ground away, and made smooth, by the numerous foreheads of pious pilgrims that have been rubbed upon it.”[361]

A peculiar sacrifice in Tibet is the disemboweling of a devotee in the presence of a great multitude, as an act of worship. An altar on which this act is performed is erected for the occasion “in front of the temple gate.”[362]

In the more sacred shrines of Japan and Korea, Shinto or Booddhist temples, pilgrim worshipers are permitted to go no farther than the threshold of the inner sanctuary. There they may deposit their offerings and may prostrate themselves in prayer, but they cannot pass beyond.

At Kitzuki, “the most ancient shrine of Japan,” multitudes of pilgrims gather for worship. They are coming and going ceaselessly, but all pause before the threshold of the inner sanctuary. “None enter there: all stand before the dragon-swarming doorway, and cast their offerings into the money-chest placed before the threshold; many making contributions of small coin, the very poorest throwing only a handful of rice into the box. Then they clap their hands, and bow their heads before the threshold, and reverently gaze through the hall of prayer at the loftier edifice, the holy of holies beyond it. Each pilgrim remains but a little while, and claps his hands but four times; yet so many are coming and going that the sound of the clapping is like the sound of a cataract.”[363] The same is true of “the great Shrines of Isé, chief Mecca of the Shintō faith,”[364] of those of famous Nikkō, and of other centers of worship.[365]

4. TEMPLE THRESHOLDS IN AFRICA.

The oldest temple discovered in Egypt is little more than a doorway with an altar at its threshold, and with a stele on either side of the altar. This temple is near the base of the stepped pyramid of Meydoom, dating back probably to the beginning of the fourth dynasty.[366]

Later, in Egypt, as in early Babylonia, the doorway, above the threshold, had peculiar sacredness, in the temples and in the approaches to the under-world. The pylon, or propylon, of an Egyptian temple, was a monumental gateway before the temple, and exalted honor attached to it. It frequently gave its name to the entire temple.[367] The side towers of this gateway are said to have represented Isis and Nephthys, and the door itself between these towers stood for Osiris, the judge of the living and the dead.[368]

There was indeed a temple in Thebes which bore the name of “Silver Threshold.” This temple “is mentioned in the time of the twenty-first dynasty; and it cannot have been earlier than the eighteenth dynasty, when silver was growing cheaper in Egypt.”[369] But the prominence of the “threshold” in the designation of the “temple” is aside from the question of the time of the use of silver.

“The winged sun disk was placed above all the doors into the temples, that the image of Horus might drive away all unclean spirits from the sacred building.”[370] These overshadowing wings marked the special sacredness of the doors beneath them.

When an Egyptian priest opened the door of the shrine–the holy of holies of the temple–he must prostrate himself at the threshold in reverent worship. “According to the Theban rite, ... as soon as he saw the image of the god he had to ‘kiss the ground, throw himself on his face, throw himself entirely on his face, kiss the ground with his face turned downward, offer incense,’ and then greet the god with a short petition.”[371] This priestly worship was at the threshold of the shrine.

The Egyptian idea of the future life, and of the world beyond this, had marked correspondences with the Babylonian. Osiris presided over the under-world, as, indeed, he was the chief object of worship in this.[372] He had been slain in a conflict with evil, and in his new life he was the friend and helper of those who struggled against evil.[373] He was in a peculiar sense the door of the life beyond this, “Osiris, opening the ways of the two worlds;”[374] and those who passed that door safely were identified with himself in the under-world.[375]

A closed door toward the west, in a tomb, represented the deceased on his way to Osiris.[376] And as shown in the “Book of the Dead” the approach to Osiris was by a series of doors, which could be passed only by one who showed his identification with Osiris, and his worthiness as such.[377] At the entrance to the Hall of the Two Truths, or of the Two-fold Maāt,[378] as the place of final judgment, the deceased was challenged by the threshold of the door, by the two side-posts, by the lock, by the key, and by the door itself; and he could not pass these unless he proved his oneness with Osiris by his knowledge of their names severally.[379]

A saint’s tomb, called a _wely_, is a common place of worship in Egypt. Sometimes a mosk is built over it, and sometimes it serves as a substitute for a mosk, where no mosk is near. “At least one such building forms a conspicuous object close by, or within, almost every Arab village;” and these tombs are frequently visited by those who would make supplication for themselves, or intercession for others, or who would do a worthy act, and merit a correspondent blessing. “Many a visitor, on entering the tomb, kisses the threshold, or touches it with his right hand, which he then kisses.”[380] Similar customs prevail in Arabia and Syria.

At Carthage, which was a Phenician colony but which impressed its character on northern Africa, the chief temple gave prominence to the threshold, rising in steps as an altar before a statue of the Queen of Heaven. Virgil, describing the arrival of Æneas at the court of Queen Dido, says:

“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 “the _lucus_ or 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 through doorways, 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 was before 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.) The _narthex_ or ante-temple, where the penitents and catechumens stood. (2.) The _naos_ or temple, where the communicants had their respective places. And (3.) the _bēma_ or sanctuary, where the clergy stood to officiate at the altar. But in a larger sense there was another ante-temple or _narthex_ without the walls, under which was comprised the propylæa, or _vestibulum_, the outward porch; then the _atrium_ or area, the court leading from that to the temple, surrounded with porticos or cloisters.... There were also several _exedræ_, such as the baptistery, the _diaconicum_, the _pastophoria_, and other adjacent buildings, which were reckoned to be either 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 the _naos_, 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 the _exedræ_, 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 priest bless 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.’

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 show that 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 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,”

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, until recent 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.