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.”