CHAPTER XII.
THE TEMPLE AND CALVARY.
THE subject of Jerusalem topography is too large to be minutely treated in the present volume; and I hope to be able to write a separate work on it at some future time. The following chapter is devoted to the two questions of primary interest—the Temple and Calvary.
The sources of our information as to the Temple are two—the first Josephus, the second the Talmud. The first is simply a general and pictorial account; the second is a laborious and minute description by men in whose eyes the subject was all-important; and the tract of the Mishna, called Middoth, or “measurements,” gives the details of arrangement, in some parts, with an exactitude which is rare among Jews, and which allows of plans being made. We have also this great advantage—that all the scattered accounts in the Talmud have been summarised and arranged by the famous Maimonides, “the second Moses,” a man of great ability and thoroughly trustworthy, and that every statement he makes in his systematic account of the Holy House can be traced back to the original passages hidden away in the Talmud.
While, therefore, it is from Josephus that we get a general idea of the appearance and arrangements of the Temple, it is from the Talmud, and from Maimonides, that we obtain that exact information which enables us to make a plan of the Holy House and of its courts.
A considerable initial difficulty arises, for Josephus makes the area of the Temple to have been a square furlong, or 625 feet side, and the Talmud gives it as 500 cubits, which, as will be seen, is probably 666 feet; but the Haram has a mean measurement of 982 feet by 1565 feet—a trapezoid, containing an area of thirty-five acres, or three and a half times the area given by the Talmud. Thus the question arises, has the present boundary any connection with that of the Temple? And if it has, where are we to place the smaller area within the larger?
There are many indications leading to the conclusion that the present outer wall of the Haram is the old boundary of the Temple Hill. In the south-west corner we have the remains of the great bridge which Josephus so often mentions. The south wall is trisected by the line of the two underground portals, answering to the two Huldah or “Mole-gates” of the Temple. Captain Warren’s excavations have also shown us that the south wall is probably all of one date and in one piece, with a “Master Course” six feet high, except near the west, where, for over 200 feet, this feature is wanting, and where the stones below the original surface existing at the time of the great bridge are less finished, being probably never visible. In the south-east corner, where the stones are smoothly finished down to the rock, are the Phœnician mason’s marks, denoting the courses; and from this corner to the Golden Gate the masonry is apparently of the same character. The junction of the Ophel wall at the south-east corner serves to identify this angle of the Haram, with the corresponding angle of Herod’s Temple enclosure. The west wall has been examined for nearly half its length, and proves to be of the same style as that on the south-east. Finally, in 1873, I found the same masonry, in the north corner of the west wall, reaching up to a higher level than that at which it was previously known in any other part of the Haram, and founded on rock. The natural conclusion is that all this beautiful and gigantic masonry is of one period, and formed one area. The question is, to what period does it belong?