During the third period they left Egypt, and though they were acquainted with all the smaller arts of their Egyptian task-masters, and knew how to weave, to cut stones, to model, to cast, and to found gold and silver, they had to seek and to gain by hard fighting a new home to settle in. During this period they forgot everything; their accomplishments were gone when they settled in the Holy Land. For during times of war the growth of sciences and arts was never fostered.
During the fourth period they reached the very climax of their national glory. David became master of a large empire which extended from the shores of the Euphrates to the frontiers of Egypt; this expansion was accomplished by the force of arms. His successor Solomon administered and consolidated the empire, founded on blood and iron, by wisdom and the culture of the arts of peace. After a Cæsar, the Jews had an Augustus. Solomon lived in friendship and peace with the surrounding mighty kingdoms, especially with Hiram, King of Tyre. It was Solomon who began to build Tadmor (afterwards Palmyra, the queen of the East), to establish in the desert a common emporium for Phœnician wares, and to enable the Jews to trade with them.
During the fifth period the vast empire was divided into two parts, the one of which was altogether annihilated, and the other fell into the hands of the Babylonians, and the temple of Solomon was destroyed. Slaves and captives are rarely good artists.
During the sixth period, after Kyrus had freed the Jews and permitted them to return to their native country, their national position improved. Under Darius, Zorobabel received permission to reconstruct the temple of Solomon on the foundations of the one erected by that wise king, and it was accordingly rebuilt, but this could only be done in accordance with the impoverished condition of freed captives.
During the seventh period, under Alexander the Great and his followers, the Jews, attacked by Persians, Egyptians, and Syrians, showed that they could rise to the very highest deeds of heroism and self-sacrifice.
Finally, during the eighth period, under the Romans, they gave up all hope of maintaining their position as a chosen people; they revolted sometimes, but more for theological than political reasons. Pompey treated them with great kindness and consideration after the capture of Jerusalem. During the reign of Augustus the town attained a grandeur and extension which it had never possessed, even in its brightest days under the sway of Solomon. But stubborn and arrogant as the Jews always were in times of prosperity, though enjoying a certain amount of freedom, they revolted, and the town and temple were destroyed. Nothing was left but the candlestick with seven branches, symbolic with the Egyptians of the seven planets, and with the Jews of seven archangels, or of the seven days of the week, sculptured in marble on the Arch of Titus, together with a facsimile of the holy ark, and some of the trumpets, used in religious ceremonies. It would be most interesting if the original relics, which it is assumed are buried in the Tiber, could be recovered; and, as so many venerable relics of by-gone ages have been brought to light, we do not despair of once seeing these remains.
The tabernacle, or earliest temple of the Jews, was entirely constructed on the plan of an Egyptian temple. To convince ourselves of this truth we need only compare its plan with that of the temple at Edfou. The triple division into a Pronaos, Naos, and Adytum, or the Holy of Holies, was strictly observed in both. The Adytum was a cube 10 cubits, or 15 feet each way; an outer temple, as Naos, consisted of two such cubes, 15 feet broad by 30 feet long. Adytum and Naos were covered by a sloping roof, which projected 5 cubits (7½ feet) in every direction beyond the temple itself, making the whole 40 cubits, or 60 feet, in length, by 20 cubits, or 30 feet, in width. Adytum and Naos stood in an enclosure—the Pronaos, 100 cubits (150 feet) long, by 50 cubits (75 feet) broad. From Moses to Solomon, for 600 years, this tabernacle was the only temple of the Jews. When Solomon began to construct the temple, he adhered strictly to the above arrangement, only doubling all the dimensions. The temple partook more of the character of a square shrine, or a store-house intended to contain precious works in metal; a kind of opisthodomos. The principal ornaments were two brazen pillars, Jachin and Boaz (sun and moon), by the skilful Hiram of Tyre. They were said to have been marvels of metal-work. The pillars of Susan or Persepolis, which had capitals of the same relative proportions, may give us some idea of these. In Egyptian temples it was also usual to place propyleæ at the porch of a temple, and the same custom prevailed with the Phœnicians, as in the case of the celebrated Venus (Astarte or Astharote) shrine at Paphos. After the construction of the temple by Solomon, Jerusalem became the holy and exclusive central point of Judaism. There only, and nowhere else, did they allow their God to be present. Zorobabel erected on the very spot another altar and temple in the same spirit, and this is the reason why the erection of a second temple at Heliopolis by Onias, under the Ptolemæians, caused such animosity and jealousy amongst Egyptian and Judaic Jews. It is said that the necessary marble, wood, and stone, and also the gold, silver, and brass vessels had already been weighed and prepared for the construction of the temple during the reign of King David, who gave his son the plan of the whole architectural construction. According to Chronicles, however, it appears that David made little or no preparation, and that Solomon only found some of the brass-work ready for use. This latter assertion is clearly verified by the correspondence between Solomon and Hiram. Solomon asks for wood for building in general, as also cedars and cypress trees from Mount Lebanon; adding that he wishes that Sidonians, as experienced carpenters, should help his own workmen, whom he designates as less able. This does not say very much in favour of the artistic skill of the Jews, who at the period of Solomon’s reign had not yet attained the same degree of proficiency as the pre-historic constructors of pile-dwellings. The request of Solomon was granted by the King of Tyre, and Adoniram was sent as foreman of the Sidonian carpenters, of whom 30,000 were appointed by Solomon; 10,000 of these worked alternately from month to month. Besides the 30,000 carpenters, there were 80,000 sculptors, or rather stone-cutters and masons, and 70,000 journeymen, making altogether 180,000 working men, under 3,300 overseers, employed in the construction of the temple, all tributary strangers whom David had conquered. The construction began 592 years after Exodus, about 975 years B.C. Mount Moreah, or Moriah, was the site chosen, and the temple was completed in seven years. The inner temple was 60 cubits (90 feet) long, 20 cubits (30 feet) broad, and 30 cubits (45 feet) high. Josephus says it was 120 cubits (180 feet) high; this would make the edifice resemble a square tower. The Pronaos may have been 120 cubits high. The space, 60 cubits long and 20 broad, was separated into two divisions. Of these the rear was 20 cubits square, forming the Holy of Holies, the ‘sekos’ of the Egyptian temples. The other division, 40 by 10, formed the Naos, the holy place, which was preceded by a hall, the Pronaos. The division: One God, one priesthood, and one people, was thus expressed. Rooms were constructed round the temple three stories high, corresponding to the rooms in the Egyptian Labyrinth, and the Brahmanic and Buddhistic choultries, or cloisters. There were thirty rooms on each floor. The height of the temple having been 30 cubits, this would give 15 feet for each story, walls included. Josephus doubles all these dimensions, and adopts inconceivable measurements. The ninety rooms were used as receptacles for the sacred vessels, and the temple was thus literally a holy treasury. The Holy of Holies having been only 20 cubits high, a space of 10 cubits, or 15 feet, would have been left above it; of this room no intelligible mention is made. In the Septuagint there is an allusion, which differs from the Vulgate and the different translations. In Chronicles we have upper chambers mentioned, which were overlaid with gold; this might have been the rooms or chambers above the Holy of Holies. No special staircase led to this room. It was undoubtedly a mysterious apartment, and, like all mysteries, excited some writers to very varied speculations on its possible nature. Amongst others the learned Ben David, in a letter to Lichtenberg in the Berlin ‘Archive der Zeit,’ asserted that this chamber must have contained an electric battery, for golden chains connected the room with the pillars of Jachin and Boaz, which were hollow, and could be placed in communication with the altar of brass. The points of the temple were golden. At the consecration of the temple, clouds, produced by incense, suddenly filled the interior of the temple, and a flash of lightning ignited the sacrifice. Michaelis tells us that the temple was never struck by lightning—the lightning, therefore, setting fire to the sacrifice must have been produced within the temple.
No stone roofs or vaults are mentioned in connection with the temple or palace built by the Jews; architecture was, therefore, in its most primitive stage. The inner temple and the Holy of Holies were entered through folding-doors. The Holy of Holies was entirely empty, symbolic of the incomprehensibility of the nature of the Deity. This was also the case in Egypt with the ‘sekos,’ which was, in fact, a shrine either quite empty, or containing a scroll, on which were written the words: ‘I am that was, that is, and that shall be.’ Two courts surrounded the temple, an inner and an outer court. The outer court was open to every Jew, but the inner court to the priests only. The former was surrounded by a double row of pillars overlaid with cedar-wood. It is said that Solomon had valleys filled up in order to make the concrete subconstruction of the length even. Each side of the outer wall surrounding the whole temple was 4 stadia or 1 stadium (606 feet 9 inches English) in length, giving 2,427 feet all round. The pillars Jachin and Boaz stood on the staircase of the inner court; each was 36 feet in circumference, 54 feet in height without the capital, which was 15 feet high. The shafts were hollow and the brass 4 inches thick. On the south-eastern side stood the round brass basin, called the sea, 30 feet in diameter, in which the priests used to wash their hands. Besides the ‘sea,’ there stood on pedestals on either side of the temple five cups, 12 feet in diameter and 9 feet high. The altar of the burning sacrifice, in the middle of this space, was 60 feet broad and as many feet long; all these secondary necessaries of the temple stood in the east. The surrounding courts rose in terraces like those of the palace of Persepolis. The temple, whatever its magnificence might have been in precious stones, gold, silver, carved cherubim, brass and silver vessels, washing-basins and candlesticks, was architecturally an utter failure, whether compared with the monumental temples of Egypt, the grand and splendid palaces of Assyria, Babylon, or Persepolis, or the temple of Diana at Ephesus. The latter, which was built on a marsh, that it might not be endangered by earthquakes, was 425 feet in length and 220 in width, and had 127 columns 60 feet high, each the gift of a king. This is the account given by Pliny, who, however, describes either the seventh or eighth temple. Stable as was everything in religious matters with the Jews, they did not venture in rebuilding their temple to make any alterations; a stone displaced, an ornament improved, might have driven their God from his chosen abode. With such ideas art is impossible. The additions made to the temple under the Romans, in order to render the building more in harmony with their street architecture, were only outer courts with rich colonnades of Corinthian columns, and had nothing to do with the temple itself. These formed the Stoa-Basilica, with the court of the Gentiles, which is spoken of as imposing and forming a mighty group, and must not be confounded with the temple itself, which was certainly no specimen of architecture, either in dimension, in plan, or in decoration, if we except some stiff vine foliage on capitals, which was exceptionally characteristic of the Jewish style.
The numerous tombs in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem are rock-hewn, clearly betraying their Egyptian origin; they are provided with numerous hollows for the reception of the bodies. These sepulchres are without any artistic stamp; on some façades we can see the Egyptian fluted corona. The façades of the so-called royal tombs of Jacob or the judges are decorated in a Greek style, as are the tombs of Zacharias and Absalom; the latter stand out from the rock as independent structures, ornamented with Ionic pillars, and above the Egyptian corona rises a pyramidal or conical structure; a combination of the pre-historic tumulus with Egyptian and classic elements. Something is borrowed from everyone to make up a chosen national element.
In books or in conversation this may avail, but in art, where the outer impression is to create a corresponding sensation, assertions must be borne out by visible productions, and to falsify architectural records is much more difficult than to interpolate passages, alter dates, or make assertions in utter defiance of probability and possibility. The Hebrews, whether as Jews or Israelites, had no art, and never pretended to have one; they were contented with the art-products which other nations made for them, in perfect accordance with the clearly-expressed promise of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: ‘That He would give them great and goodly cities, which they would not build; and houses full of good things, which they would not fill; and wells digged, which they would not dig; and vineyards and olive trees, which they would not plant.’ With such principles neither architecture, sculpture, nor ornamentation could flourish. Art in Asia never became master of matter from an esthetical point of view, for, in all these works, matter sways the mind; it is either an exhibition of precious stones on walls, or lace-work in marble, or endless heaps of huge granite blocks and columns without purpose, or decorations in wild, fantastic, and endless combinations. The Eastern mind could not free itself from the influence of a mighty hierarchy. In the East it was the eternal Hermes, the Logos, the priest, who read truth in the stars, manufactured gods and goddesses, wrote the language of heaven, drew up plans for temples, squared out the proportions of the human body, and gave laws to sculptors and painters, to stone-cutters and masons, to joiners and carpenters, weavers and dyers. Hermes, with his followers, was the physician, the lawgiver, and the judge of the masses; he prayed, he sacrificed for them, he prophesied, circumcised, married, embalmed, and buried them. The priest in the East, whether as Brahman, Buddhist, Hierophant, Magi, or Levite, generally placed the idea, the spirit, the word, the λόγος {logos} above the form, which, in itself, crippled the form the more effectually, because the form, however revolting, was the mere symbol of some sacred mystery. The creative genius of art was thus almost extinguished under the stifling and petrifying influence of hierarchical formalism, and, until it had been freed from this, could neither develop nor prosper. The process of freeing humanity from this formalism was first begun and accomplished by the Greeks.