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]]