In the fair lines before me, I again greet the face of a friend, and hold cheering communion with one divided by long distance. I promised in my last to give you some description of the curious ceremonies of those worshippers, and I find you are urgent that I should fulfil it, since I was so fortunate as to witness some of the hidden mysteries.
You esteem it strange that I, a foreigner, and but a few hours in Baalbec, should have stood at once upon such good terms with Mobilius, as to have induced him to conduct me to one of the most secret recesses of the temple—with all the perils of exposure through my carelessness. I have nothing to offer in answer to your surmise but conjecture. Mobilius was certainly upon some familiar footing with the priests, and perhaps being partly moved by the hope that the imposing magnificence of the ceremonial would win a convert to his creed, he ventured to introduce me. If such was his anticipation, how signally in error! how vain to fancy that the sense can blind the judgment! that the splendor of the cloud that curtains some yawning chasm in the mountain side, can be mistaken for the solid pathway.
The sun had long gone down beneath the dizzy peaks of Lebanon, indeed night had far advanced, when Lactantius, Mobilius, and myself, properly arrayed in dark vestments, sallied toward the temple of the sun. Hurried along at a rapid pace, for he feared we had tarried too long, we soon came in view of the temple’s towering portico, which may still be seen by the curious stranger, even in the absence of the moon; for ever-burning lamps, filled, as they say, by never-failing oil, hang beneath the architrave. Entering at the great door, we were stopped by the porter, but recognising Mobilius, he permitted us to pass, without farther scrutiny, though he was evidently displeased; for although I could not clearly distinguish what he spoke, I heard him mutter angrily in the Syrian tongue.
We did not cross the grand courts, which, like the portico, were filled with perpetual lamps, but hastened through low corridors, vaults, and crooked passages, which might defy the skill of man to retrace, but Mobilius seemed well accustomed to them, so that I inferred he had acted as a guide on more than one occasion. After endless windings, we came into an archway, faintly lighted from without, and proceeding farther, entered a dark room. Here we were obliged to grope our way, and were commanded by Mobilius to tread with the utmost caution. We speedily, however, came to a spot, from which we beheld the great floor of the temple, through a narrow opening, artfully concealed in one of the ornaments of the entablature. All was still.
“Earlier than I expected,” whispered Mobilius, “the ceremonies have not yet begun.”
This leisure enabled me to examine the exquisite architecture of the edifice.
The temple was the loftiest of all those that surrounded it, and which had their position and style of architecture in strict reference to this, as their great centre. The roof was of marble, and I could clearly distinguish, by the lamps around, the delicacy and lightness of its mouldings, pannels, and compartments. In the centre was a sun, carved in the full glory of his rays: marshalled at equal distances, surrounded by its sculptured edge, and sunk deeply into the marble, like a picture in its frame, were the heads of Venus, or as this people designate her, the “Syrian Goddess,” and also of Jupiter and other deities; and if I do not err, I could discern, constellated like the rest, the heads of Antoninus, and of other Roman emperors.
The marble walls were carved with niches and tabernacles disposed in two rows, which were filled with statues, between the floor and the roof, and supporting the latter, stood pilasters and columns of the same order as those which sustain the architrave.
Upon the tesselated pavement in the centre of the temple was erected a gorgeous altar, composed in part of precious metals, and of rare and various marbles, tastefully inlaid, and yet all designed in conformity with the strict rules of the architect. The fires upon it threw a reddened glow upon the walls and pillars, and a representation of the sun seemingly illumined from within, by a mildly burning light, whether real or unsubstantial, I cannot say, hovered above the altar, resembling the undulating brightness which the agitated waters in the vase cast upon the tapestry, or the flickering pale reflection of the moonbeams on the ground, as they struggle through the trembling leaves. My thoughts now reverted to the ceremonies we had come to witness, and some perplexing fancies, in spite of resolution, stole upon me. First, the brief acquaintance of Mobilius; the knowledge that Lactantius was a Christian, and his increased apparent dislike of that form of worship, since Constantine had threatened to close the temples of his faith; and Lactantius had expressed a hope it might be so, and the fact that there was, unquestionably, a connection between Mobilius and some of the priests. But again I thought could he be so base as to delude and betray those who had reposed such confidence, and would not his fears prevent, if he even would, because of the certainty of detection? While these reflections were flashing through my mind, the soft mingling of many voices swelling into the full pitch of harmony, and then sinking and dying as if wafted away upon the wings of the wind, broke the spell, and aroused my attention. Such clear, rich, enrapturing melody, I never heard, even surpassing that which floated from the shores of Cyprus; and a thrill of pain ran through my veins as it suddenly ceased, just as if you were to dash a harp into pieces in the midst of its sweetest outpourings.
“What means this?” I whispered, but a low murmur from Mobilius brought me to instant silence. Directly I heard a silvery ringing voice swell forth a chaunting note, and all the voices fell in one by one, with sweet and heavenly accord, until the lofty temple echoed and re-echoed with the sounds.