As long as the nations continued to worship the heavenly bodies themselves, they worshipped in the open air, hokling that no walls coidd contain infinitude. Afterwards, when the symbol of fire or of images brought in the use of temples, they were usually built in groves and upon high places, and sometimes without roofs. The prmciple on which high places were preferred is said to have been that they were nearer to the gods, and that on them prayer Avas more acceptable than in the vaUeys (Lucian, Be Sacrif. i, 4). See Hill. The ancient \mters abound in allusions to this Avorship of the gods upon the hill-tops ; and some of their divini- ties took their distinctive names from the hill on which their principal seat of worship stood, such as Jlercurius Cyllenius, Venus Erycina, Jupiter Capitolinus, etc. (see especially Sophocles, Trachin. 1207, 1208; Appian, Da Bello Miihrid. § 131; compare Creuzer, Symbol, i, 150).
HIGH PLACE
241
HIGH-PFJEST
to bo mado and huilt i.i every sirect, at the head of every way (Ezck. xvi. 24, 25), ill all their cities (2 Kings xvii. 9), and upon every high hill, and under every green tree ( 1 Kings xiv, 23). It could be torn to pieces, beat- en small r.s dust, and burnt up (2 Kings xxiii. 15). Thus it [often] was of combustible ma- terials These
mounds, with their al- tars, were built in the streets, where people could assemble around them. When on the hills out of the city they lasted many years: for the moiuids built by Solomon on the right hand or south side of the ]\Iount of Destruc- tion before Jerusalem Temple on i hill suiiouuded bj tiees, and h vMug ui -Mt n m the ippioicti to t. A \n '^ere destroyed by Jo- duct, streams of water, etc., are represented. (Bas-relief from Kouyunjik in the British siah (2 Kings xxiii, 13 ,
1 Kings xi, 7), nearly
Museum.) We find that the Trojans sacrificed to Zeus on Mount Ida (//. X, 171), and we are repeatedly told that such was the custom of the Persians, Greeks, Germans, etc. (Herod, i, 131 ; Xenoph. Cyrop. viii, 7 ; Mem. iii, 8, § 10 ; Strabo, xv, 732). To this general custom we find con- stant allusion in the Bible (Isa. Ixv, 7 ; Jer. iii, 6 ; Ezek. A'i, 13; xviii, G; IIos. iv, 13), and it is especially attrib- uted to the Moabites (Isa. xv, 2 ; xvi, 12 ; Jer. xlviii, 35). Evident traces of a similar usage are depicted on the Assjnrian monuments. The groves which ancient usage had established around the places of sacrifice for the sake of shade and seclusion, idolatry preserved, not only for the same reasons, but because they were found convenient for the celebration of the rites and mysteries, often obscene and abominable, -which were gradually superadded. According to Pliny (book xii), trees were also anciently consecrated to particular divinities, as the escidus to Jove, the laurel to ApoUo, the olive to INIinerva, the myrtle to Venus, the poplar to Hercules. It was also believed that as the heavens have their proper and pecidiar deities, so also the woods have theirs, being the Fauns, the Sylvans, and certain god- desses. To this it may be added that groves were en- joined by the Roman law of the Twelve Tables as part of the pubUc religion. Plutarch (^Xinna, i, 61) calls such groves dXai] Otwv, "groves of the gods," which he sajs Numa frequented, and thereby gave rise to the story of his intercourse with the goddess Egeria. In fact, a de- gree of worship was, as Pliny states, transferred to the trees themselves. They were sometimes decked \Mth ribbons and rich cloths, lamps were placed on them, the spoils of enemies were hung from them, vows were paid ■ to them, and their branches v.ere encumbered with % o- i live offerings. Traces of this arborolatry still exist t\ - erjavhere, both in Moslem and Christian comitries ; and even the Persians, who abhorred images as much as the Hebrews ever did, rendered homage to certain trees The story is weU known of the noble plane-tree near I Sardis, before which Xerxes halted his army a whole [iday while he rendered homage to it, and hung royal of- ferings upon its branches (Herod, vi, 31). There is much curious Uterature connected with this subject which wc leave untouched, but the reader may considt Sir W. Ouseley's learned dissertation on Sacred Trees, append- ed to tiie first volume of his Travels in the East. — Kitto, s. V. ; Smith, s. v. See Idolatry.
Mr. Paine remarks (Solomon's Temple, etc., Best. 1861, p.21),"The 'high place.' tTC3, wiOi/Ht/, was small enough lY.-Q
four hundred years after they were built. But mounds of earth no larger than Indian-corn or potato-hills will last a great number of years, and those somewhat larger for centuries (compare the Indian mounds in the West). That the mounds destroyed bj' Josiah had lasted so many centuries is a proof that they were not wholly of wood ; that they could be burnt is a proof that they were not wholly of stone ; that they could be beaten to dust indicates that they were made of any- thing that came readiest to hand, as earth, soil, etc. For the houses of the momids, or high places, in which were images of their gods, see 2 Kings xvii, 29; priests of these places of worship, 1 Kings xii, 32; xiii, 2,33: 2 Kings xvii, 32 ; xxiii, 9, 20 ; beds for fornication and adultery, in the tents about the mounds, Isa. Ivii, 3-7; Ezek. xvi, 16, 25, etc. Some of these houses were tents, for '.vomen wove them (2 Kings xxiii, 7). The people — men, women, children, and priests — assembled in groves, on hills and mountains, or in the streets of their cities; threw up a mound, on which they built their altar; set up the wooden idol [Asherah] before the altar; pitched their tents around it under the trees; sacrificed their sons and daughters, sometimes on the altar (Ezek. xvi, 20) and committed i rni iti ii md adulttrj in the tents, Avhtro also thc\ h I I il ii i 1 their gods."