2. Modern Reconstructions. — It thus appears that as regards the building itself we have little more than a few fragmentary notices, which are quite insufficient to enable us to make out a correct architectural represen- tation of it, or even to arrive at a very definite idea of many things belonging to its complicated structure and arrangements. All attempts that have been made in this direction have utterly failed, and, for the most part, have proceeded on entirely wrong principles. Such was remarkably the case with the first great work upon the stibject by professedly Christian writers , namely, the portion of the commentary on Ezekiel by the Span- ish Jesuits Pradus and Villalpandus (1596-1604) which treats of the Temple. It was accompanied by elaborate calculations and magnificent drawings; but the whole proceeded on a series of mistakes — first, that the Tem- ple of Ezekiel was a delineation of that which had been erected by Solomon; secondly, that this was again ex- actly reproduced in Herod's; and, thirdly, that the style of architecture from the first was of the Gneco-Roman character — all qinte groundless suppositions. Their idea of Solomon's Temple was that both in dimensions and arrangement it was very like the Escurial in Spain. But it is by no means clear whether the Escurial was in process of building while their book was in the press in order to look like the Temple, or whether its authors took their idea of the Temple from the palace. At all events, their design is so much the more beautiful and commodious of the two that we cannot but regret that Herrera was not employed on the book and the Jesuits set to build the palace. Various other writers, chiefly on the Continent, followed in the same line — Haffen- reffer, Capellus (Tpiaciyiov, printed in the Crit. Sacri), Lightfoot, Sturm (in Ugolino), Lamy, Semmler, Mel — a notice of whose treatises, some of them large and ponderous, may be seen in Biihr, Salomonische Tempel (§ 3). They are now of comparatively little use;
TEMPLE
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TEMPLE
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Gri)iiiid-plaii «( SoUmioii's Temple iR-cordiiit( to Keil {IJibti»lie A ichdologie). il, The porch. B, The holy plnce. C, The most holy place, oa, Side walls of the porch, ftft, The two front pillars, c, Entrance into the holy place. </, Kntraiice into the most holy, e, Knlrance into side chambers, f, Wiii(iiii)» stair to the stories in the side chambers, gg. The side chambers. A, Thenrk. t, Altar of incense. **, The ten golden candlesticks. ?/, The ten tables of shew-bread.
Lightfoot's, as Biihr admits, is the best of the whole, \ of the times, made little account of anything but the being more clear, learned, and solidly grounded in its outward material structure, this being regarded as a representations. Kut it has chietiy to do, as its title sort of copy— though usually in a very inferior style of indicates ( The Temple, especially us it stood in the art— of some of the temples of heathen antiquity. It
is only during the present century that any serious ef-
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forts have been made to construct an idea of Solomon's Temple on right principles; that is, on the ground sim- ply of the representations made concerning it in Script- ure, and with a due regard to the purposes for which it was erected, and the differences as well as the resem- blances between it and heathen temples of the same sera. A succession of works or treatises with this view has appeared, almost exclusivel}' in Germany, several of them by architects and antiquarians, with special ref- erence to the history of the building art. They differ very much in merit; and in one of the latest, as per- haps also the ablest, of the whole, the treatise of Biihr
Front Elevation of Solomon's Temi)le according to The- iiitis {Die BiicJier der Kimvje).
Days of Our Saviour), with the Temple of Herod, and but very brictiy refers to the Temple of Solo- mon. An essentially different class of writings on the Temple sprang up after the middle of last century, introduced by J, D. Michaelis, which, in the spirit
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Plan of the Whole Knrlosnre of Solomon's Temple ac- eordiug to Thenitis.
UPPER.
Gronnd-plan of Solomon's Temple acoordinir to Fergnsson (showing the disposition of the cliambers iu tlie two stories).
already referred to (published in 1848), a review is giv- en of the aim and characteristics of preceding investi- gations. As a general result, it has been conclusively established on the negative side, and is now generally acquiesced in, that the means entirely fail us for pre- senting a full and detailed representation, in an archi- tectural respect, of the Temple and its related buildings. Its being cast in the rectilinear and chest form plainly distinguished it from erections in the (Jreek and Homan style; and, if the employment of Pha'uician artists might naturally suggest some approach in certain parts to Phoenician models, it is, on the other hand, admitted by the most careful investigators in this particidar de- partment of anti(iuarian study that little or nothing is known of the I'huiuician style of building (l»;ihr, p. 46). We here present the delineations of several later an- tiquaries, which show how variously the historical de- scriptions are interpreted and applied.