Heliopolis, "City of the Sun." It was to Baal, her Sidonian deity, the infamous Jezebel, daughter of Eth-Baal, built a temple in Samaria (1 Kings xvi. 31-33). The worship of Baal was then introduced into Israel, and had a most degrading influence both upon the faith and morals of the nation. TEMPLES. The plan of Solomon's Temple was Phoenician-the spacious open court, the massive encircling wall, the commanding site, and the central shrine. We have the same plan at Baalbek; at Palmyra, that eastern outpost of Phoenician commerce; and, upon a much smaller scale, at Amrit, on the coast near Arvad. At the latter place the court is mostly excavated in the solid rock; and the shrine, in some respects resembling that of Jerusalem, is a portion of the natural rock, left standing, and moulded into a kind of throne. In Greece, we find the same general plan in the Acropolis of Athens; also, but not so definitely circumscribed, in the Acrocorinthus of Corinth; in the Larissa of Argos; in Tiryns, and in Mycenæ; also, apparently, in the Cadmeia of Thebes, which long retained the name of its Phoenician founder, Cadmus. INTERNAL DECORATION. The internal decorations and gorgeous fittings and furniture of Solomon's Temple are minutely described in the Bible. The entire walls, the floor, the ceiling, the pillars, the doors, the sacred ark, the altar were overlaid with pure gold, richly chased and carved with designs of fruit, palm-trees, and cherubim. The porch, too, was overlaid with gold. The sacred vessels were all of gold. The chief artist in this gorgeous work was a Phoenician. The King of Tyre thus introduced him to Solomon :-"I now have sent a cunning man endued with understanding, the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre, skilful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson; also to grave any manner of graving, and to find out every device" (2 Ch. ii. 13-14). We read that he was a lapidary as well, for "he garnished the house with precious stones for beauty" ( iii. 6). His skill in carving and gold-beating must have been wonderful. "He made two cherubim of olivewood, each ten cubits high. And five cubits was the one trees wing of the cherub, and five the other wing, from the utterI most part of the one wing unto the uttermost part of the other were ten cubits; and the wings were stretched forth, so that the wing of the one cherub touched the one wall, and the wing of the other the other wall. . . . . He made two doors of olive-wood, and carved upon them carvings of cherubim, and palm-trees, and open flowers, and overlaid them with gold, and he spread the gold upon the cherubim, and upon the palmfitted upon the graven work" (1 Kings vi. 23-33). In front of the great gate of the Temple two brazen pillars were set up, each apparently thirty-five cubits in extreme height, and twelve in circumference (Cf. 2 Chron. iii. 15-17, and 1 Kings vii. 15-20). So far as I can gather, they seem to have had no structural connexion with the main building or the porch. They were isolated-one on each side of the gate; but their costly material and elaborate ornaments would appear to indicate some high mystic signification and purpose. Pillars, obelisks, and tall pyramids, generally of stone, have been found in front of Phoenician sanctuaries in various parts of the Levant; and they are not unfrequently figured on coins. Most of the great temples in Egypt had a pair of obelisks in front. Probably the nearest approach in form to Jachin and Boaz of Solomon's Temple are the pillars of Persepolis. One of the grand adjuncts of the Temple was the brazen sea, or cistern, ten cubits in diameter. It was supported on twelve oxen, also of brass, three facing each of the cardinal points. Sculptured figures of lions, oxen, and cherubim surrounded the edge, and were linked together by pendent floral wreaths. Underneath were other elaborate ornaments, wrought in brass, of fruit, foliage, and flowers. In design and execution, this magnificent laver was probably unequalled in ancient times. The costliness of material employed in the decoration and fittings of the Temple, and in the other buildings constructed by Solomon, was no less remarkable than the artistic genius and skill of the workmen. The sacred vessels, lamps, cups, censers—in fact, all the utensils of whatever kind used by the priests in the sanctuary-were of pure gold. And, in addition to these, we are told that Solomon made, doubtless by the hands, or under the direction of the same Phoenician artist, “three hundred shields of beaten gold" and "two hundred targets of beaten gold," and put them in "the house of the forest of Lebanon.' 22 "Moreover, the king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with the finest gold." Six steps led up to it, and at the end of each step were two lions. (1 Kings x. 16-19). The correspondence between this display of wealth, luxury, and art, and that of some of the ancient · palaces and temples of Greece I shall show presently. The building of the Temple occupied seven years, and when it was finished, Solomon built a palace for himself, and decorated it in a corresponding style of splendour. In this work thirteen years were spent. There were evidently several distinct courts in the palace, each having suites of apartments, just as we find in modern Oriental palaces. There was apparently one court containing the judgment-hall and public offices; another, the private apartments of the king and his male attendants; another, or perhaps several, for females. The House of the Forest of Lebanon was apparently the royal armoury. The recent excavations of Schliemann in the citadel of Tiryns, one of Greece's most ancient capitals, have brought to light the plan and foundations of a palace which resemble that described by the sacred writers. The architects were of the same nationality, for Tiryns was founded by Phoenicians (Schliemann, Tiryns, p. 28). DIFFERENCES IN STYLE. In comparing the sacred architecture and art of the Jews with other nations, the fundamental difference between their religious principles and forms of worship must be kept in mind. A purely spiritual faith forbade any visible representation of Deity. The Divine command was singularly clear :—“ Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them." The Fetichism of Egypt, Phoenicia, and Assyria, as well as its subsequent more intellectual development in Greece, was thus sweepingly prohibited. In the Jewish temple, however, we have the ark, with its mercyseat and overshadowing cherubim, the altars of incense and burnt offering, and all the vessels and utensils connected therewith. No scope for the prurient fancy, no sphere for the materialistic tendencies of the human mind, and, above all, no opening for debasing and licentious symbolism, were here afforded in Jewish art. The grand truth that God is Spirit, and that those who worship Him aright must worship Him in Spirit, was enshrined from the very outset in the Jewish religion, and exhibited in the decorations and arrangements of the Temple. Under it no form of idolatry was, or could be, tolerated. In Phoenicia, and indeed among all the aboriginal tribes be seen. of Syria, the earliest sanctuaries were "high places," whence the rising and setting sun, the chief object of worship, could The name Baal, "Lord" or "Master," was given to the sun as the supposed ruler of the universe, and the source of life and energy. It would appear, however, that the close proximity of Phoenicia to Israel and the friendly relations of the two peoples-perhaps, also, to some extent the wisdom and counsel of Solomon-exercised more or less of a refining influence upon the religion of the Phoenicians, and instilled into the minds of some of their sages a faintlyrational idea of one supreme God, the Creator and Governor of the universe; and this idea the name Baal would be easily made to embody. It is a remarkable fact that the Jews and Phoenicians always dwelt together on friendly terms. With the other surrounding peoples the Jews were often at war; with the Phoenicians never. The Phœnicians were a practical people, devoted to manufacture, commerce, and colonisation. They had no taste, and, perhaps, little natural talent, speculation, whether religious or philosophical. The Israelites took advantage of their manufacturing and nautical skill and enterprise, and were able thereby to collect wealth from all parts of the world. They built a fleet for Solomon at Eziongeber, on the Red Sea; "and Hiram sent in the ships his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon " (1 Kings ix. 26, 27). The Jews were thus brought, through the instrumentality of the Phoenicians, into mercantile relations with distant nations. We read that the ships of Solomon went to Tarshish with the servants of Hiram once every three years, bringing gold, silver, and ivory; and the kings of the earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom; and they brought presents— vessels of silver and gold, and robes, and armour (2 ̊Chron. ix. 21, seq.). Thus the art-treasures, as well as the wealth, of the East and West were carried to Jerusalem. for I have said that the earliest sanctuaries of the Phoenicians were "high places." Against the idolatrous worship subsequently practised on those the Israelites were repeatedly and sternly warned by the prophets, and not always with success. This mode of worship seems to have had a special attraction for the inhabitants of Syria and Palestine. At first it appears to have been simple nature-worship; but in time the sun came to be symbolised by an image placed in the temple, or on the rude cairn. I have seen several such images-the sun's face with its circle of rays. The idol-god, as a matter of course, changed in form and character, according to the ideas of the worshipper; and the religion of the people gradually degenerated into a degrading Pantheism, which deified the whole hosts of heaven, and personified and worshipped with licentious rites the forces of nature. The homage paid by the Phoenicians to Astarte, the deity whom Jeremiah (xliv. 18) calls the "Queen of Heaven," beguiled the Hebrew women, and brought disgrace and misery upon them and their country. Its chief seat was on the brow of Lebanon, where the ruins of the temple now lie, beside the great fountain of the River Adonis, which issues from a cavern in the hillside. The well-known lines of Milton refer to the shameful rites :— Thammuz came next behind, Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured In amorous ditties all a summer day; Astarte was supposed to represent the moon, and she is figured as a female with the crescent on her forehead. She was also supposed to symbolise the planet Venus, and she is therefore spoken of by Jewish commentators as the "Star of Heaven." It may be that the "Crescent and Star," the standard of Islam, is a relic of the old Syrian deity. JEWISH AND PHŒNICIAN TOMBS. Among the most remarkable and interesting of Jewish monuments are tombs, and in these also we find some striking points of resemblance to those of Phoenicia and Greece. From the earliest ages the Jews selected with much care, secured as far as possible from violation, and also to a considerable extent decorated, the abodes of their dead. The tombs were usually caves, sometimes natural, but often hewn in the rock at great expense. Here the bodies were laid in state, and, in the case of nobles and princes, gold and jewels were not unfrequently placed beside them. In the Book of Job, probably among the oldest in the Bible, this practice is referred to, where the Patriarch, speaking of his own mournful state, and his wish that he had died in infancy, says: "Now should I have lain down and been quiet then had I been at rest, with kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places [rock-tombs] for themselves, or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver" (iii. 13-15). So, also, the prophet Isaiah was commissioned to denounce the pride of |