ON

ANCIENT TEMPLES

AND THE

Form of Worship used in them.

SOME think that the architecture of Grecian temples was borrowed from the Egyptians.

Wilkins, in his Magna Græcia, supposes that they were derived from the Phoenicians; and were of the same form as those constructed by the Jews. He says, there is good reason to believe that they were first built in Crete by Mi nos; and from thence the style of building used there was brought into Ægina, which exhibits the earliest specimen now extant. That is supposed to have been erected shortly after Solomon's temple was built at Jerusalem, and nearly on the same model. The builders of Ægina introduced their art into Argolis; the inhabitants of which country practised it in their colonies in Magna Græcia: and to this the temples at Pæstum owe their origin. It is supposed that the Doric style was consecrated to Jupiter. Wilkins therefore conceives, that the temple represented in the model, being hypæ

B

thral and in this order, should be called the temple of Jupiter, and not of Neptune, as it is now misnamed. He examines the parts and proportions of this temple, and finds that they correspond very nearly to those of Solomon's temple as described in the Old Testament in the First Book of Kings. This appears to have been the plan of their construction

being divided into the Propylæum, Pronaon, Cella and Posticum, corresponding to the portico nave choir and Ladies' chapel of a modern cathedral. The space between the exterior columns and the cella may represent the aisles. But in this building the cella was equally accessible from the pronaos and posticum. It was hypethral or exposed to the air in the

centre.

In the pronaos usually stood an altar or image. At the further part of the cella the high altar was placed under the image of the god to whom the temple was dedicated. The altars were of various forms and heights, and made of

different materials of horn, earth, or ashes. The altar in the temple of Jupiter Olympius is said to have been twenty-two feet high. The chief ceremony performed in these temples was that of sacrifice, accompanied with appropriate prayers.* The priest, with his attendant ministers, stood at the altar and received the victim adorned with garlands and fillets; he then sprinkled some flour on its head, and taking a vessel filled with wine, poured its contents between its horns. The next process was to mark it with an irregular line down the back. It was then removed by the inferior attendants, and killed, skinned, and disemboweled and the haruspex pronounced his augury on the inspection of the entrails. Prayers of thanksgiving and supplication followed. These prayers were in a regular form of words pronounced by the priest and accompanied by the people.

Of the victim sacrificed in Athens a part was consumed in honour of the god to whom it was consecrated, a tenth part was claimed by the chief magistrates, and the rest was the property of the priests. In Sparta the greater part was given to the kings. Various kinds of offerings besides animal victims were presented in the temples, either of the fruits of the earth, of silver and gold vessels, or of sculpture and pictures

* Sacrifices to the celestial gods were offered in the morning; to the infernal, in the evening or at night.

representing fortunate deliveries from disease or accidents.

Images were consecrated here, and prayers were used without sacrifices.