Forlong - Rivers of Life

218
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
(English, idol) for Ashera,” and her grand-children—no doubt like her—reigned over
Juda for about twenty years after Rehoboam, when one of them, Asa, is represented,
probably by a too tolerant priestly scribe, as putting away his grand-mother, although
“he removed not the high places;” and the fact is now clear to us that Solomon’s faith,
and the practices in Syrian Temples continued until education and civilisation drove
them away, about the fourth century A.C.
We read in Gibbon (Vol. III., page 81) that Constantine found throughout Syria
“every form of prostitution” in full force in
Venus’ temples, or others devoted to the worship
of the female energies. The emperor at
least did good in suppressing this, though he
frequently converted the worshippers into
“Christian flocks” by holding open their jaws
and forcing “the body of Christ” down their
throats—a more merciful mode than was pursued
by kings, queens, and priests who followed
him, during ten long centuries.
Solomon’s Temple appears to be a very poor
imitation of the grand Egyptian temple near
Edfou, 20 miles south of Thebes, at Apollinopolis,
probably to the great Apollo; see the
drawing given by Gwelt in his Encyclopædia of
Architecture. This Edfou temple was 450 feet
long, and 140 broad, or upwards of 14 times the
size of the Hebrew shrine. Taking the “Sacred
Cubit” of Sir Isaac Newton, which is 24.754
inches, and omiting decimals, and placing the
chambers inside, as usual throughout the East, we
find that Solomon’s Temple proper would only
occupy one of the halls of the Egyptian temple,
that it was a very humble and rude structure,
Fig 93—SOLOMON’S TEMPLE.
and not at all in keeping with its great phallic
portico. The temple was only 120 feet long, 40
broad, and 60 high, in two stories; while the porch was a large tower, 40 feet long, 20
broad, and 240 high! It may have been gilt like the Boodhist temples in Barma. The
“Holy of Holies” was cut off with “golden chains” from the rest of the inner temple,
and was 40 feet long; shrouded and bedecked with two hooded Serpents, called
Cherubim, and with chain and garlands—Serpent symbols. The carvings on the
walls were what we should expect, viz: symbolic palm trees, open flowers, and cherubim,
&c. I cannot discover what the portico tower was built of, but as an engineer,
I should have been very chary of building a “porch” rising, as it did, to 240 feet in