Forlong - Rivers of Life

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Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
entrance, whilst in the Porch is placed Jakin and Boaz, the Chariot of the Sun, &c.
I am unable to comprehend the details of windows, and doors, upper and lower storeys
and partitions, owing to the imperfect and often contradictory terms given in Kings
a:nd Chronicles; but in the leading figures no architect can make a mistake. Such
temples are especially common amongst the Phallic-worshippers of Southern India. A
lofty entrance-porch usually adorns the front; on entering we find Phallic poles, with
altars for sacrifice, &c.; and in the innermost recess the sanctuary or oracle of the Cultus.
No. II. is a Block Plan of Site, showing that the shrine is to be placed true east
and west, so that the Ark or Altar may see the morning sun of the Midsummer Solstice
rise over Mount Olivet, with a ray which bisects the inner and outer walls of the
enclosure, which I take to be trapezoidal in form, owing to the course of the cliffs
that bound the summit eastwardly.
No. III. is a Longitudinal Section of Temple. This gives detail of Spire and
position of the Phalli, Jakin and Boaz, and determines their height as something
between 50 and 60 feet, also the elevation, &c., of the Sanctum and Oracle. The
Ark having been early lost, I place a plain Maha-Deva or Stone, which the Reverend
T. Wilson tells us, was all that existed in the second Temple. 1
No. IV. is a Front Section of Porch.—This shows its appearance from the front with
the relative heights of temple in two stories; but the chroniclers are here very defective:
one making the Sanctum portion lower than the rest by 10 feet or so.
As to the scale, it has been common to assume the cubit as from 22 to 23 inches, but
after much consideration which I was once compelled to give to this in a lengthened controversy—which
the late Sir James Simpson engaged in at the Royal Society of Edinburgh—to
the measures used by the ancient Egyptians, and which, as regarded arithmetical
details, I had to conduct; the cubit of Sir Isaac Newton was the one most generally
approved, and I have therefore taken 2 feet as Solomon’s cubit. Of course, whatever size
is taken, the proportions here shown will be the same, unless the bible text is corrupt.
In chapters xvi. to xxii. of 2 Kings, we have an attempt, and no bad one, to
describe the grandest developments of Phallo-Solar Faiths; and from the general
history of these tribes might gather substance for as complete and impressive a
description of details as we could get in Egypt or Asia Minor. At the entrance
of Solomon’s temple, we are told, stood the mighty Baal, represented by chariots
with horses yoked; whilst ever around him, and in the courts sacred then to all
Heaven’s other orbs, were his Priests, called Chemorim, burning incense to the Sun,
Moon, and twelve Zodiac Constellations. There also sat the temple-women weaving
“hangings,” which symbolised serpents, for the “grove” or Asherah, and who had dedicated
their lives as well as their bodies to the sacred fanes; and, alas! there also sat the most
debased of men, who had likewise for the gods consecrated their bodies to defilement.
At the gate of this “holy city of David and Solomon,” where lived Joshua the
Governor, were the “high places” to phallic-worship, as Hindostan so well knows
1 See his Archeological Dicty., art. Sanctum.