He could not trace in the architecture of the Dome of the Rock a vestige of the style of Justinian's age or of anything that followed it. It seemed worthily to represent the last dying effort of the gorgeous but formal style of Pagan Rome-the first living effort of that freedom and grace which afterwards culminated in the Christian cathedrals of the West. The speaker then alluded to the cross shown by De Vogüé on the abacus of one of the capitals of the pillars of the building, and to the block or dossert which the Christian architects, between the ages of Constantine and Justinian, used, instead of the architrave of the Romans, in their efforts to get rid of the inconvenient entablature, and which they universally adorned with the Christian monogram of the labarum. The crosses, except in the one case, he had failed to find all had been either chiselled off or plastered over while the dosserts were all cased in marble, and therefore the labarum (if there) was hidden. As to the Cufic inscription round the interior of the Dome, which states the date of the building as 72 Hejra, or A.D. 691, and the name of the builder as El Mamoun (A.D. 813-833), it is obvious that either the name or date has been altered and falsified, and consequently no argument can be based upon it. But it is remarkable that the rest of the inscription refers to "Jesus the son of Maria," and to Him only, and that His name is mentioned four times over in it. Not one word about David, or Solomon, or Mahomet, the site of the temple, or the altar of the Jews. If it was not known that Christ was buried there, why take such pains to proclaim His mission on the walls? In proceeding to the immediate object of the present discourse— the description of the dimensions of the temple-Mr. Fergusson commenced with the tabernacle, which was the model for Solomon's temple. He showed that the apparent anomalies in the dimensions given in Exodus, which had hitherto so sorely encumbered restorers of the tabernacle, vanished directly it was assumed that the tabernacle had a 66 ridge." "It was a tent; and like every tent from before the time of Moses to the present day, it had a ridge. When once this is suggested, the whole becomes clear. Thus, every dimension of the tabernacle is a multiple of 5, except the curtains, which are 14, because they were measured along the slope. There were only four pillars in the interior, but five in the porch, as there must be if there was a ridge. In fact, the moment you assume the ridge, which was indispensable as a protection against the weather, all the difficulties disappear, and every part of the Bible description becomes intelligible. "When the tabernacle came to be superseded by a more permanent structure, it was copied literally in plan and arrangement, with this marked distinction, that in the edifice of the temple every dimension of the tabernacle was exactly doubled. Thus, the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle was a cube of 10 cubits, in the temple of 20. The Holy place in the tabernacle was a double cube of 10, in the temple of 20 cubits. The porch of the tabernacle was 5 cubits by 10, of the temple 10 by 20. The verandah of the tabernacle was 5 cubits wide, the chambers that surrounded the temple measured 10. But perhaps the most remarkable coincidence is that the angle of the roof made the tabernacle 15 cubits in height, and consequently the temple was raised by a false roof, or upper chamber, till its height was 30 cubits." The dimensions of the court of Solomon's temple are not given either in the Bible or Josephus; but it may safely be inferred that, like the edifice, they were double those of the tabernacle, and that the court, therefore, measured 100 cubits by 200, or 150 ft. by 300 ft. This is the more probable because the courts of Ezekiel's temple were of that size. In the edifice itself the only difference between Ezekiel's dimensions and those of Solomon arises from the introduction of a range of chambers between the temple court and the north court. The large dimensions of the external boundary of the sanctuary in Ezekiel's account, which have so often puzzled restorers, were dismissed as having no topographical existence; but referring to the division of the land alone, irrespective of the temple, and as representing merely "one of those simple arithmetical ratios to which the Jews were always partial in architectural matters." The temple of Zerubbabel followed the measurements of Solomon and of Ezekiel, as appears by comparing the notices of Esdras, Josephus, and Hecatæus of Abdera. So far the pre-Christian temples. The temple of Herod is much more important, because its foundations can still be traced out, and it thus becomes the turning-point of all topographical inquiries at Jerusalem. The authorities for restoring it are Josephus and the book Middoth in the Talmud. The house itself was only repaired. It was still standing, as rebuilt by Zerubbabel, when Herod took it in hand, and its dimensions were not altered; the only difference between it and Solomon's being that it retained the passage between the external chambers of Ezekiel, making the width 60 instead of 40 cubits. Two wings were also added to the façade, each 20 cubits square, so that the whole building measured 100 cubits long and 100 cubits wide. It is evident that a building 100 cubits wide could not stand in a courtyard of the same dimensions, and allow a passage round it. We consequently find the breadth of the court increased to 135 cubits, or 202 feet 6 inches, and the length between the porticoes 187 cubits, or 280 feet, leaving 20 feet for the cloisters and the thickness of the walls. The court was strongly fortified, having three gates on the north and three on the south side, and one, the most magnificent of all, towards the east. What had been the outer court, or court of the Gentiles, was cut in two, and appropriated to the women; its breadth was also 135 cubits. Its extent, east and west, can be fixed with very tolerable accuracy by the protraction of the outer court. It must have been, as nearly as possible, 40 cubits, or 60 feet. The important and characteristic addition which Herod made was the great court of the Gentiles, with its "royal porch," 600 feet long and 100 feet wide, supported by 162 Corinthian columns, which divided it into three aisles, of which the centre one was 100 feet high. The court of the Gentiles surrounded the whole of the other courts, and formed a square, as Josephus expressly states, of which the external measurement was one stadium, or 600 feet, on each side, Having obtained these general dimensions, the speaker next proceeded to apply them to the existing remains. Here some remarkable coincidences disclosed themselves. All agree that the south-western angle of the Haram enclosure is one of the angles of the temple area. For 600 feet eastwards from this angle along the south wall all is practically solid. But at that point a range of vaults is reached, unequally spaced, badly constructed, and not only of much more modern age, but too weak to have supported the temple. So far, therefore, did the temple extend; and in this direction the history and the topography are agreed. Returning to the south-west angle, and measuring 600 feet north, we come to a second bridge or causeway. Up to that point the great "bevilled" masonry of Herod extends; but there it ceases. On this side, again, the history and topography are at one, and thus two sides of the quadrangle are obtained. The other two, lying within the sacred enclosure, have not yet been investigated. The position of the great rock-cut reservoir in front of the Aksah, the watercourses, as far as they have been examined, all accord with the indications of Josephus and the Talmud. Everything tends to show that the temple of Herod was, as Josephus tells us, 600 feet square, and was situated in the south-western angle of the present Haram area. The rock, therefore, which now stands under the Dome of the Rock, was certainly outside the area of the temple, at a distance of 150 feet from its northern wall. Before leaving this part of the subject, a few words were devoted to showing that the supposition that the altar in the temple was placed upon a rock, is unsupported by any evidence or implication of the Bible, Josephus, or the Talmud; and is, in fact, a mere Mohammedan tradition. The remainder of the discourse was devoted to an examination of the post-Christian evidence. By citations from the Bourdeaux Pilgrim (A.D. 333), Gregory Nazianzen, Antoninus Martyr (560), and Eutychius (870), Mr. Fergusson urged that the position of the Temple was well known, and the "beautiful gate" standing as late as the end of the sixth century, and that the site of the Temple had been intentionally left waste by the Christians, and turned into a dunghill. In this state of desolation and defilement it was found by the Mohammedans when they conquered Jerusalem, in 636. The Mohammedan accounts are contained in the treatises of Jelal-ed-Deen and Mejr-edDeen. They state that Omar obtained from the patriarch of Jerusalem a gift of the site of the temple, on condition that Omar should erect on it one house of prayer, and no other, in the whole of Jerusalem. That the one mosque thus erected was the Aksah (built by Abd-el Malik in 691), was shown by the testimony of Arculfus (A.D. 700), who mentions the " square house of prayer recently built by the Saracens, and capable of holding 3,000 persons." Arculf's silence as to any Mohammedan building answering to the Dome of the Rock is also difficult to explain on any other supposition than that the Dome of the Rock was a Christian building, and still used as such-in fact, the building which he minutely describes as the Anastasis, or church of the Resurrection. Attention was drawn to the fact that, excluding the building in question, all the early Mohammedan mosques are clustered round the Aksah, and within the limits of the 600 feet already given as the limit of the temple. The speaker further said that Sir Henry Rawlinson had allowed him access to his large and valuable Arabic library, and that he had various works therein contained, examined by a competent Arabic scholar, who had extracted and translated all passages bearing on Jerusalem. The result was, that down to the time of Abd-el-Malik, and later, the limits of the temple were well known to the Mohammedans, and that they neither built, nor pretended to have built, the structure now called the "Mosque of Omar." "If, then," concluded Mr. Fergusson, "the Dome of the Rock was not built by the Saracens, it must have been built by the Christians; there is no third party to have done it. In that case I would ask, 'What church did Constantine or any other Christian priest or monarch build in Jerusalem over a great rock, with one cave in it, but the church of the Holy Sepulchre?' Till this question is answered-and no attempt has yet been made to reply to it, or to supply its place with any reasonable suggestion-the arguments of my opponents halt. "As I began, let me conclude. I first took up the question on architectural grounds; I then examined it historically; and, lastly, I investigated it on the topographical ground I have this evening laid before you. Whichever path I attempted to pursue, I always came back to the same point. I do not mean to say that the question is without difficulties, or the road without its ruts and roughnesses; but I do assert that, so far as I can judge, an immense preponderance of evidence, from whatever point it is viewed, is in favour of the conclusion that the building at Jerusalem, known as the Dome of the Rock, is the identical church which Constantine built over what he believed to be the Sepulchre of Christ." [J. F.] The discourse was excellently illustrated by diagrams and plans, by a conjectural view of the temple-more intended to show its position with regard to the other parts of the city than to give details of architecture-and by fine coloured drawings of the interior of the Dome of the Rock and the Sacred Rock itself, by Carl Haag and Carl Werner. GENERAL MONTHLY MEETING, Monday, March 6, 1865. WILLIAM POLE, ESQ. M.A. F.R.S. Treasurer and Vice-President, in the Chair. The decease of HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND, K.G. F.R S. the President, on the 12th February last, was announced from the Chair. Ernest L. S. Benzon, Esq. John James Unwin Clarke, junior, Esq. Henry H. S. Croft, Esq. Woronzow Greig, Esq. F.R.S. Richard Belgrave Jackson, Esq. John Macpherson, M.D. Farquhar Matheson, Esq. Henry Wilkes Notman, Esq. F.R.G.S. Charles Rogers, Esq. James Vaughan, Esq. Lieut.-Colonel G. F. Whitelocke. were elected Members of the Royal Institution. F. Woodhouse Braine, Esq. William Miller, Esq. Charles Robinson, Esq. Edward Y. Western, Esq. were admitted Members of the Royal Institution. The Chairman announced the following additions to "The Donation Fund for the Promotion of Experimental Researches" (see page 151). Henry Bence Jones, M.D. Sec. R. I. (2nd donation) Adam Murray, Esq. . £20 0 20 5 5 000 05 |