Page images
PDF
EPUB

The length of the site of the mosque is, according to Maundrell, 370 paces, or 156 fathoms four feet and a half. Now the measurement of the plan gives about 172. It is here remarkable that Maundrell's measure loses in breadth, the greater part of what is gained in length. Hence it may be concluded that the want of precision in these measures consists not so much in their general amount as in their distribution. In all probability edifices contiguous to the area of the mosque in the interior of the city have rendered it much more difficult to take its circumference with accuracy than that of the city. Maundrell himself acknowledges that his measure is deduced from a calculation made on the outside; and the details into which we could not avoid entering on this subject will show, that our investigation is conducted with reference to all the data that could be procured, and that there is no dissimulation or contrivance in our account.

The mosque which has succeeded the temple is held in extraordinary veneration by the Mahometans. Omar, having taken Jerusalem in the 15th year of the Hegira, A.D. 637, laid the foundation of this mosque, which was greatly embellished by Abd el Malek, the son of Mervan. The Mahometans have carried their respect for this place to such a length as to place it on a level with their sanctuary at Mecca; calling it Alacsa, which signifies extremum, or ulterius, in contradistinction to that sanctuary: and according to all appearance they have made a particular point of enclosing in its area the whole site of the Jewish temple, totum antiqui Sacri fundum, says Golius in his learned notes on the astronomy of Alferganes. Phocas, whom I have already quoted, and who wrote in the 12th century, is precisely of the same opinion, that the whole space surrounding the mosque is the ancient area of the temple; Tahaιov To μegans vas daπedov. Though this temple had been destroyed, it was not possible but that vestiges should exist, that at least traces might be discovered of those prodigious works erected to raise the sides of the temple and its entire area to a level with the ground of the temple itself situated on the summit of mount Moriah. The four sides forming the circumference of the temple were turned toward the four cardinal points; and it was the intention that the entrance of the temple should be exposed to the rising sun, in placing the Sancta Sanctorum at the opposite side. In this a conformity with the arrangement of the tabernacle had been studied, and these circumstances are liable to no difficulties. Now the same disposition of the four fronts is still remarked in the area of the mosque of Jerusalem, the sides of which correspond, within thirteen or fourteen degrees, with the four quarters of the compass placed on the plan of M. Deshayes. Supposing even that the position of this compass is dependent on the due northern polarity of the needle, and that allowance ought to be made for a western declination; that, moreover, this position might not be perfectly accu

rate; the consequence would be a still greater degree of precision in the correspondence of this area with the quarters of the compass. We find in Sandys, an English traveller, a small plan of Jerusalem, which, though far inferior in merit to that of M. Deshayes, nevertheless derives great advantage from the general conformity with this plan; and according to the points of the compass marked on Sandys's plan, the faces of the square of the temple correspond exactly with the letters N. S. E. W.

It would appear that the sides of the Jewish temple were perfectly equal, and formed a more regular square than the site of the present Mahometan mosque. It is generally admitted that Ezekiel's measure gives 500 cubits to each of the sides. Though in the Hebrew we find reeds for cubits, and in the Vulgate calamus for cubitos; the mistake is obvious, especially as the calamus comprehended not less than six cubits; and besides, the Greek version, executed apparently from a correct text, says expressly, TEVTANOIS. Rabbi Jehuda, the author of the Mishna, and who collected the traditions of the Jews respecting the temple, at a period not very remote from its destruction, for he lived during the reign of Antoninus Pius, agrees in this point, in his particular treatise, entitled Middoth, or the Measure. It cannot then be doubted that such was in reality the extent of the temple.

[ocr errors]

We have a second observation to make, which is, that this measure, so far from answering to the length, is not equal even to the breadth, or the shortest side of the area of the mosque, however disposed we may be to give to the cubit its utmost dimension. Ezekiel, indeed, would lead us to suppose this measure of a cubit rather under than over rated, as he tells the Jewish captives at Babylon, xl. 5. and xliii. 13. that, in the construction of a new temple, in the re-establishment of the altar, they are to employ a cubit, comprehending a cubit and a hand breadth: εν πήχει το πήχεως και πα arts, says the Greek version, in cubito cubiti et palmi. Several scholars, and among others father Lami, have imagined that the Hebrew cubit might be the same, or nearly the same measure as the derah or Egyptian cubit, the use of which, in the measure of the inundation of the Nile, must have preserved its original length without alteration, and rendered it invariable notwithstanding the changes of rulers. Greaves, an English mathematician, and Cumberland, bishop of Peterborough, find, in the application of the derah, in several chambers of the great pyramid, where this measure is used complete and agrees without any fraction, a proof of its high antiquity. It is, moreover, extremely probable that the Israelites, who became a people merely by the multiplication of a single family, during their abode in Egypt, and who were even employed in the public works of that country, borrowed the measures made use of in those works. Prior to this period, the patriarchs of their race never

building, and having even no stationary possessions, it is not likely that they should have for their own use particular measures, fixed and regulated with great precision by certain standards, since things of this kind originated only in the necessity for them. Moses, instructed in all the learning of the Egyptians, must necessarily have derived from their mathematics whatever was connected with it in the sciences which he had acquired. Be this as it may, a circumBe this as it may, a circumstance beyond all doubt in the employment of the derah is, that a greater length cannot be given to what is denominated the cubit. Greaves, having taken the measure of the derah on the Nilometer of Cairo, has made a comparison between it and the English foot; and supposing this foot to be divided into 1,000 parts, the derah makes 1,824 such parts. From the comparison of the English and French foot, by which it appears that the English foot is longer by one sixth of a line than it had before been reckoned, the derah is equiv. alent to twenty inches and a half good measure of the French foot. Now 500 cubits of the measure of the derah make 10,250 inches, equal to 854 feet, or 42 fathoms, 2 feet. Thus there was just reason to assert that the measure of the temple is inferior to the area of the mosque; since that measure is not equal to the smallest of the dimensions of this area, or its breadth. How would it be if we were to refuse to the Hebrew cubit, considered strictly as a cubit, the same length as a derah has?

However, when we reflect that the area of the summit of mount Moriah has been made as extensive as it is by dint of art, we can scarcely persuade ourselves that an addition was made in this particular to the labours of the Jewish people, labours which at different times took up several centuries, as Josephus has remarked. The octagonal building of the mosque being comprehended in the space of about 45 fathoms, according to the scale of the plan; and the kind of inner cloister which surrounds this mosque being about 100 fathoms square; it cannot be presumed that the Mahometans had any motive for extending the outer court beyond the limits which the Jews had been enabled to give it, only by surmounting nature. From these considerations there is every reason to presume that the whole of the space assigned to the mosque and its dependencies once belonged to the temple, and the Mahometan superstition might probably have determined to lose no part of this area, without feeling any desire to extend it.

Father Lami, in the distribution of the parts of the temple, distinguishing and separating the Atrium Gentium from that of the Israelites, in which respect he differs from Villalpando, judged that this Atrium of the Gentiles was without the place measured by Ezekiel. Now, it appears that the discussion on which we are about to enter, favours that opinion, and that this same opinion assigns the proper use of the super

abundant space. Lightfoot, in what he has written on the subject of the temple, quotes a passage of the Talmud added to the Middoth, which says that mount Moriah exceeded in measure 500 cubits; but that the surplus of that measure was not accounted holy, like the part which it enclosed. The Jewish tradition would prove two things; one, that the area of mount Moriah had been increased even beyond what was comprehended in Ezekiel's measure, as we in fact remark that the present space is more extensive; the other, that the surplus over and above this measure cannot be better accounted for, than as the place set apart for the Gentiles, whom a feeling of veneration for the God of Israel brought to his temple, but who were not considered as his genuine worshippers. These circumstances coincide in a remarkable manner with what is said in Rev. xi. where St. John, having been commanded to measure the temple of God, "There was given me a reed like unto a rod, and the angel stood, saying, Rise and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein,” adds, "But the court which is without the temple, leave out and measure it not, for it is given unto the Gentiles." This injunction, measure it not, gives us to understand, that in measuring the temple it was proper and even necessary for him to confine himself to a more limited space than the whole area of the temple; and the preceding words, the court which is without the temple, make us nevertheless acquainted with a space supplementary to this measure, and inform us at the same time of the purpose to which it was appropriated, for it is given unto the Gentiles. This passage of the Apocalypse may have an absolute and comparative foundation, independently of any mystic or figurative signification, in the recollection which St. John had retained of the temple of Jerusalem. Josephus, who assigns a triple enclosure to the temple, doubtless means by this three different spaces: so that, exclusively of the Atrium Sacerdo'um and Atrium Israelitarum, we must necessarily admit a third space, such as in fact appears, from the preceding considerations, to have existed.

Father Lami, whose skill in architecture was of great service to him in his description of the temple, applying the measure of 500 cubits to the boundary of the Atrium of the Israelites, and forming an exterior Atrium, with a kind of combination in the proportions of the parts of the temple, is thereby led to assign about 2,620 Hebrew cubits to the circumference of his ground plan of the temple. This number of cubits, according to the same standard as above, makes 746 fathoms. Now, let us recollect that the length of the area of the mosque of Jerusalem, deduced from the plan of that city, was stated at about 215 fathoms, and the breadth at 172. Multiply each of these amounts by two, and you will have in the whole 774 fathoms, from which may be deducted one

fiftieth, or 15 or 16 fathoms, to reduce the scale to the standard, which appeared more correct in the total measure of the circumference of Jerusalem. At this rate there will be only 13 or 14 fathoms, more or less, in the calculation of the circuit of the area belonging to the temple. Father Lami, it is true, has assumed four equal sides, though the quantity of measure is somewhat unequally divided by the nature of the ground itself. But, is it not obvious that this perfect equality in father Lami arises only from an imitation or repetition of what was peculiar to the body of the temple, cut off from the outer Atrium of the Gentiles? And since there is no fact furnishing a proof of such a repetition, which may be more easily imagined than admitted by the nature of the ground, it cannot be considered as positive.

Having ascertained what was the extent of the temple, we cannot help being extremely surprised to find that what Josephus says on this subject differs so widely from the truth. We cannot comprehend how it happens that this historian, who in other particulars seeks, as well he might, to convey a high idea of this edifice, should fall so very short of the extent which ought to be assigned to it. The sides of the square of the temple are stated to be a stadium in length; and in another place the whole circumference of the area, including the tower of Antonia, contiguous to the northwest angle, is computed at six stadia. He should have written dexa instead of e, taking the stadium at the same standard as seemed suitable for it in the measure of the circumference of Jerusalem, and ten of these make 760 fathoms, which form an exact mean between the preceding computations.

VIII. OF THE HEBREW MEASURES OF LENGTH.

I shall conclude this essay with some discussion respecting the Hebrew measures appropriated to spaces. This discussion is the more intimately connected with what goes before, as it furnishes proofs on several points. It does not appear equivocal that the cubit called in the Hebrew ameh, compounded of aleph, mem, and he, in the Chaldean language, ametha, with the Greeks πηχυς, and likewise Ωλένη, from which the Latins have formed the word ulna, should be an element of measure, which it is of very great importance to verify. The standard which we have seen this cubit take above, in reference to the extent of the temple, appears well adapted to give it already a considerable advantage. Let us see if it can be otherwise repeated or deduced from some other medium.

If we follow the statement of the Rabbi Godolias, on the authority of Maimonides, the Hebrew cubit is equivalent to the Bologna ell; and from this comparison, Dr. Cumberland, bishop of Peterborough, has assigned to the cubit 21 English inches and ths of an inch, as I find by Arbuthnot's

700

Treatise of Money, Weights, and Measures. This makes 20 inches and about five lines of the Paris foot, and is consequently but one line shorter than the derah or Egyptian cubit.

But, a method of determining the length of the Hebrew cubit, which, as far I know, has never yet been resorted to, decisive as it may appear, is this: The Jews agree in stating the Iter sabbaticum, or the distance it was lawful for them to travel on the sabbath day, in obedience to the injunction of Exod. xvi. 29. Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day, they agree, I say, in rating it at two thousand cubits. The author of the Chaldean Paraphrase expresses himself positively on this subject, on occasion of verse 6. chap. i. of the book of Ruth. Ecumenius confirms this measure by the testimony of Origen, when he says that the mile, being equal to a sabbath day's journey, comprehends δις χιλίων πήχων. The treatise on Jewish measures, written by St. Epiphanius, who, being a Jew, and born in Palestine, must have been well acquainted with the case in point, informs us that the sabbath day's journey is equivalent to six stadia. To make the cubit in question rather longer than shorter, we cannot do better than employ the ordinary stadium, eight of which go to a Roman mile, and which seems even to have superseded all the other stadia in the decline of the empire.

The length of this stadium, taken at 94 fathoms, two feet, eight inches, being multiplied by six, gives 566 fathoms, four feet. On reducing this amount into feet, we find 3,400, containing 40,800 inches; and on dividing this number of inches into 2,000 parts, each of these parts is found to consist of 20 inches and

ths. Now the product of this calculation seems to be expressly designed to serve as a verification to the measure deduced above. What indeed is wanting to make the standard which we have just found, precisely the same as that which we before employed for the Hebrew cubit, under the idea that it was one and the same measure with the derah or the Egyptian cubit? Must not the difference of a line and one fiftieth be considered of very trifling importance in a combination of this kind? Not only does this difference not exceed th of the whole, but, before we can consider this difference as a want of precision in the employment of the derah for the Hebrew cubit, we ought to be perfectly sure that the six stadia, neither more nor less, were exactly equivalent to the 2,000 cubits. We ought therefore to be thoroughly satisfied with the statement of St. Epiphanius, and to know that he has not neglected to add a thirtyfourth part of a stadium, or between sixteen and sev

enteen feet.

The Jews had a measure of length, to which they not only applied the term of berath, which some commentators consider as peculiar to it, but likewise that of mill, mem, iod, lamed, in the plural milin. Though

there is no doubt that this denomination was borrowed from the Romans, yet this is no reason why the mile among the Jews should not have had a distinct and particular definition, which is stated at 2,000 cubits, and which exactly agrees with the account of Ecumenius, who has just been quoted. Several passages of the Gemara, referred to by Reland, Palæstina, vol. i. p. 400. inform us that the Jews reckon seven stadia and a half to a mile. The term which they employ to express the stadium is ris, resch, iod, samech, in the plural risin. It may be rendered by the Latin word curriculum. The junction of four milin composed among the Jews a kind of league, called parseh, pe, resch, samech, he. In the Syriac language, paras signifies to extend, and parseh, extent; and it is the more natural to suppose that this term was borrowed from that language, as it became common among the Jews in the times posterior to their captivity. We find in Reland a passage from the Talmud, which expressly states the Jewish mile to be 2,000 cubits, and a parseh 4,000. Two thousand cubits, according to the precise standard of the derah, make 569 fathoms, two feet, eight inches. If we multiply this amount by four, we shall find 2,277 fathoms, four feet, eight inches, for the parseh. This measure scarcely differs at all from our French league, composed of two Gallic leagues, and 25 of which are exactly equivalent to a degree.

The learned Reland, setting out with the supposition that the Jewish mile is not different from the Roman mile, and making the number of 2,000 cubits in the one equivalent to 5,000 feet in the other, conIcludes that the cubit contained two feet and a half. But though it cannot be denied that the extent of the Roman dominion rendered the Roman mile almost universal, still it is very certain that the measure of this mile ought not to be confounded with that given us for the Jewish mile. Not only is the standard of the cubit, which would result from the mistake, naturally difficult of admission, exceeding the limits of probability in quality of a cubit; but a mere comparison of numbers, unaccompanied with essential approximations, cannot be supported against a positive definition, the accuracy of which is proved by verifications. There is a passage in the Gemara which fixes a common day's journey at ten parsaut, for such is the plural of parseh. If the parseh were equivalent to four Roman miles, the amount would be 40 miles. But the ancients never go so far in this computation. They commonly confine themselves to 25 miles, or 200 stadia; and if Herodotus, book 5. makes it 250 stadia, we ought to bear in mind that this historian has, in many places, employed stadia of ten to a mile. The Oriental geographers also agree in the number of 25 miles for a common day's journey, as the Maronites, who have translated Edrisi's Geography, in the state in which we have it, or rath

er the extract from it, have observed in their preface: for when the Orientals seem to vary respecting the number of miles, in sometimes stating 30 instead of 25, this arises from the difference of miles, and from their not having always employed the standard Arabic miles, 25 of which may be equivalent to 30 or 31 of a more ordinary kind. By the evaluation which is proper to the parseh, ten of which are equal to 30 Roman miles, it is evident that a measure considerably longer would exceed the above mentioned limits. Father Lami has objected to Villalpando on the subject of a similar opinion, that the Hebrew cubit was equal to 24 Roman feet; that, as the height of the altar of perfumes was stated to be two cubits, a priest of gigantic stature would have been required to officiate and scatter incense over that altar. It is certain that the coincidences which we have met with, respecting the area of the temple, would not have taken place with a cubit measuring about one fourth more than that which is here given. The Roman foot being equal to 1,306 tenths of a line of the Paris foot, the 2 feet contain 326 lines, or 27 inches 2 lines. It must further be remarked that Villalpando assigned to the Roman foot something more than this calcula

I took notice above of the fortuitous coincidence between the parseh and our league, merely to communicate to this parseh the idea of what is proper and familiar to us. But the same agreement between the parseh and an ancient Oriental measure must not in like manner be considered as the effect of chance. This exact correspondence will rather prove them both to have been one and the same measure. I have shown, in the Treatise on Itinerary Measures, that the stadium, which makes one tenth of a Roman mile, was exactly suitable for measuring Xenophon's marches; and that, from the calculation made by Xenophon himself of the number of stadia in parasangs, it appears certain that 30 stadia make one parasang. This computation is conformable in every respect with the precise definition of the parasang given by Herodotus, Hesychius, and Suidas. On multiplying 75 fathoms three feet four inches, at which the stadium of ten to the mile is fixed, by 30, we shall have a product of 2,266 fathoms four feet. Now, this estimate of the parasang comes within eleven fathoms of the parseh; so that two feet two inches more in the length of the stadium, which serves

[blocks in formation]

the parasang, whether Persian, Babylonian, or whatever you may choose to call it? does not the parseh comprehend the amount of 30 stadia, since the Jewish mile, the fourth part of the parseh, is accounted by the Jews equal to 7? Let us add that the names parseh and parasang have sufficient affinity to countenance the idea of the identity of the measure; and that, as the terms paras and parseh have, in the ancient Oriental language, the Chaldee as well as Syriac, a proper and literal interpretation, which cannot have a meaning more suitable to the thing itself, this was undoubtedly adopted, to acquire the proper signification of the word parasang. As the parseh is not mentioned in Scripture, there is every reason to believe that it was not introduced among the Jews till subsequent to the Babylonian captivity.

But observe what a series of coincidences! The definition of the parasang has its existence independently of what constitutes the parseh, for this parasang depends on a particular stadium, which is produced by means totally foreign to what appears even to concern or to interest the parasang, as may be seen in my Treatise on Measures. The parseh, on the other hand, springs from totally different elements, and has its principle in this, that the Egyptian cubit seems to be a measure of the highest antiquity, and that the use of it was probably adopted by the Hebrew nation. On these presumptions, for so far we can have nothing more, the application of the cubit to this parseh is more exactly verified than we could venture to hope, by the conclusion which must be drawn from the measure assigned by Epiphanius as the fourth part of the parseh. All these different ways, so totally distinct from each other, lead nevertheless to the same consequences and meet at the same point. It would be impossible to obtain greater harmony by concerted means. What must result from this? A mutual guarantee, if I may be allowed that expres. sion, of all the parties and circumstances that enter into the combination.

The positive determination of the Hebrew cubit is one of the principal advantages of such a discussion. It is very true that father Lami, as well as some other scholars, proposed the adoption of the derah for this cubit, but without positively demonstrating the propriety of such adoption, or verifying it by applications of the nature of those which have just been produced. It would even appear that the precision of this measure had in some sort escaped father Lami, since, notwithstanding his conjecture respecting the derab, he makes the Hebrew cubit twenty inches. Nos, says he, lib. i. cap. 9. sect. 1. Cubitum Hebræum facimus viginti pollicum.

The Hebrew cubit was composed of six minor palms, and this palm is called in Hebrew tophach, teth, hhe, hheth. The Septuagint version has rendered this word Taλaioтns, which is peculiar to the palm in question; the definitions given by Hesychius

and Julius Pollux fix this palm at four fingers' breadth. The cubit consequently contained twenty-four fingers, and this is precisely the number of parts into which the Egyptian cubit or derah is divided in the column of Mihias, otherwise the Nilometer near Fostat, or old Cairo. Abulfeda is quoted by Kircher as saying that the legal cubit of the Jews, the same as the Egyptian, contains twenty-four fingers. In Diodorus Siculus, lib. i. when he speaks of the Nilometer which existed at Memphis, and which he terms NaλOTKOTTEIOV, we find mention made not only of the cubits into which it was divided, but also of the fingers dantulous, which formed the subdivisions of the cubit.

According to the measure which agrees with this cubit, the tophach or palm is equal to 3 inches, 5 lines of the French foot; and I observe that this particular measure has the advantage of appearing to be borrowed from nature: for, if we suppose it to be taken from the breadth of the four fingers of a clenched fist, agreeably to the explanation of Pollux, the study of the relative proportions of the parts of the body will show that this measure is adapted to a stature of about 5 feet 8 inches French; and this stature, which is exactly equivalent to six Greek feet, is rather above than below the ordinary height of man. But if the palm, which forms the sixth part of the Hebrew cubit, is thus found to correspond with a lofty and majestic stature, and cannot be sensibly extended without swelling into the gigantic, it will follow that the measure of this cubit cannot, as a cubit, partake of the same concordance. Father Lami, in fixing the cubit at twenty inches, has thence calculated the stature of the patriarchs at 80 inches or 6 feet 8 inches, which agrees in proportion with this principle of Vitruvius: Pes altitudinis corporis sexta cubitus quartœ. According to this proportion the measure taken from the derah would produce seven feet wanting two inches. If such a stature be admissible on the score of a particular distinction between the first race of mankind, and the present state of nature, still it is very certain that the length of the cubit in question exceeds the limits to which the ordinary stature of men has long been confined: so that in proportion to the stature with which the measure of the palm seems particularly to agree, or 5 feet and about 8 inches, the length of the cubit should be but about seventeen inches. Now the Rabbins seem to be persuaded that a difference existed between the common cubit and the legal or sacred cubit, the standard of which was deposited in the sanctuary; and that this common cubit was shorter than the other by one tophach. Being thus reduced to five tipuchim, the plural of tophach, or to twenty fingers, and losing 3 inches 5 lines, its length amounted to 17 inches 1 line. Though father Lami has combated the Jewish tradition respecting this common cubit, still the striking analogy of proportion seems to support it. The testimon the Rabbins even receives a positive confir

« PreviousContinue »