Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/211

Enumeration of Documents Consulted. 193 from the two aforesaid authorities. His description, they urge, is vague and obscure ; as to his vision, whilst having no foundation in fact, it does not coincide in its practical portions with either of the temples. 1 In a word the whole description of the edifice cannot be taken seriously by historians or archaeologists, and is to be placed on the same level as the heavenly Jerusalem of Revelations. 2 It is an opinion that we do not share ; for on Ezekiel we shall mainly draw for our restoration scheme. The uncertain reading of many terms met with in Ezekiel was a difficulty felt by the Alexandrian translators. They got over the shibboleth by some- times confining themselves to a mere transcript of the Hebrew word, without attempting to translate or comment upon it. This is not all ; here and there, when they thought they were sure of the text, they paraphrased rather than translated, but their render- ing is often diametrically opposed to the context, making a choice between the two readings a matter of immense difficulty. 3 This drawback and others too long to enumerate we do not deny ; but we cannot help thinking that when viewed more narrowly, they will not be nearly so formidable as at first sight appears ; that in the main they may be due to the fact that the Greek translators, like Hebrew scholars of the present day, were unacquainted with architecture or archaeology and merely dealt with words. The thoughts of the former were chiefly directed to placing a version of the Old Testa- ment in the hands of their countrymen or their converts, unac- quainted or but with a slight smattering of Hebrew ; whilst the work of commentators, not excepting the best, has been confined to purely philological questions. Feeling no interest in matters pertaining to art, they neither knew nor cared to learn its termino- logy. Had they shown any concern, a diagram by a specialist would, in most instances, have set them right upon passages that had baffled their efforts ; whilst the Lexicon on which they too exclusively relied was little better than a snare. 4 This equally 1 That is the reason adduced by De Saulcy {Hist, de F Art. Jud., p. 163), for having made little or no use of the Book of Ezekiel. 2 Rev. xxi. 9 ; xxii. 5. 8 Reuss, The Bible, torn. ii. p. 125, note 5. 4 Smend is a brilliant exception to the general rule. By means of his pencil he deciphered passages that had proved recalcitrant to his predecessors. His scholarly commentary upon Ezekiel (Der Prophet Ezechiel erklàrt, von Rudolf Smend, 1880) is accompanied by a lithograph plan and eight wood engravings of the temple of the prophet. vol. 1. o