Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/331

Religious Architecture. 301 used to denote a rather spacious cella. Had it been of stone we might still hope some day to discover it ; but at that early age it is almost certain to have been of wood, and thus to have perished. 1 However it may be, the reverence and popularity that surrounded the sanctuary at Shiloh, proved by numerous biblical allusions, imply a Bethel akin to a temple. 2 The pro- totype of the temple set up by the writers of the Captivity was not this shrine, to which Judah had been a stranger; but the tabernacle carried before Israel, and which they connected with all the glorious events of their past history. But what makes such a pretension nugatory is the fact that, from the day that the Israelites obtained a footing in Palestine, the tabernacle is never again mentioned in Judges or Samuel ; and the ark is lodged here and there among the most influential individuals of the community (1 Sam. vii. 1 ; 2 Sam. vi. 10, 11). The minute description and splendid ordinance of the monument under notice must be con- sidered as a late creation of the priesthood, desirous to set it up as model of the ampler edifice. 3 The primary idea of this movable sanctuary had doubtless been suggested by those open booths referred to in the last page. Sundry indications betray a later manipulation ; whilst the gold and silver, for instance, the beauty and finish of the ornamentation lavished upon the tabernacle, are scarcely compatible with a wandering life in the Syrian waste. The plea that when the Hebrews came out of Egypt, they brought with them the science or rather the art-industries of their late masters, evidenced in the magnificence of the monument and the 1 Reuss suspects that the verse (1 Sam. ii. 22) in which the women are stated " to be assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation," is not of the same origin as the rest of the narrative ; hence the presumption that the tabernacle and the hecal were not identical, but two distinct objects. 2 Note the expression : " All the time that the house of God was in Shiloh " —Josh. vi. 24 ; 1 Sam. i. 7. Le Livre de F Alliance, thora Lsraelite, from Exod. xx. 22 to xxiv. 8, inclusive, mentions the " house of Jehovah," beth Jai {Exod. xxiii. 19). The custom of bringing the firstfruits and making pilgrimages three times a year was gradually established ; and Shiloh became for North Palestine a kind of Jeru- salem. It is called "royal sanctuary," and "royal temple" in Amos, implying a difference between it and ordinary shrines. At the beginning of chapter ix. the prophet announces the destruction of a sanctuary, which there is every reason to believe was the less important one of Bethel, in which the words "saf" and " caftor " occur. Now, such terms could only apply to a structural building, with a fine entrance, pillars, and the like. 3 See Palestine, pp. 127, 128, in the collection of the Univers Pittoresque, by Mùnk, who does not as a rule err on the side of scepticism.