and perfect proportional
harmony of the Grecian, nor perhaps the fantastic grace and lightness of
later Oriental architecture. Some writers, calling to their assistance
the visionary temple of Ezekiel, have erected a most superb edifice; to
which there is this fatal objection, that if the dimensions of the
prophet are taken as they stand in the text, the area of the Temple and
its courts would not only have covered the whole of Mount Moriah, but
almost all Jerusalem. In fact our accounts of the Temple of Solomon are
altogether unsatisfactory. The details, as they now stand in the books
of Kings and Chronicles, the only safe authorities, are unscientific,
and, what is worse, contradictory.

Josephus has evidently blended together the three temples, and
attributed to the earlier all the subsequent additions and alterations.
The Temple, on the whole, was an enlargement of the tabernacle, built of
more costly and durable materials. Like its model, it retained the
ground-plan and disposition of the Egyptian, or rather of almost all the
sacred edifices of antiquity: even its measurements are singularly in
unison with some of the most ancient temples in Upper Egypt. It
consisted of a propylaeon, a temple, and a sanctuary; called respectively
the Porch, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies. Yet in some respects,
if the measurements are correct, the Temple must rather have resembled
the form of a simple Gothic church.

In the front to the east stood the porch, a tall tower, rising to the
height of 210 feet. Either within, or, like the Egyptian obelisks,
before the porch, stood two pillars of brass; by one account 27, by
another above 60 feet high, the latter statement probably including
their capitals and bases. These were called Jachin and Boaz (Durability
and Strength).[28] The capitals of these were of the richest
workmanship, with net-work, chain-work, and pomegranates. The porch was
the same width with the Temple, 35 feet; its depth 17-1/2. The length of
the main building, including the Holy Place, 70 feet, and the Holy of
Holies, 35, was in the whole 105 feet; the height 52-1/2 feet.[29]

[Footnote 28: Ewald, following, he says, the Septuagint, makes these
pillars not standing alone like obelisks before the porch, but as
forming the front of the porch, with the capitals connected together,
and supporting a kind of balcony, with ornamental work above it. The
pillars measured 12 cubits (22 feet) round.]

[Footnote 29: