dually elaborate and costly. In many savage tribes and in the
earliest period of civilized peoples (Egyptians, Hebrews, al.) a hut,
constructed like those of the people and therefore of a very simple
character, houses the image or other representative of the god. With the
progress of artistic feeling and skill abodes of men grow into palaces
and abodes of deities into temples. It is on the temples that the
greatest labor has been expended, partly because they are the work of
the whole community, partly because it has been believed that the favor
of the deity would be gained by making his dwelling-place
magnificent.[1984] The essential fact in a temple--its definition--is
(in the lower cults) and was (in the great ancient cults) that it is or
was the home of a god, the specific place of approach to him, with the
possibility of face-to-face intercourse and a greater probability of
gaining the blessings desired. This local conception of the deity
continued after larger ideas had arisen,[1985] and is to be found at the
present day in some Christian circles.

+1084+. Temples have tended to grow not only in beauty and magnificence
but also in elaborateness of interior arrangements and of connected
structures. Anciently they were specifically places of sacrifice--the
abodes of gods to whom sacrifice was offered--and this function
generally determined their interior form. Sometimes they contained a
single room in which stood an image and an altar; this was the simplest
architectural embodiment of the idea of divine sacredness. But the
progress of ritual forms was accompanied by the notion of grades of
sanctity, and a special sanctity was indicated by a special room, an
adytum, an inner or most holy shrine;[1986] where, as was often the
case, gradations in priestly rank existed, only the highest priest could
enter the adytum. For the implements of service and for the priests
there were buildings attached to the temple. The people gathered in
courts adjoining the sacred structure; where ritual exactness was
carried very far (as in Ezekiel's plan and in Herod's temple), there
were gradations in the courts also.[1987] Usually an altar stood in one
of the courts. The sacredness of the sanctuary communicated itself to
the vessels and other implements of the sacrificial service.

+1085+. Temples, like sacred inclosures and altars, were often asylums,
and doubtless in many cases served to protect innocent persons. The
privilege, howev