What is a Temple?

Those church fathers, especially of the fourth century, who proclaim the victory of Christianity over its rivals constantly speak of the church as the competitor and supplanter of the synagogue, and modern authorities are agreed that in ritual and liturgy the Christian church grew up "in the shadow of the Synagogue." fn This is a most significant fact. While the temple stood the Jews had both its ancient ordinances and the practices of the synagogue, but they were not the same. The temple was unique, and when it was destroyed the synagogue of the Jews did not take over its peculiarly sacred functions—they were in no wise authorized to do so. fn

The Loss of the Temple

Is it not strange that the Christian church should take its ritual and liturgy from the synagogue rather than the temple? The ready explanation for that was that the temple had been destroyed by God, the old law abolished, and a spiritual temple—a much higher and finer thing—had taken its place. fn But if God had abandoned the temple, he had no less abandoned the synagogue—why copy it? If a "spiritual" temple was so much superior to the crass physical thing, why did the Christians go out of their way to borrow equally physical Jewish and Gentile rites and practices of a much lower origin? Those same churchmen who expressed a fastidious disdain for the crude and outmoded rites of the temple at the same time diligently cultivated the rites of the synagogue (at best a second-class temple) with a generous and ever-increasing intermixture of popular pagan practices. fn Plainly the Christian world was not satisfied with the rhetorical abstractions of a purely spiritual successor to the Temple. But if the boast of the church was that it took up and continued where the old law left off, why did it not continue along the line of the Temple rather than of the synagogue? fn

The answer is, as we shall see below, that the primitive church did just that, while the later church, by all accounts a totally different thing, tried to and failed, attempting for a time to establish its own substitutes for the temple. Jerome argues that if the Jews had the temple, the Christians have the holy sepulchre, and asks, "Doesn't the Holy Sepulchre of the Lord appear more venerable to you?" fn This was no empty rhetoric. The Christians of the fourth century looked upon the holy sepulchre in dead earnest as the legitimate successor of the temple. The great bishops of the time protested loudly but in vain against the fixed idea that to be really saved a Christian had to visit Jerusalem and the holy sepulchre, fn and many modern studies have shown that the appointments and rites of the holy sepulchre represent a conscious attempt to continue the ways of the temple. fn Only later was the doctrine cultivated that any church might be considered as equivalent to the temple, and it never proved very convincing. Ambrose was the first Christian writer to call a church a temple, and the editors of the Patrologia, commenting on this, remind us that a church is definitely not a temple in the sense of Solomon's Temple. fn Rome itself, after centuries of bitter rivalry, was unable to supplant Jerusalem as the supreme object of the pilgrim's desire. fn Early Christian liturgies reveal a constant concern to reproduce physically something as near as possible to the temple rites of Jerusalem. The bulk of the liturgy is taken up with the Davidic Psalms, the old ritual texts of the temple; from the introit to the acclamation of the final psalm (Psalm 150), the imagery is that of the temple; the priests are regularly referred to as Levites, and the bishop (though his office and title derive from the synagogue and not the temple) is equated with Aaron the High Priest. Students of Christian ritual and liturgy agree today that no church possesses anything near to the original rites and ordinances of the primitive church; they point to the "gaping holes" in Christian ritual, and describe at length how through the centuries these have been filled with substitute material from Jewish, classical, and Germanic sources. fn It was not a satisfactory arrangement: the shadow of the Temple never ceased to disquiet the churchmen, who almost panic at the suggestion that the Jews might sometime rebuild their temple. fn For since the traditions of conventional Christianity are those of the synagogue, they could no more compete with a true temple than the synagogue itself could.

What Makes a Temple? The Cosmic Plan

Though the words synagogue, ecclesia, and temple are commonly employed by the doctors of the church to designate the religions of the Jews, Christians, and Pagans, respectively; still the authorities do not hesitate to apply the word temple both to the temple of the Jews and to their own churches. fn If there are unholy temples, there are also holy ones: what makes a temple different from other buildings is not its sacredness, but its form and function.

What is that form? We can summarize a hundred studies of recent date in the formula: a temple, good or bad, is a scale-model of the universe. The first mention of the word templum is by Varro, for whom it designates a building specially designed for interpreting signs in the heavens—a sort of observatory where one gets one's bearings on the universe. fn The root tem- in Greek and Latin denotes a "cutting" or intersection of two lines at right angles, "the point where the cardo and decumanus cross," hence where the four regions come together, fn every temple being carefully oriented to express "the idea of pre-established harmony between a celestial and a terrestrial image." fn Eusebius expressed the idea clearly long ago when he said that the church was "a great Temple, which the divine Word . . . had established upon earth as the intellectual image of the celestial pattern, . . . the earthly exemplification of celestial regions in their revolutions, the supernal Jerusalem, the celestial Mt. Zion," etc. fn Varro himself says that there are three temples, one in heaven, one on earth, and one beneath the earth. fn In the universal temple concept these three are identical, one being built exactly over the other, with the earth temple in the very middle of everything representing "the Pole of the heavens, around which all heavenly motions revolve, the knot that ties earth and heaven together, the seat of universal dominion." fn Here the four horizontal regions meet and here the three worlds make contact. Whether in the Old World or the New, the idea of the three levels and four directions dominated the whole economy of the temples and of the societies which the temples formed and guided. fn

The temple at Jerusalem, like God's throne and the law itself, existed before the foundations of the world, according to the Talmud. fn Its middoth or measurements were all sacred and prescribed, with strict rules for orientation. fn Its nature as a cosmic center is vividly recalled in many medieval representations of the city of Jerusalem and the holy sepulchre, which are shown as the exact center and navel of the earth. fn It was in conscious imitation of both Jewish and Christian ideas that the Moslems conceived of their Kaaba as not only the centre of the earth, it is the centre of the universe. . . . . Every heaven and every earth has its centre marked by a sanctuary as its navel. . . . At each of them the same ceremonies are carried out that are carried out at the Kaaba. So the sanctuary of Mecca is established as the religious centre of the universe and the cosmic significance of any ritual act performed there is clearly demonstrated. fn

What is bound on earth is bound in heaven.

From the temple at Jerusalem went forth the ideas and traditions which are found all over the Jewish, Christian, and Moslem worlds. Thus the earliest Christian rites and buildings show a marked concern for orientation, commenting on which Voelkl observes:

It is usual for people to locate themselves with reference to some immovable point in the universe. . . . The dogmatic tendency of the first centuries which created the "holy line" pointing East . . . reached its final form in the mystical depths of Scholasticism. fn

What began as tangible reality petered out in the abstractions of the schoolmen, but the source of the idea is unmistakably the temple.

The Place of Contact

As the ritual center of the universe, the temple was anciently viewed as the one point on earth at which men could establish contact with other worlds. This aspect of the temple idea has been the object of intense research in the past decade. It is now generally recognized that the earliest temples were not, as formerly supposed, dwelling places of divinity, but rather meeting places at which men at specific times attempted to make contact with the powers above. "Though in time it became the dwelling of the divinity," according to Contenau, "originally it may have had the aspect of a temple of passage, a place of arrival." fn The temple was a building

which the gods transversed to pass from their celestial habitation to their earthly residence. . . . The ziggurat is thus nothing but a support for the edifice on top of it, and the stairway that leads from the same between the upper and lower worlds. fn

In this respect it resembled a mountain, for "the mountain itself was originally such a place of contact between this and the upper world." fn A long list might be made of holy mountains on which God was believed to have talked with men in ancient times, including "the mountain of the Lord's house." fn A great many studies have appeared in the 1950s describing the basic idea of the temple as a sort of antechamber between the worlds, and particular attention has been given to the fact that in both Egypt and Mesopotamia temples had regular wharves for the landing of celestial barks. fn

An investigation of the oldest temples, those represented on prehistoric seals, concludes that those high structures were also "gigantic altars," built both to attract the attention of the powers above (the burnt offering being a sort of smoke signal, as it were) and to provide "the stairways which the god, in answer to these prayers, used in order to descend to the earth. . . . He comes bringing a renewal of life in all its forms." fn From the first, it would seem, men built altars in the hopes of establishing contact with heaven, and built high towers for the same purpose (see Genesis 11:4).

As the pivot and pole of the universe, the temple is also peculiarly tied to the North Star, around which all things revolve. fn At the same time, it is the place of meeting with the lower as well as the upper world, and the one point at which passage between the two is possible. fn That is why in the earliest Christian records the gates and the keys are so closely connected with the Temple. Scholars have often noted that the keys of Peter (Matthew 16:19) can only be the keys of the temple with its work for the dead. fn Many studies have demonstrated the identity of tomb, temple, and palace as the place where the powers of the other world are exercised for the benefit of the human race. fn In the fourth century there was a massive and permanent transfer of the pilgrim's goal from temples to tombs, though the two had always been connected. fn Invariably the rites of the Temple are those of the ancestors, and appropriately the chief character in those rites is the first ancestor and father of the race. fn

Naturally the temple at Jerusalem has been studied along with the rest, and it has been found that its rites fit easily and naturally into the general pattern. fn Professor Albright, while noting that Solomon's Temple was not of pagan origin, describes it as a point of contact with the other world, presenting "a rich cosmic symbolism which was largely lost in later Israelite and Jewish tradition." fn That is, the farther back we go in time, the more uniform is the concept of the temple among the ancients as a whole, with everything pointing to a single tradition. Albright duly comments on the twelve oxen as the cosmic symbol of the circle of the year and the three stages of the great altar as representing the three worlds. fn

The Ritual Drama

The rites of the temple are always a repetition of those that marked its founding in the beginning of the world, telling how it all came to be in the first place. The foundation of the sanctuary coincides with the foundation or creation of the earth itself: "The first fixed point in the chaotic waters . . . is the place of the sanctuary, which becomes the earthly seat of the world-order, having its palladium in throne and altar. The foundation of the sanctuary, therefore, coincides with the creation." fn After a lifetime of study Lord Raglan assures us that when we study all the rituals of the world we come up with the discovery that the pristine and original ritual of them all, from which all others take their rise, was the dramatization of the creation of the world. fn And Mowinckel sums up the common cult pattern of all the earliest civilizations: "It is the creation of the World that is being repeated." fn

This creation drama was not a simple one for, as the above authorities remind us, an indispensable part of the story is the ritual death and resurrection of the King, who represents the founder and first parent of the race, and his ultimate triumph over death as priest and king, followed by some form of hieros gamos or ritual marriage for the purpose of begetting the race. fn All this has become stock-intrade of students of comparative religion today, but at the beginning of the century nobody knew anything about it. We find this now familiar "Year-Drama" with its familiar episodes wherever we turn—in the Memphite Theology of Egypt (recently held to have had great influence on the Hebrew religion), in the well-documented Babylonian New Year's rites, in the great secular celebration of the Romans, in the ritual beginnings of Greek drama, in the temple-texts of Ras Shamra, in the Celtic mythological cycles, or in the medieval mystery plays. fn And if we ask why this drama is performed, we always get the same answer, according to Mowinckel: "Because the Divinity—the First Father of the Race—did so once in the beginning, and commanded us to do the same." fn

The temple drama is essentially a problem-play, with a combat as its central theme. The combat at the New Year takes various mimetic forms throughout the world—games, races, sham-battles, mummings, dances, plays, etc.—but the essential part is that the hero is temporarily beaten and overcome by death: "The King . . . is even trampled upon by the powers of chaos, but he rises again and puts the false king, the false Messiah, to death." fn This resurrection motif is absolutely essential to the rites, the purpose of which is ultimate victory over death.

The Initiation

But the individual who toiled as a pilgrim in a weary land to reach the waters of life that flowed from the temple was no mere passive spectator. He came to share in all the blessings of knowledge and regeneration. It was not just the symbolic immortality of a society that was sought, but the personal attainment of eternal life and glory by the individual. fn This the individual attempted to achieve through a process of initiation. "Initiation," writes Professor Rostovzeff, "is notoriously a symbol of death, . . . the symbolic act of death and rebirth, resurrection." fn The essence of the great rites that marked the New Year (in Israel as elsewhere the one time when all were expected to come to the temple) was "transition, rite de passage, succession of lives, following the revolutions of Nature"—though it should be noted that the revolutions of nature definitely did not furnish the original pattern for the thing. fn The actual initiation rites have been studied often and in detail, and found to exhibit a very clear and consistent pattern. We can give but one illustration here, taken from a short but remarkable writing by Bishop Cyril of Jerusalem, a particularly valuable witness, since he is the last church father to be in close contact with the old Jerusalem rites.

The general impression one gets from reading the long discussions in the Talmud is that people in the temple at Jerusalem spent most of their time at baptisms and ablutions. Certainly baptism is one specific ordinance always mentioned in connection with the temple. "When one is baptised one becomes a Christian," writes Cyril, "exactly as in Egypt by the same rite one becomes an Osiris." Not only does Cyril recognize the undeniable resemblance between the Christian and non-Christian rites, but he also notes that they have the identical significance, which is initiation into immortality. fn The baptism in question, Cyril explains, is rather a washing than a baptism, since it is not by immersion. It is followed by an anointing, which our guide calls "the antitype of the anointing of Christ himself," making every candidate as it were a Messiah. fn Elsewhere he describes this rite specifically as the anointing of the brow, face, ears, nose, breast, etc., "which represents," he says, "the clothing of the candidate in the protective panoply of the Holy Spirit," which however does not hinder the initiate from receiving a real garment on the occasion. fn Furthermore, the candidate was reminded that the whole ordinance "is in imitation of the sufferings of Christ," in which "we suffer without pain by mere imitation his receiving of the nails in his hands and feet: the antitype of Christ's sufferings." fn Bishop Cyril further insists that Moses and Solomon had both been duly baptized in this manner: "After being washed in water, he [Moses] was anointed and called a Christ, because of the anointing which was a type. When Solomon came forth to be king, the High Priest anointed him, after a bath in Gihon. This again was a type. But with us these things are not a type but a reality." fn From his last remark it is plain that the early Christians actually performed the rites described. The Jews once taught that when Michael and Gabriel lead all the sinners up out of the lower world, "they will wash and anoint them, healing them of their wounds of hell, and clothe them with beautiful pure garments and bring them into the presence of God." fn These things are often referred to in the earliest Christian writings, but were soon lost in a manner we must now describe.

Loss and Diffusion of the Temple Ordinances

No one can consider the temples and their ancient rites (at which we have merely hinted in these pages) without asking how they came to be both so widespread and so corrupt in the world. Let us first consider the question of corruption.

1. It can be shown that both the Jews and Christians suffered greatly at the hands of their enemies because of the secrecy of their rites, which they steadfastly refused to discuss or divulge. fn When the key to the ordinances was lost, this very secrecy made for a great deal of misunderstanding and above all opened the door to unbridled fraud: every Gnostic sect, for example, claimed to have the lost rites and ordinances, the keys and the teachings, as they had been given to the apostles and patriarchs of old. fn

2. It is doubtful if a religious organization ever existed which did not have its splits and factions. A common cause of schism, among both Jews and Christians, was the claim of a particular group that it alone still possessed the mysteries. fn Hence from early times many competing versions of the true rites and ordinances have been current.

3. Even in good times, the rites like the doctrines inevitably become the object of various conflicting schools of interpretation and become darkened and obscured as a result. Indeed, it is now generally held that mythology is simply an attempt to explain the origin and meaning of rituals that men no longer understand. fn The clouding and corruption of ritual is apparent in the oldest texts known, fn and painfully so in Jewish and Christian literature. The Talmud tells of a pious Jew who left Jerusalem in disgust, saying, "What answer will the Israelites give to Elijah when he comes," and asks why the scholars don't agree on the rites of the temple. fn For in Jewish and Christian tradition alike, it is Elijah who is to come and restore the rites of the temple in their purity.

4. The early fathers had a ready explanation for any suspicious resemblances between Christian and non-Christian practices. The former, they explained, had come down from the ancient Hebrews and were thus really much older than their pagan counterparts, which had been borrowed or stolen from them. Actually there is a great deal of evidence for the widespread usurpation of the temple rites at a very early time. One would hardly expect people to view their own highest rites as stolen and their highest god as a usurper, yet wherever we look that is what we find. Every major mythology tells of the great usurper who rules the world and who upon examination turns out to be the father and founder of the race! fn

Since we cannot here treat them individually, we must be content to note that the archetype of all usurpers is Nimrod, who claims kingship and priesthood by right of "the cosmic garment of Adam," which his father Ham stole from Noah. fn When in turn Esau, that other great hunter, by a ruse got this garment from Nimrod, he sold it as a "birthright" to Jacob, and then tried to get it back again "and force his way into the temple," according to the Leptogenesis. fn Early Jewish and Christian traditions report that Nimrod it was who built the Tower of Babel, the first pagan temple, in an attempt to contact heaven; it was he who challenged the priesthood of Abraham; it was he who built the first city, founded the first state, organized the first army, ruling the world by force; he challenged God to an archery contest and, when he thought he had won, claimed to be no less than God's successor. fn The interesting thing is that all his activities center around the temple, whose rites and whose priesthood he boldly attempts to seize for himself.

5. The same comparative studies that discovered the common pattern in all ancient religions—a phenomenon now designated as "patternism"—have also demonstrated the processes of diffusion by which that pattern was spread throughout the world—and in the process torn to shreds, of which recognizable remnants may be found in almost any land and time. It would now appear that the early fathers were not far from the mark in explaining the resemblances: the rites do look alike wherever we find them, however modern Christians may insist on denying the fact, for they all come from a common source. fn The business of reconstructing the original prototype from the scattered fragments has been a long and laborious one, and it is as yet far from completed. Yet an unmistakable pattern emerges more clearly every day. This raises the question of priority: How did the Mormons get hold of the temple idea?

The Question of Priority

Let the reader study some photographs of the Salt Lake Temple, a structure whose design the Mormons believe to have been revealed to the Prophet Brigham Young. Consider how perfectly this edifice inside and out embodies the temple idea. The emphasis on the three levels is apparent at once; the orientation is basic—every pioneer community, in fact, was located and oriented with reference to the temple as the center of Zion; the crenelated walls and buttresses are familiar from the oldest monumental temples as "the pillars of heaven"; the series of stars, moon, and sunstones on the buttresses indicate the levels of celestial glory; at the lowest point in the temple is a brazen sea on the back of twelve oxen, and there are the waters through which the dead, by proxy, pass to eternal life, the gates of salvation; on the center of the west towers is the North Star and its attendant constellation, a symbol recognized throughout human history as depicting the center of time and the revolution of the universe; the battlements that impart a somewhat grim air to the building signify its isolation from a hostile world; on the main tower the inscription in gold "Holiness to the Lord" serves notice that this place is set apart from the world of mundane things, as do the gates that shut out all but a few; yet the temple itself is a reminder that none can receive the highest blessings without entering its portals—so that the whole human race shall eventually repair hither, either in the flesh or by proxy. Within the building, as many visitors have seen before its dedication, are rooms obviously appointed for rites rehearsing the creation of the world, the fall of man, and his final exaltation. fn

But it is the actual work done within the temple that most perfectly exemplifies the temple idea. For here all time and space come together; the barriers vanish between this world and the next; between past, present, and future. What is bound here is bound beyond, and only here can the gates be opened to release the dead who are awaiting the saving ordinances. Here the whole human family meets in a common enterprise; here the records of the race are assembled as far back in time as they go, for a work performed by the present generation to assure that they and their kindred dead shall spend the eternities together in the future. All time becomes one and the worlds join hands in this work of love, which is no mere mechanical bookkeeping. The work of the temple is exciting, and through the years has been rewarded and stimulated by many marvelous blessings and manifestations. In a very real sense all humanity participates in the same work of salvation—for we cannot be saved without our fathers, nor they without us. It is a grandiose concept. Here for the first time in many centuries men may behold a genuine temple, functioning as a temple should—a temple in the fullest and purest sense of the word.

Are we to believe that this uniquely perfect institution was copied from any of the thousand-and-one battered remnants of the temple and its ordinances that have survived in the world? The fundamental nature and far-reaching implications of the temple idea are just beginning to dawn upon scholars in our own day; nothing was known about them a hundred years ago—indeed, it was not until the end of the nineteenth century that Christian churches, in competitive zeal to return to the ways of the primitive church began to orient their buildings. fn Throughout this brief study we have indicated that surviving remnants of the temple concept and rites may be found wherever there is religion and cult in the world. It is not surprising, therefore, that merely by looking about him one may discover all sorts of parallels to Mormon—or any other!—practices. Thousands of American Indians and Pacific islanders, including many of the greatest chiefs and wise men, have become Mormons in their time and engaged in the work of the temple. They have been quick to detect the often surprising parallels between the rites of the temple and the traditions and practices of their own tribes—though those have been guarded with the greatest secrecy. Far from being disaffected by this discovery, these devoted workers have rejoiced that at last they could understand the real meaning of what they had inherited from their fathers, corroded as it was by time and overlaid with thick deposits of legend and folklore. Among the first to engage in the Latter-day temple work were many members of the Masons, a society that "is not, and does not profess to be, a religion," fn but whose rites present unmistakable parallels to those of the temple. Yet, like the Indians, those men experienced only an expansion of understanding. fn

So universally is religious ritual today burdened with the defects of oddness, incongruity, quaintness, jumbled complexity, mere traditionalism, obvious faking and filling in, and contrived and artificial explanations, including myths and allegories, frankly sensual appeal, and general haziness and confusion, that those regrettable traits have come to be regarded as the very essence of ritual itself. In contrast we find the Latter-day Saint rites, though full, elaborate, and detailed, to be always perfectly lucid and meaningful, forming an organic whole that contains nothing incongruous, redundant, or mystifying, nothing purely ornamental, arbitrary, abstruse, or merely picturesque. No moral, allegorical, or abstruse symbolism has been read into these rites; no scholars and poets have worked them over; no learned divines have taken the liberty to interpret them; they have never been the subject of speculation and theory; they show no signs of invention, evolution, or elaboration. Josiah Quincy said that the Nauvoo Temple "certainly cannot be compared with any ecclesiastical building which may be discerned by the natural sight," fn and architects have said much the same about the Salt Lake Temple. That is high, if unconscious, tribute, advertising the clear fact that in establishing their temples the Mormons did not adopt traditional forms: with them the temple and its rites are absolutely pristine. In contrast the church and temple architecture of the world is an exotic jumble, a bewildering complex of borrowed motifs, a persistent effort to work back through the centuries to some golden time and place when men still had the light.

In the fourth decade of the nineteenth century the idea of the temple suddenly emerged full-blown in its perfection, not as a theory alone, but as a program of intense and absorbing activity which rewarded the faithful by showing them the full scope and meaning of the plan of salvation.

Looking Backward

The preceding part of this article was written twenty-five years ago when the London Temple was dedicated. Since then the "scientific" study of ancient temples has completed a full circle—back to where it started some three hundred years ago. We hasten to explain.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was the habit of English country gentlemen, fired with the scientific interests of the former century and the romantic sensibilities of the latter, to survey, sketch, describe, and speculate about the many and mysterious prehistoric stone circles, avenues, passage-graves, and mounds on their estates and elsewhere. In their papers read before local learned societies and in their letters to antiquarian journals, they debated endlessly without reaching any consensus of agreement as to whether those often imposing monuments were the work of some mysterious unknown race or that of the ancient Britons, Druids, Romans, Saxons, or Danes. But on one thing there was almost unanimous agreement, namely, that the most impressive of the structures were temples. In the light of local folktales and legends, immemorial rustic seasonal festivities, and other quaint customs and observances, supported by occasional illuminating passages from classical and medieval writers as well as the Bible, they could imagine vast concourses of people gathering at these great ceremonial centers at times set by sun, moon, stars, and the growing and harvesting seasons, to celebrate a new lease on life for the individual and the society.

I have called those studies "scientific" because they were undertaken in the same spirit, employed much the same methods, and reached the same conclusions as those of the present generation of researchers, who insist that they are scientific. Here, for example, is a recent cover story from the (very) Scientific American (July 1980), in which the author expresses the same conviction as did Sir William Stukeley and John Aubrey in the mid-seventeenth century. fn He finds "a succession of what we can only call cathedral architects" at work in the third and fourth millenniums B.C. "Most emphatically," he writes, these "megalithic rings in general [were] sacred and secular meeting places," and he sees" an impelling faith" behind the immense effort and skill that produced them—"some powerful religious belief including belief in an afterlife." He notes that though the building activity stopped by 1000 B.C., "the general population" retained folk-memories of what went on, and he finds it "more than possible that the Druidic priesthood . . . used them as temples." Finally he notes that even Christian churches in some places did not disdain to build upon their ruins.

After the eighteenth century less and less attention was paid to the megalithic complexes, upon which little remained to be said until new lines of research could be opened up. The first forward step was taken by philology, predictably enough, since the learning of the times was classical and biblical. The British presence in India set such researches in a new and fruitful direction by creating a general interest in the glamour and color of the mysterious East, and by calling the attention of scholars to strange texts in strange languages. By the middle of the nineteenth century comparative philology had become the queen of studies, thanks to the great Max Mueller, who believed that he had discovered in Sanskrit the parent and original of all the Aryan family of languages from India to Ireland, and in the Vedas "the primal form of their mythology and religion." For the ancient texts on which all such study was necessarily based were profoundly religious documents, combining myth, ritual, pious exercises, edifying doctrine, and bits of history.

Shortly before Mueller, Jacob Grimm, in gathering material for his great Deutsche Grammatik fn, introduced the comparative study of folktales, folk songs, myths, customs, arts, and artifacts (Grimm's Fairy Tales have proven to be as scientifically relevant as Grimm's Law). In the process he anticipated the conclusion of Max Mueller, that if everybody from Ireland to India spoke related languages it was because originally they were all one and the same family, living in the East. Mueller held that what survived of their religion represents a letdown and deterioration from a higher order of things, an archaic original of monotheistic persuasion, from which historic religions betray a moral and intellectual decline. This is a position being taken by some eminent scholars today. Mueller's Oxford colleagues E. Tylor and Andrew Lang felt that the master was too much under the literary influences of an earlier day (e.g., Herder), and, discounting the old romantic idea of a primal "nature mythology," gave second billing to myth, viewing it as an attempt to explain cult and custom, which really had priority. After the mid-nineteenth century, evolution of course became the answer; religion, like everything else, must necessarily have had a primitive beginning—for Lang it was in primitive magic. For Theodor Waitz it was a primitive obsession with ghosts and spirits. Herbert Spencer made it a fixed principle, universally received, that religion is superstition and superstition is primitive, and that evolution required a steady ascent from religion toward the pure light of ever more rational thinking, culminating in the modern civilized man.

At the turn of the century the watchwords were animism and totemism, which for many years explained everything for many students. The determination to reduce religion, like everything else, to scientific laws actually led to simplistic solutions, and with the desire for more thorough and methodical special studies the wide-ranging pronouncements of deep-browed armchair scientists were supplanted by a swelling outpouring of regional monographs and statistical studies aspiring to the status of exact science. The great biologist J. Arthur Thompson made sport of the excesses of the solemn "brass instrument school," laboriously compiling endless columns of figures giving the physical and mental measurements of tribes and races, which in the end could tell the student no more than a casual association with the natives in question would have provided. Given patience and a body, it was no great task for a thousand investigators to fill the books and journals with information, but beyond the most pedestrian generalities no real progress was made. As Theodor Gaster observes, "It was Frazer more than anyone else who first sought to classify and coordinate this vast body of material." fn Today most of Frazer's main assumptions and conclusions have been discredited—for example, the "magical" origins of religion, which Gaster calls "a mere product of late nineteenth-century evolutionism"; the principle of "homeopathy," by which the magical action produced a real counterpart; the yearly celebrations of the death and rebirth of vegetation, which neglected the more immediate human experience of life and death; the obsession of an earlier time with solar religion; and above all the idea of a "primitive" level of culture which remains undefined but is the same everywhere and always, the word being worked to death by Frazer's colleagues (e.g., J. Harrison), many of whom never laid eyes on a primitive. Yet most of these discredited ideas are still accepted and taught in schools everywhere.

To explain the remarkable resemblances between the prehistoric ritual centers and their rites separated by thousands of miles and as many years, Frazer and others took for granted that at a certain stage of evolution the human mind spontaneously fell into the thought patterns that would produce identical myths and rules independently in various parts of the world. Diffusionism was rejected and still is by many. This interesting psychological explanation got some support from the famous psychologist C. G. Jung, a diligent student of ancient myth and religion. Just as in the process of evolution creatures retain vestigial organs from earlier times, so the mind, Jung insisted, being subject to evolution like everything else, retains in its unconscious what he calls "archetypes" or "primordial images." They are as natural "as the impulse of birds to build nests, and present the mind with whole mythological motifs," which lead to stories and dramatizations. Where do they come from? "They are without known origin," writes Jung, "and they reproduce themselves in any time or in any part of the world"—don't ask how. Thus "the hero figure is an archetype which has existed since time immemorial," though as to "when and where such a motif originated . . . we do not even know how to go about investigating the problem." So the cause of evolutionism is saved if we do not ask too many questions.

C. P. Thiele, a Dutch theologian, came closer than anyone else since Max Mueller to combining vast scope and detail of information with meaningful summaries, striking a balance between the old romantic school of Herder, Mueller, and Andrew Lang, and the pedantically limited studies of single tribes, families, and problems, which became as numerous as they were trivial. Few have equaled Thiele's learning, but how to take account of all that data in a convincing summary with meaningful conclusions is a problem of more urgency now than ever. A promising new development, the TV documentary, seeks to address the public on a high and authoritative level while keeping everything simple and clear, covering an immense expanse of knowledge while giving an understandable presentation of general principles.

The present writer struggled with the problem prematurely, of course, growing up on Spencer's First Principles, H. G. Wells, and T. H. Buckle, and practically memorizing Spengler. The first half of the twentieth century produced pretentious works purporting to convey all knowledge, such as the University of Chicago Synopticon, big "Western Civilization" college texts, the Cambridge histories, various encyclopedias, the Columbia University Chapters in Western Civilization, and so forth. More impressive were the big corroborative works combining contributions of leading scholars in different areas. Such a one was Chantepie de la Saussaye's Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte, which the present writer acquired hot off the press and perused with dogged diligence—to no avail! The facts were there, but they added up to nothing. The compilers followed the Baconian gospel, that one has simply to collect the facts and let them speak for themselves. However one may accuse the over-eager and ill-prepared of leaping to conclusions, it is precisely that leap that the scholars have never been able or willing to make; for when they finish collecting and typing their notes, they see nowhere to go—but more notes. Will Durant was a full-time philosopher who gathered nine volumes on the history of Western civilization. And what did the philosopher learn from that? Nothing at all that we had not already heard.

A good example of this is Joseph Campbell, one of the latest and best popularizers, who assures us that he is bringing together for the first time "a single picture of the new perspectives . . . in comparative symbolism, religion, mythology, and philosophy, by the scholarship of recent years." fn This is merely an updating of the old game, reaching exactly the same conclusions as Grimm, Max Mueller, and the rural clergymen who studied the old stones of the English countryside, that "the comparative study of the mythologies of the world compels us to view the cultural history of mankind as a unit," in which the various motifs, instead of being wildly exotic, endlessly varied, and without number, as one would expect (and as German scholars once described them), are really "only a few and always the same." The old biblical picture now emerges as the latest scientific discovery.

The boldest and clearest recent statement embracing the world landscape of culture and religion is in the works of M. Eliade, and he brings it all back to the temple. "The Temple, . . . preeminently the sacred place, . . . a celestial prototype" and holy mountain, typifies "the act of Creation . . . [which] brought the ordered cosmos out of chaos"; it is the scene of the sacred marriage, the ritual confrontation with evil appearing as the dragon, serpent, or other figures of death and destruction, ending in the victory of the king, whose triumphant coronation inaugurates the New Year and a new age of the world. The combat is an expression of that "ambivalence and polarity" which characterize the rites in which all things must have their opposite, and where an atoning sacrifice is necessary "to restore the primal unity" between God and man, and enable the latter to regain the divine presence. The whole, according to Eliade, is suffused with "memories of paradise," the loss of which is the result of sin, converting this world into a testing ground in which "suffering always has meaning." fn

Thus Eliade shows us how the studies of two centuries have steadily converged on the temple. But before Eliade, your humble informant was bringing out much of the picture in a doctoral thesis which disturbed and puzzled his committee in the 1930's. In 1940 a section of the Pacific Coast Meeting of the American Historical Association slept through a discourse on the feasting of the multitudes at the holy places, and in the following year a like gathering of the American Archaeological Association in San Diego listened with remarkable composure to a paper on "National Assemblies in the Bronze Age." This is to show for the record that we were getting in on the ground floor. An article comparing the earliest Roman rites to those all over the ancient world was held up by World War II (which was then considered more urgent), not appearing until 1945 (in the Classical Journal). fn At that time I had been to the temple only twice, once when I was seventeen and again when I was twenty—both times in something of a daze. So it was not until I moved to Utah and started going to the temple and wrote a mini-series in the Improvement Era on "Baptism for the Dead in Ancient Times" (1948) fn that it ever occurred to me that any of what I had been doing had anything to do with Joseph Smith. Beginning to see the light, I started pulling out the stops in a Pi Sigma Alpha lecture given during the centennial celebration of the University of Utah in 1950. Entitled "The Hierocentric State," it was expanded and published the following year in the Western Political Quarterly. fn

The dedication of the London Temple in 1958 produced, on request, the first part of this effusion. This was followed in 1958-60 by a study in the Jewish Quarterly Review on "Christian Envy of the Temple," fn demonstrating that "where there is no Temple there is no true Israel," and showing how the Christian churches have always missed the temple while retaining various survivals of it in their rites and liturgies. In 1966 we discussed those migratory temples, wheeled and domed structures, that moved over the steppes of Asia, and how they took their bearings on the universe, remaining holy centers in spite of their mobility—like the Ark of the Covenant (Western Political Quarterly, 1966). fn An article on "Jerusalem in Christian Thought" in the first edition of the Encyclopedia Judaica (1973) fn dealt with the role in history of the well-known idea of Jerusalem as the holy center of the world, thanks to the presence of the temple, and sketched the fierce competitive drives of Christians, Moslems, and Jews to possess it. In the same year, in a study ambitiously titled "The Genesis of the Written Word," we pointed out that the oldest written documents of the race are temple records. fn The rich Egyptian documentation justified writing about The Egyptian Endowment (1975), and comparing it in an appendix with some of the ordinances and doctrines contained in the Manual of Disciplines (1QS) from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Odes of Solomon, the Pearl, the Pistis Sophia, and Cyril of Jerusalem's Lectures on the Ordinances (mid-fourth century). fn An important performance which has very ancient parallels throughout Asia as well as the Near East was "The Early Christian Prayer Circle" (BYU Studies, (1978). fn A long series of articles in the Improvement Era (1968-70) called attention to sacrificial aspects of the later temple ordinances as anticipated in the "arrested" sacrifice of Abraham himself, of Sarah (in Egypt), and of Isaac. fn Finally, the book Abraham in Egypt (1981) describes ties between Egyptian and Israelite wisdom and doctrine, a subject being much studied by scholars at the present time. fn

To resume our story, imaginary reconstructions presented over the past three hundred years of great gatherings of people at imposing ceremonial complexes for rites dedicated to the renewal of life on earth are, over that long stretch of time, surprisingly uniform. In spite of the accumulation of evidence, there has never been a drastic reversal or revision of the picture, which always remains the same.

First, we still have the tangible evidence, the scenery and properties of the drama: megaliths; artifical giant mounds or pyramids amounting to artificial mountains; stone and ditch alignments of mathematical sophistication, correlating time and space; passage graves and great tholoi or domed tombs; sacred roads (often discovered from the air); remains of booths, grandstands, processional ways, and gates—these still survive in awesome combination, with all their cosmic symbolism.

In the second place is the less tangible evidence of customs, traditions, legends, folk festivals, ancient writings, and so forth, which when put together conjure up (with considerable authority, thanks to their abundance and consistency) memories of dramatic and choral celebrations of the Creation; ritual contests between life and death, good and evil, and light and darkness, followed by the triumphant coronation of the king to rule for the new age, the progenitor of the race by a sacred marriage; feasts of abundance attended by ancestors and spirits; covenants; initiations (including baptism and clothing); sacrifices and scapegoats to rid the people of a year of guilt and pollution; and various types of divination and oracular consultation for the new life cycle. And what is being emphasized today, after centuries of converging studies, is that they were all doing it, everywhere!

To these types of evidence must be added the most impressive—and neglected—of all, those "spin-offs" of the temple which have long attracted my interest as such. The "spin-offs" are things not essential to the temple's form and function, but the inevitable products of its existence. To begin with, there was an urgent need of accommodations for all those pilgrims from far away; hence those booths, memorialized in the Hebrew Festival of Booths, remains or records of which we find in many parts of the world. Our words hotel and hospital go back to those charitable organizations which took care of sick and weary pilgrims to the holy places—the Hospitalers of the Crusades offered hospitality also under the name of Templars, for it was travelers to the temple that they were aiding and protecting. Since all who came had to bring food for the festival as well as animals for offerings and sacrifice, those who lived a great distance (more than three days away in Israel; see Deuteronomy 14:22-27; 26:12-14), finding the transport of such items of great difficulty, could instead bring the money value of those offerings to the Temple, which thus became a place of exchange and banking—our word money comes from the temple of Juno Moneta, the holy center of the Roman world. Along with that, the bringing of a variety of different goods and products from widely separated places inevitably gave rise to a lively barter and exchange of goods, and everywhere a fixture of the great year rites was the yearly fair, the market-booths of the merchants added to those of the visiting pilgrims, with artisans, performers, and mountebanks also displaying their wares.

The main action at the temple was the actio, for which the Greek word is drama, with parts played by priestly temple actors and royalty. Creation was celebrated with the Creation Hymn or poema—the word poem means, in fact, Creation—sung by a chorus which, as the name shows, formed a circle and danced as they sang. Since nothing goes unchallenged in this world, a central theme of the temple rites was the dramatization (often athletic) of the combat between the powers of life and death which could take many forms—wrestling, boxing, dueling, foot or chariot races, beauty contests to choose a queen, competitions in song and dance. The temple was the original center of learning, beginning with the heavenly instructions received there. It was the Museon or home of the Muses, each representing a branch of study, and the scene of learned discussions among the wise men who from the earliest recorded times would travel from shrine to shrine exchanging wisdom with the wise, as Abraham did in Egypt. For the all-important setting of times and seasons, careful astronomical observations were taken and recorded at the place with mathematical precision, while the measurements of fields and buildings called for sophisticated geometry followed by great architectural and engineering skill that commands the highest respect to this day. The Garden-of-Eden or Golden-Age motif was essential to this ritual paradise, and the temple grounds contained all manner of trees and animals, often collected with great botanical and zoological zeal from distant places. Central to the temple school for the training of priests and nobles was the great library containing both the holy books revealed from on high, whether as divine revelation or as star readings (both declared the glory of God), and the records of human history including the "Books of Life," the names of all the living and the dead—genealogy. Aside from memorials kept in writing (the art, as we have seen, originating in the economy of the temple) were the ancestral pictures—statues, busts, and paintings giving inspiration to the fine arts. The purpose of the rites being to establish and acknowledge the rule of God on earth through his agent and offspring the King, who represented both the first man and everyman, the temple was the ultimate seat and sanction of government. Our government buildings with their massive columns, domes, marble and bronze, and so forth are copies of classic Greek and Roman temples. The meeting of the people at the holy place made the New Year the time for contracts and covenants, and all of these were recorded and stored in the temple, which was of course the seat of law, both for the handing down of new laws and ordinances by divine authority and for the settling of disputes between mortals. The king was a Solomon sitting as Judge on the occasion, as one who had been tested to the limit and, after calling upon God from the depths, had emerged triumphant, worthy to lead the army of the Lord to spread his rule over the as yet unconquered realms of darkness beyond the holy influence of the temple.

All of these matters and much, much more this writer has treated somewhere or other. The fact that the one thing they all have in common is the temple is enough in itself to indicate that the temple is the source, and not one of the derivatives, of the civilizing process. If, as noted above, "where there is no temple there is no true Israel," it is equally true that where there is no true temple, civilization itself is but an empty shell—a material structure of expediency and tradition alone, bereft of the living organism at its center that once gave it life and brought it forth.

Since the Temple is the parent and original, it is only to be expected that one should find ruins and fragments of it surviving everywhere, along with more or less ambitious attempts to recapture its lost glory and authority. And since Evil cannot create or beget but can only pervert, corrupt, wrest, and destroy what Good has accomplished, it is not surprising that the most depraved of practices take their rise in the Temple. Let us recall that the mysterious "Watchers" in Enoch's day carefully kept the ordinances that had come down from Adam, and claimed sanctity by reason of possessing a knowledge which they had completely subverted. How roundly Isaiah rebukes and denounces the ordinances of the temple—the new moons, the fasts, the prayers, the offerings, and so on, when performed by the Jews in the wrong spirit! While the temple still stood in Jerusalem, the brethren of Qumran looked forward for the coming of "a true Temple" after God's own heart. When Satan assayed to try the Lord, it was to the pinnacle of the temple that he took him; did the Evil One, then, have access to the holy place? For answer we need only recall that Jesus declared that the House of his Father had been turned into a den of thieves as he drove the money changers from its courts—a reminder that large financial institutions today, as well as government buildings, occupy structures faithfully copied from the classical fanes of ancient temples and add to the bronze and marble the sanctimonious hush of holy places. Thus the temple economy has been perverted along with the rest.

When the symbolic killing and eating of beasts were supplanted by lustful and vengeful rites of human sacrifice; when the feasts of joy and abundance became orgies, and the sacred rites of marriage were perverted to the arts of the temple hierodules; when the keepers of the records and teachers of wisdom became haughty and self-righteous scribes and Pharisees—then was demonstrated the principle that any good thing can be corrupted in this world, and as Aristotle notes, as a rule, the better the original, the more vicious the corrupted version. When "two men went up into the temple to pray" (Luke 18:10), both were ostensibly going about their devotions; yet the one was bringing hypocrisy and vanity into the holy place. So we might seriously consider the proposition that whatever we see about us in the way of the institutions of civilization, good or bad, may in the end be traced to the temple.

Did Joseph Smith reinvent the temple by putting all the fragments—Jewish, Orthodox, Masonic, Gnostic, Hindu, Egyptian, and so forth—together again? No, that is not how it is done. Very few of the fragments were available in his day, and the job of putting them together was begun, as we have seen, only in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Even when they are available, those poor fragments do not come together of themselves to make a whole; to this day the scholars who collect them do not know what to make of them. The temple is not to be derived from them, but the other way around. If the temple, as the Latter-day Saints know it, had been introduced at any date later than it was, or at some great center of learning, it could well have been suspect as a human contrivance; but that anything of such fulness, consistency, ingenuity, and perfection could have been brought forth at a single time and place—overnight, as it were—is quite adequate proof of a special dispensation.

NOTES

This article first appeared under the title "The Idea of the Temple in History," in Millennial Star 120 (1958): 228-37, 247-49. Nibley's article was reprinted as What is a Temple? The Idea of the Temple in History (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1963). A second edition appeared under the same title in 1968. A German translation, "Die Templesidae in der Geschichte," was published in Der Stern 2 (1959): 43-60. The concluding section entitled "Looking Backward" was added when this article was again reprinted in Truman G. Madsen, ed., The Temple in Antiquity (Provo: Brigham Young University Religious Studies Center, 1983), 39-51.

Footnotes

1. Orazio Marucchi, Handbuch der christlichen Archaologie (Einsiedeln: Benzinger, 1912), 25.

2. On the uniqueness of the temple, see TB Megilla 9b-10a.

3. A very common theme. Thus Eusebius says that the church is the intellectual image of the temple, Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History, 2 vols., Kirsopp Lake, trans. (London: Heinemann, 1926), X, 4, 69. Moses entering and leaving the Holy of Holies is for St. Gregory "the mind as it enters and leaves a state of contemplation"; the gold on the garment of the high priest is the gleam of intellect, etc., Epistolae (Letters) 25, in PL 77:471, 474.

4. Ambrose is a good example. See Henri Leclerq, "Gallicane (Liturgie)," in DACL 6:485-88.

5. An instructive parallel is furnished by Islam, where the Mosque follows the pattern of the synagogue, as Christian churches do, while the Kaaba, a wholly different institution, represents the temple; Gustav E. von Grunebaum, Mohammadan Festivals (New York: Schuman, 1951), 20-21; Elie Lambert, "La Synagogue de Doura-Europos et les origines de la mosquee," Semitica 3 (1950): 67-72.

6. Jerome, Epistolae (Letters) 46, in PL 22:486.

7. Thus Gregorius Nyssenus, Epistolae (Letters) 2, in PG 46:1012, 1016.

8. William Simpson, "The Middle of the World in the Holy Sepulchre," Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly (1888): 260-63. When St. Helen built the great church "at the very spot of the Sepulchre" to contain the wood of the cross, she actually called it "the New Jerusalem, in opposition to the old one, which had been deserted," Socrates, HE 1, 17, in PG 67:117-22.

9. Ambrose, Epistolae (Letters) 20, note 2, discussed in PL 11:307-08.

10. H. Hubert, "Le Culte des heros et ses conditions sociales," Revue de l'Histoire des Religions 71 (1915): 246-47. Maximus, Homiliae (Homilies) 72, in PL 57:405-06, expresses the sense of competition.

11. The "gaping hole" (trou beant) is Leclerq's expression, "Gallicane (Liturgie)," 6:480. On the filling in, see Louis Duchesne, Origines du culte chretien (Paris: Fontemoing, 1898), 8-10, and the English translation, Early History of the Christian Church: From Its Foundation to the End of the Fifth Century, Claude Jenkins, tr., 3 vols. (London: Hunt, 1950), 1:8-10; and more recently, Joseph Lechner and Ludwig Eisenhofer, Liturgik des romischen Ritus (Freiburg: Herder, 1953), 5-6, 191-93.

12. The ardent desire to lay down the ghost of the temple once and for all is apparent in Cyprian, Adversus Judaeos I, 20; II, 16-18, in PL 4:716-17, 739, 741; Lactantius, De Vera Sapientia (On True Wisdom) 4, 14, in PL 6:487; Athanasius, Oratio de Incarnatione Verbi (On the Incarnation of the Word) 40, in PG 25:165; Epiphanius, Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies) I, 2, 24, in PG 41:392-93; Basil, Commentaria in Isaiam (Commentary on Isaiah) 2, in PG 24:249.

13. It is rare to call a church a temple, but it causes no offence. Zeno was opposed to building imposing churches "because such a thing is not a real temple . . . the faithful people are the real Temple of God," Tractatus (Tractate) I, 14, in PL 11:356. Athanasius says the true Holy of Holies is heaven itself, not those "temples of churches erected by men," Quaestiones in Epistolas Pauli (On the Epistles of Paul) 127, in PG 28:769. Socrates reports that a pagan temple (naos) was converted into a Christian church, HE IV, 24 in PG 67:521-25. But the terms are used freely and interchangeably.

14. Varro, De Lingua Latina VII, 6-9; discussed by S. Weinstock, "Templum," Romische Mittheilungen 47 (1932): 100-101. Cf. Alfred Jeramias, Handbuch der altorientalischen Geisteskultur (Leipzig: Hinrich, 1913), 146, 185.

15. Wilhelm Kroll's statement in "Mundus," in RE 16:1.563; Jeremias, Handbuch der altorientalischen Geisteskultur, 146, 185.

16. Alfred Jeremias, Das alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients (Leipzig: Hinrich, 1916), 49-51.

17. Eusebius, HE X, 4 in PG 20:848-80.

18. Varro, De Lingua Latina VII, 8.

19. Alfred Jeremias, "Semitische Volker in Vorderasien," in Daniel P. Chantepie de la Saussaye, Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte, 2 vols. (Tubingen: Mohr, 1925), 1:513. The concept is fully developed by E. Burrows in his chapter, "Some Cosmological Patterns in Babylonian Religion," in Samuel H. Hooke, ed., The Labyrinth (London: Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 1935), 45-70.

20. It should be born in mind that ancient society was sacral in structure. One of the best discussions of the temple concept is by Zelia Nuttall, The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations (Cambridge: Peabody Museum, 1901).

21. TB Pesahim 54a-b.

22. TB Erubin 56a. Anonymous, "The Herodian Temple, According to the Treatise Middoth and Flavius Josephus," Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly (1886): 92-113, 224-28; (1887): 116-28.

23. Simpson, "Middle of the World," 260-63. For illustrations, see Kenneth John Conant and Glanville Downey, "The Original Buildings at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem," Speculum 31 (1956): 1-48.

24. Von Grunebaum, Mohammadan Festivals, 20-21.

25. L. Voelkl, "Orientierung im Weltbild der ersten christlichen Jahrhunderte," Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 25 (1949): 155.

26. George Contenau, Le Deluge babylonien (Paris: Payot, 1952), 246.

27. Andre Parrot, Ziggurats et Tour de Babel (Paris: Michel, 1949), 208.

28. Contenau, Le Deluge babylonien, 246.

29. Henri Frankfort, Birth of Civilisation in the Near East (Garden City: Doubleday, 1956), 56, n. 5. Pierre Amiet, "Ziggurats et 'Culte de Hauteur' des origines a l'Epoque d'Akkad," Revue d'Assyriologie 47 (1953): 23-33.

30. Andre Parrot, "La Tour de Babel et les Ziggurats," Nouvelle Clio, vol. 2, no. 4 (1950): 159; Herbert Ricke, Bemerkungen zur aegyptischen Baukunst des alten Reiches (Zurich: Borchardt-Institut fur Agyptische Bauforschung und Altertumskunde in Kairo, 1944).

31. Amiet, "Ziggurats," 30; Parrot, Ziggurat et Tour de Babel, 209; especially see Heinrich J. Lenzen, Die Entwicklung der Zikurrat von ihren Anfangen bis zur Zeit der III. Dynastie von Ur (Leipzig: Harrasowitz, 1941), for the altar idea.

32. Hermann Kees, Aegypten (Munich: Beck, 1933), 298; Jeremias, Handbuch der altorientalischen Geisteskultur, 33, 53, 125, 236, 343; for Israel, Robert Eisler, Iesous Basileus ou Basileusas, 2 vols. (Heidelberg: Winter, 1930), 2:670.

33. Eric Burrows, "Problems of the Abzu," Orientalia 1 (1932): 231-56; Burrows, "Cosmological Patterns," 49-51. The concept is very familiar to classical students, J.-A. Hild, "Mundus," in Charles Daremberg and Edmond Saglio, eds., Dictionnaire des antiquites Classiques, 6 vols. (Paris: Hachette, 1904), 3:2021-22; Kroll, "Mundus," 561-63.

34. The classic study is Ludwig Kohler, "Die Schlussel des Petrus," Archiv fur Religionswissenschaft 8 (1905): 215-17; more recently Oscar Cullmann, Urchristentum und Gottesdienst (Zurich: Zwingli, 1950), 274-75. August Dell, "Mt. 16, 17-19," Zeitschrift fur die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 15 (1914): 27-29; Hermann Gunkel, Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Verstandnis des Neuen Testaments (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1910), 73, n. 7; A. Sulzbach, "Die Schlussel des Himmelreiches," Zeitschrift fur die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 4 (1903): 190-93.

35. Alexandre Moret, Historie de l'Orient (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1929), 1:218-37, 365, 377. The theme is treated at length in Hooke, The Labyrinth.

36. This is strikingly depicted in John Chrysostom, Sermo post Reditum ab Exsilio (Discourse following the Return from Exile), n. 2, in PG 52:440.

37. A convenient presentation of this much-treated theme is in Otto Huth, Janus: ein Beitrag zur altromischen Religiongeschichte (Bonn: Rohrscheid, 1932), passim.

38. The chapter by Aubrey R. Johnson, "The Role of the King in the Jerusalem Cultus," in Hooke, The Labyrinth, 73-111, is devoted to this theme.

39. William F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1942), 154-55, 167.

40. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, 150-55.

41. Arendt J. Wensinck, "The Semitic New Year and the Origins of Eschatology," Acta Orientalia 1 (1922): 160.

42. Lord Fitz Roy Raglan, The Origins of Religion (London: Watts, 1949), 58-69.

43. Sigmund Mowinckel, Religion und Kultus (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1953), 76.

44. Johnson, "The Role of the King," 99-107; Wensinck, "Semitic New Year," 160, 183; Mowinckel, Religion and Kultus, 73-76.

45. Theodore Gaster, Thespis: Ritual, Myth, and Drama in the Near East (New York: Schuman, 1950), compares the ritual dramas of Ras Shamra, the Hittites, Egyptians, Greeks, Hebrews, English Mummer's Plays, and Christian Hymns.

46. Mowinckel, Religion and Kultus, 94.

47. Wensinck, "Semitic New Year," 184-85.

48. Illustrated by the Babylonian formulae, e.g., "If he go to the house (temple) of the Seven, he will attain perfection." "If he go to Babylon, trouble of a day, peace of a year," etc., given by T. G. Pinches, "Pilgrimage (Babylonian)," in James Hastings, ed., Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, 13 vols. (New York: Scribner, 1951), 10:12.

49. Mikhail I. Rostovzeff, Mystic Italy (New York: Holt, 1927), 76-78. An initiation is "really a pre-enactment of death and of the rising which it is desired should follow death," Adolphus Peter Elkin, The Australian Aborigines (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1954), 159.

50. This important fact is emphasized by Cyrus H. Gordon, Ugaritic Literature (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1949), 57.

51. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis XXI, Mystagogica III de Chrismate (Catechetical Lecture on the Chrism), in PG 33:1088. Julius Firmicus Maternus, De Errore Profanarum Religionum (The Error of the Pagan Religions) 23, in PL 12:1031, also comments on the perfect identity of Christian and Egyptian initiation rites, and attributes it to the plagiarism of the latter.

52. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis XX, Mystagogica II de Baptismi Caeremoniis (Catechetical Lecture on the Rites of Baptism) in PG 33:1077-78.

53. Ibid., in PG 33:1089; on the real garment, see PG 33:1078. Cf. Tertullian, De Baptismo (On Baptism) 13, in PL 1:1323.

54. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture on the Rites of Baptism, in PG 33:1081.

55. Ibid., Catechetical, in PG 33:1093, 1068.

56. Rabbi Akiba, cited by Samuel Aba Horodezky, "Michael und Gabriel," Monatsschrift fur Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 72 (1928): 505.

57. Thus Marcus Minucius Felix, Octavius, ed. Bernhard Kytzler, (Leipzig: Teubner, 1982), ix-x.

58. Hugh W. Nibley, The World and the Prophets (Salt Lake City: Deseret and Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1987), 65-69.

59. This fact is noted in Theodosius, Selecta de Religione Decreta (Selected Decrees Concerning Religion) 5-19, in PL 13:533-37.

60. Gaster, Thespis, 49, states: "The function of Myth . . . is to bring out in articulate fashion the inherent durative significance of the ritual program." Gordon, Ugaritic Literature, 7, says: "As a rule, when a ritual is associated with a myth or legend, the ritual is the older, for the myth or legend tends to be an explanation of the already existing ritual."

61. Even in the Pyramid Texts the "others say" formula occurs. "The two plumes on his head are Isis and Nephthys . . . but others say that the two plumes are the two very large uraei . . . and yet others say that the two plumes are his eyes," in E. A. Wallis Budge, The Book of the Dead: Papyrus of Ani, 3 vols. (New York: Putnam, 1913), vol. 3, pl. 7, line 32.

62. TB Pesahim 70b. In his famous letter to Gubbio in 416 A.D., Innocent I complains that "when everyone feels free to observe . . . whatever practices he likes, we see established observances and ways of celebrating of diverse nature. . . . The result is a scandal for the people who, not knowing that the ancient traditions have been altered by human presumption, think . . . that the Apostles established contradictory things;" Epistolae et Decreta (Letters and Decrees) 25, 1-3, in PL 20:551-52.

63. That is why, e.g., the Priestly Corporation of Heliopolis had to sit in judgement yearly to clear the dubious title of Pharaoh and Osiris; Rudolf Anthes, "The Original Meaning of M3c hrw," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 13 (1954): 49-50, 191-92; that is why the kingly title in Mesopotamia "carried in some degree the taint of usurpation, especially in early times;" Frankfort, Birth of Civilisation in the Near East, 80; and why Prometheus can call Zeus himself a sham and usurper; Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, lines 937-43, 953-63; and why Loki can alarm Odin and the gods by threatening to reveal their secret—that they are frauds; Poetic Edda, Lokasenna.

64. For a preliminary account, Hugh W. Nibley, Lehi in the Desert and the World of the Jaredites (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1952), 160-64. "Cosmic garment" is the designation of Jeremias, Das Alte Testament, 159.

65. Quoted in Eisler, Iesous Basileus ou Basileusas 1:525; cf. Book of Jasher 27:2, 7, 10; 7:24-27.

66. Hugh W. Nibley, "The Arrow, the Hunter, and the State," Western Political Quarterly 2 (1949): 339-41.

67. From the first, the emergence of the pattern has alarmed Catholic divines, whose explanation of the widespread uniformities of ritual and liturgy has been that they exist only in the imaginations of scholars. Thus W. Paulus, "Marduk Urtyp Christi?" Orientalia 29 (1928): 63-66; J. de Fraine, "Les Implications du 'patternism,'" Biblica 37 (1956): 59-73. While the ancients freely admitted the parallels and explained them as borrowings by the heathen from remnants of earlier dispensations of the gospel, the modern Catholic church, denying all dispensations but one, ignore the teachings of the Fathers and leave "patternism" unexplained.

68. Doyle Green, "Los Angeles Temple Dedication," Improvement Era 59 (April 1956): 228-32.

69. Voelkl, "Orientierung im Weltbild," 155. How little aware even scholars are of the temple concept in our own day is apparent from Sidney B. Sperry's "Some Thoughts Concerning Ancient Temples and Their Functions," Improvement Era 58 (1955): 814-16. If a modern Mormon student knows so little of the ideas here discussed, what are the chances of the elders of over a hundred years ago knowing anything at all about them?

70. E. L. Hawkings, "Freemasonry," in Hastings, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics 6:120.

71. Ibid., describes Freemasonry as "a peculiar system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols." Pending the exhaustive study that the subject deserves, we will only say here that an extensive reading of Masonic and Mormon teachings and history should make it clear to any reader that the former is the shadow, the latter the substance. The one is literal, the other allegorical.

72. J. Quincy, Figures of the Past: From the Leaves of Old Journals (Boston: Little, Brown, 1910), 389.

73. Glyn Danial, "Megalithic Monuments," Scientific American 243 (July 1980): 88-90.

74. Jacob Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik, 5 vols. (Hildesheim: Olm, 1967).

75. James G. Frazer, The New Golden Bough, Theodor H. Gaster ed. (New York: Phillips, 1959), xv-xx.

76. Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology (New York: Viking, 1959), 4-5.

77. M. Eliade, Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return (New York: Harper, 1959), 7-10.

78. "Sparsiones," Classical Journal 40 (1945): 515-43.

79. See above, chapter 4.

80. "The Hierocentric State," Western Political Quarterly 4 (1951): 226-53.

81. See below, chapter 9.

82. "Tenting, Toll, and Taxing, "Western Political Quarterly 29 (1966): 599-630.

83. See above, chapter 7.

84. "The Genesis of the Written Word" (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, Commissioner's Lecture, 1973); reprinted New Era 3 (1973): 38-50

85. The Message of The Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1975).

86. See above, chapter 3.

87. "A New Look at the Pearl of Great Price," Improvement Era 71 (1968): 18-24, running serially until 73 (1970): 82-89, 91-94.

88. Abraham in Egypt (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1981).


(Hugh Nibley, Mormonism and Early Christianity, edited by Todd M. Compton and Stephen D. Ricks [Salt Lake City and Provo: Deseret Book Co., Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1987], 355.)

Return to the Temple

This previously unpublished and undated manuscript was originally entitled "Temple."

When the time came for fulfillment of the prophecies of the coming Messiah, heavenly activity was concentrated vigorously on the temple. Granted, it was Herod's temple, which many Jews considered a mere parody of Solomon's and which the pious sectaries claimed to be defiled; still it was there that the angel Gabriel came "from the presence of God" to "preach the gospel" in a long discourse to Zacharias before the veil. This first chapter in Luke is peculiarly relevant to the study of the temple. Zacharias was a priest, and his wife a direct descendant of Aaron (Luke 1:5). Their condition is described in very un-Greek terms that seem to come right out of the Dead Sea Scrolls in bold relief. They were both "upright before the Lord" (li -p nê &acheck; -d oi), "walking in all the commandments" (mi .z wô -t ) and judgments (mi&scheckabar; .t îm) of the Lord, observing the law flawlessly in every respect. It had nothing to do with moral turpitude. Like Job, they were "upright and perfect." The Greek word amemptoi, "perfect" (Luke 1:6), is equivalent to the Hebrew tamîm.

You would think them the last people in the world to need more religion; yet it was expressly to them that the gospel was given (Luke 1:9). Zacharias's activity during his turn of duty entailed making the incense sacrifice, when he would go before the veil in the Holy of Holies while the multitude stood outside in the court in prayer (Luke 1:10). What happened is described by Luke with clinical precision (Luke 1:14), matched only by the story of Moroni's visit to Joseph Smith.

Why did the angel make his special appearance? Explicitly to announce the birth of John the Baptist, which was to bring great joy to the world; John would be filled with the Holy Ghost from the womb and observe a way of life strictly withdrawn from worldly practices (Luke 1:15). This was to be a restoration: "He would bring back many of the children to the Lord their God" (Luke 1:16); he would precede the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, fulfilling the promise made long before: "to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient" spirits to the way of righteousness (Luke 1:17; cf. Malachi 4:6). (This plainly deals with those who had passed on and looks to a reconstruction of the family.) As to the present generation, the coming prophet was sent to prepare for the Lord a qualified people (Luke 1:16-17). The angel then stated his own role: "I am Gabriel, and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings" (Luke 1:19). Again, just like Moroni.

Next the angel went to Mary, and again, the exact circumstances of the visit are given. She will have a child, and he shall rule and reign in the house of the Lord forever (Luke 1:26-55). Mary burst into a song, declaring that the promises to the fathers were about to be fulfilled (Luke 1:46-55). On the eighth day, John's parents brought him to the temple, where Zacharias, filled with the Holy Ghost (Luke 1:67), proclaimed the restoration of the glories and offices of the temple, culminating with work for the dead: He has taken pity on our fathers, "to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death" (Luke 1:79). All this had to do with great benefits for those who had died, to be effected specifically by one whose office was to baptize (Luke 1:76-79).

Like John, Jesus too was brought to the temple when he was eight days old; and there Simeon, being filled with the Holy Ghost (which had, we are expressly told, brought him to the temple for that purpose; cf. Luke 2:27), took the babe in his arms and proceeded to recite from Isaiah the restoration of that which had been prepared as a glory to the people of Israel as well as to the nations (Luke 2:28-32). The next blessing was bestowed by the prophetess Anna, who never left the temple, where she engaged in fasting and prayer day and night.

One cannot help but wonder what those people did who spent all their time in the temple. Fasting and prayer were not full-time activities, and much in the early Jewish and Christian literature indicates that there was much more to be done. Specifically what it was we are never told, for these things were not divulged to the world.

What is to be noted is how all this activity centers in the temple. In October 1983, I attended a conference of Jews and Christians on Holy Land studies in Washington, D.C. The subject was the restoration of the temple, and the three words constantly discussed — which would have been taboo just ten years before — were restoration [not reformation], dispensation, and revelation. Some of the clergy are beginning to want the temple back. It was at the temple that Simeon and Anna gave their prophetic blessings about Jesus, and that Gabriel hailed the work of John the Baptist, this babe who was surprisingly "to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children" (Luke 1:17) (instead of the other way around), and to bring a great light to them who sat in darkness — plainly his ministry of baptism was to apply to the dead as well as the living; and it was the same in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was at the temple that Jesus as a child revealed his special calling to do his Father's business (Luke 2:46-49). And it was there that he made a general announcement of his messianic calling. After he had gone, the saints spent their days, Luke tells us, constantly meeting and praising God in the temple (Luke 24:53). The early church, in fact, was built around the temple, a thing which many new in-depth studies are bringing to light for the first time. fn

The primacy of the temple as that appointed place through which God dealt with Israel, both Jewish and Christian, was never revoked. Since both Jews and Christians were without the temple after A.D. 70, both attempted to dismiss it as no longer necessary. Some rabbis disliked and denounced it, discouraging any discussion of its teachings and ordinances. fn The Christians, of course, claimed, in the spirit of Alexandrian intellectualism, that the crass, physical temple of old had been replaced by a more splendid spiritual structure in the heart of man. But for all the philosophizing, rationalizing, allegorizing, moralizing, and abstracting, both sides missed the temple sorely. Frequent attempts were made to reclaim it, to restore it, to copy it. fn "We are the heirs to that consecutive imagery. . . . While it is more directly observable in synagogues, churches too in some way or other are likely to express some reminiscence of the biblical shrines." fn About 200 B.C. a circle of pious priests full of zeal for "the dignity of the temple worship . . . adopted the title of the sons of Zadok," from whom are descended the Sadducees. fn The people of the scrolls were devoted to the temple and, like the Essenes, fn "sent offerings to the temple without, however, participating in its cult, for they regarded the priests at Jerusalem as usurpers of the priesthood." The rites of the synagogue were meant to be a reflection of the temple, fn and churches and cathedrals were designed with their Holy of Holies, their veils, and their ministers, who were even referred to as Levites (cf. fig. 13, p. 68).

But in reading the Bible, one can only ask all denominations today, Where is your temple? Wouldn't you like to have it? fn S. Brandon answers, "Now in all that we otherwise know from the earliest New Testament sources, . . . there had been no repudiation of the Temple cultus either by Jesus or by his original followers; indeed the evidence is all to the contrary." fn "There is an abundance of evidence that the Jerusalem Christians continued faithful in their reverence for the temple and in their observance of its cultus; indeed even Paul himself outwardly conformed to the ritual requirements of Judaism and . . . never critized the Temple and the services performed there." fn "Even the Pharisaic Paul," writes M. Black, "turns again and again to the language of the temple and the altar." fn Acts 2:46, 5:42, and 21:20-26 show that "the church at Jerusalem . . . adhered to temple worship from the beginning." fn And Luke 24:53 shows that "Jesus' Messiahship . . . made no breach in the continuity of their Jewish faith and practice. It rather revealed to their minds a new wealth of meaning in the old ritual." fn Indeed, "the first rallying point of Jewish Christianity was the courts of the holy Temple," for all Jews "looked toward Jerusalem as the rightful center of their activities, and the place at which the returning Messiah would establish his final reign upon the earth." fn This would seem to give the Mormons an edge, but that depends on what kind of temple we have.

Granted that many Jews want to rebuild the temple, and many Christians would apply the word freely and quite incorrectly to their church buildings, still the question remains: Once you have a structure, a temple, unique and strikingly different from synagogue and church, what do you do in it that makes it different? Here we can take the Bible for our guide. Certain well-known rites, ordinances, and fixtures can be easily copied. In temples and mysteries throughout the ancient world we find washing and anointing — types of ritual purification and healing — a special garment, prayer circles, veils, etc. But these are mere fixtures and properties. The ancient Roman word for rites to be visibly performed (whose Greek equivalent is drama, "actions carried out") is the actio.

Temples in General

Hundreds of books and articles written since the beginning of the century draw attention to certain basic aspects common to temples throughout the world at all times. fn The temple is an imposing structure, the place where one gets one's bearings from the universe, a place for the gathering of the entire race at an appointed time, namely the new year, to celebrate the beginning of a new age, the common birthday of mankind, i.e., the begetting of the race in a sacred marriage in which the king takes the role of the first ancestor. It is the "hierocentric point," fn the place where all time, space, and humanity come together. fn The word templum not only designates the template, the point of cutting between the cardo and decumanus from which the observer of the heavens makes his viewing, it is also the diminutive of the word tempus, denoting that it measures the divisions of time and space in a single pattern (cf. fig. 4, p. 20). fn There, all the records of the past are kept and all the prophecies for the future are divined. fn G. A. Ahlstrom concludes that the two basic symbols of the temple are in general (1) its cosmic symbolism, and (2) the paradise motif, setting it aside as a sort of halfway-house between heaven and earth. fn One center would establish others in distant places in the manner, as Augustine says, fn of a central fire that sends out sparks, each one of these setting a new fire to scatter new centers, etc., so that the whole world is embraced in a common unity around a common center. fn This idea is reflected in concern with cosmology, a theme dominant in the Jewish and Christian writings until the schools of rhetoric took over. "The earthly shrine [is] a microcosm of the cosmic shrine, . . . conceived as preserving the proportions of the cosmic abode of deity in reduced measure." fn "The temples," writes Hrozńy, "were not only centers of religious life, they were also centers of cultural, economic, and even political life of Babylonia." They were also schools and universities somewhat like medieval cloisters. fn

Albright notes that the original temple of Solomon as a point of contact with the other world presented a "rich cosmic symbolism which was largely lost in the later Israelite and Jewish tradition." fn Since the beginning of the century, widespread comparative studies have shown the uniformity and antiquity of this institution as well as its worldwide contamination and decay, so that not a single example remains in its purity, and yet by virtue of comparing hundreds of imperfect and fragmentary institutions, the original can be reconstructed with great confidence and clarity. In 1930 the so-called Cambridge School gave this doctrine the label of "patternism." fn Scholars avoided it until after World War II; since that time it has been accepted as standard by many.

But it was Joseph Smith who first pointed this out, recalling a common heritage from what he calls the archaic religion, coming down from Adam in such institutions as Freemasonry, and clearly pointing out their defects as time produced its inevitable corruption. What he himself supplied single-handedly is the original article in all its splendor and complexity: quod erat demonstrandum ("that which had to be proven"). The cosmic pattern is presented in every external aspect of the Salt Lake Temple. At the dedication of that temple, Brigham Young explained to the people, "So we commence by laying the stone on the south-east corner because, there is the most light." fn And at the dedication of the St. George Temple, "Precisely at 12 m President Brigham Young, at whose side stood Presidents John W. Young and Daniel H. Wells, broke ground at the south-east corner, and, kneeling on that particular spot, he offered the dedicatory prayer." fn

The Covenant and the Gathering

God made his covenant with Israel both individually and collectively; he required everyone to repair to a certain place at an appointed time to enter a covenant with him. The names by which the Jews designated the temples are House of the King, House of God (fig. 10); the temple at Jerusalem was called specifically the Dwelling, ha-bayit, which does not mean that God dwelt there all the time, for the other name for it was 'ulam, meaning vestibule or passage. It was also the miqda fn, or place sanctified or set apart; the naos or hey -k al, meaning shrine or sanctuary; to hieron, the holy. The most common word with the Jews today is the House, Herod's temple being "the Second House." "Josephus calls it the Deuteron Hieron." fn

"All this must be done at a certain place" he tells Israel; "and I will send an angel to direct you to it. Behave yourselves and pay attention to his voice, because he is acting in my name" (cf. Exodus 23:20-21). They come together as equals, camp in families, follow the directions, note the functions of the appointed priesthood, and hearken to the voice of their prophet and leader when he shows his face after conversing with the Lord. The appointed place always had some structure, even if it was only a tent or stone (usually a ring of standing stones). This structure was considered sacred and was preserved in the building of the temple, which was built to house the original structures.

What Was Done in the Temple?

The central rite of the temple was certainly the offering of sacrifice — the slaughtering of beasts; yet the activities we read about in the Bible simply take that for granted and tell us of preaching, of feasting, and of music. The place seemed to be a general center of activity. The huge outer court allowed for this; the inner court was limited to Jews over twenty who had paid their tax for instruction or teaching, for the temple was a school. In fact, it was all those things for which the Kirtland Temple was dedicated in D&C 109. However, through the years both the structure and the uses to which it was put have remained completely baffling to scholars. fn What the temple really looked like remains today as puzzling as ever. fn Welcome light has finally come with the discovery of the great Temple Scroll from Qumran (fig. 11). This, as Yadin noted, was not a spiritual temple or an ideal model of a heavenly temple, but the temple which these people actually intended to rebuild as soon as the Lord would command them — a more perfect temple than that which the men at Jerusalem had defiled. fn Its purpose was the renewal of the covenant made at Sinai, i.e., the temple ordinances that were present before; from the beginning, the building was merely to accommodate them. This temple was to be in three levels, in three concentric squares or in three cubes, as Frank Cross sees it, the ta -b nî -t being "a model of the cosmic Tabernacle of Yahweh." fn Joseph Smith takes it back to "the three principal rounds of Jacob's ladder — the telestial, the terrestrial, and the celestial glories or kingdoms," fn the highest level being an assembly hall facing a veil that ran from one side of the room to the other. According to Cross, the place behind the veil was reached by workers who would ascend a winding staircase in a tower or "house of the winding stair," which stood ten feet free of the building and was connected with the top story by a little bridge. In the Holy Place, for the priesthood, was the table of the "presence-bread" (i.e., shewbread). fn Every morning in the temple, twelve loaves were spread out for the twelve tribes, and the workers took the sacrament (Leviticus 24:5-9; cf. Exodus 25:23-30; 29:33-34). The most impressive rite of the temple was the "drinking of the new wine by the entire assembly," which was to symbolize a ransom or redemption.

A stairway led to an upper story connected to the temple attic; equally impressive was the House of the Laver, containing a great bronze tank located in a separate building a few feet from the main temple, with dressing rooms at hand, emptying into a drain which carried the water off to be absorbed into the ground.



In the far northeast corner of the great enclosure is a roofed building supported by twelve columns with chains and pulleys; this is the place where the sacrificial animals were killed, far removed from the sacred precincts. From all this we see that the sacrificing of animals was only a part of the ritual activities that went on in the temple. fn According to Milgrom, "The entire scroll is the revealed word of God," fn and it begins with the covenant with Moses and a section on the Holy of Holies, which unfortunately is the one part of the scroll which has been completely destroyed.

In both Jewish and Christian sources, one often reads of the five things — five covenants, five tokens, etc. — which are an organic part of the temple: When "prophecy ceased. The Urim and Thummim fell into disuse. . . . Corruption spread among the priesthood. . . . Was this God's holy Temple?" asks S. J. D. Cohen. fn "Even the high priests were no longer legitimate high priests; they were regular priests who usurped the leadership"; the five things were gone, i.e., the sacred fire, the ark, the Urim and Thummim, the oil of anointing, and the holy spirit (prophecy). These five are the typical list of the schoolmen. According to the Gospel of Philip, the five secret ordinances of the Lord are (1) baptism, (2) chrism (anointing), (3) the eucharist, (4) the ordinance of salvation (sote — unexplained), and (5) the bridal chamber or highest ordinance. fn In a very old Manichaean manuscript recently discovered we read, "These five things [ordinances] about which you asked me," says the Lord, addressing the apostles after the resurrection, "appear to the world to be small and foolish things, and yet they are great and honorable or exalted (eutaiait). I am he who will reveal to you its ordinances [mysteries]. These five tokens are the mystery of the first man Adam." fn

Substitutes and Proxies

In the temple, and in other structures, the sacrifices could be substituted (the tent, standing stones, the enclosure, the mountain, all stood for the same appointed and sequestered spot, depending on which structure was the most convenient, and it was the same with the sacrifices). The beasts whose blood was shed were only incidental; they stood for something much more. Already in Exodus when Aaron is crowned with his cap or turban, the crown of sanctification (cf. fig. 17C, p. 98) is added (the round linen cap was to act as a cushion for a metal crown during a long ceremony). Later the cap alone would suffice, since it showed that the owner was qualified to wear the "crown of justification." Aaron's sons, arrayed in their holy garments, then appeared and put their hands on the head of a bullock before the tabernacle; it was killed at the door. Moses, dipping his finger in the blood, put it on the horns of the altar (Exodus 29:5-12). The same thing is done with a ram (Exodus 29:15-18). The same men then lay their hands upon the head of another ram, kill the ram, and put some of its blood on the right ear of Aaron and his sons (Exodus 29:19-20). This recalls the rite of nailing the right ear of a servant to a door (there are only three nerves in the lobe of the ear) to signify an everlasting bond or covenant between the Lord and his servant (Exodus 21:6; Deuteronomy 15:16-17). Moses also marks with blood the thumb of the right hand of Aaron and his sons, as well as the big toe of the right foot (Exodus 29:20). In the Temple Scroll the bloody spot is placed in the palm of the right hand, whereupon the priest sprinkles the blood all around the altar to signify that this is the blood of sacrifice. It takes no great mental effort to see that the slaying of the ram is the same as the slaying of the ram which represents Isaac in the akedah, or "binding," for Israel, an assurance of the resurrection, a similitude of a great and last sacrifice. fn

Today for the first time, Jewish scholars have become greatly concerned with this question: Did Isaac make the atoning sacrifice? fn But Isaac was not put to death! If not he, who then? What is being recognized is that there was much more to the ordinances than the scholars have been aware of. Thus H. G. May tells us that the "tabernacle ('ohel), the ark ('aocircRoman [and] the ephod ('e -p ô -d ) . . . may be closely related institutions." fn "The ephod was a portable instrument of divination. . . . One suspects that it was the same instrument . . . [as the] urim and thummim." fn Are all these things the same? How were they really used? Morton Smith has recently caused a sensation by calling attention to a thing deliberately bypassed by Jewish and Christian scholars alike, namely that for the temple the ancient saints always designated a mystery as an ordinance, and vice versa. He notes that Judaism itself was considered a "mystery religion" and that the rites of circumcision and passover were mysteries; fn that such early and orthodox Christian writers as Clement of Alexandria "think of Jesus as a 'hierophant,' a teacher of the mysteries." fn As Dr. Smith sums it up, "This was the mystery of the kingdom — the mystery rite by which the kingdom was entered," i.e., the ordinances of initiation. fn In Paul, he finds, this is "a preparatory purification," followed "by unknown ceremonies" by which one became "united with Jesus," and so ascended with him and "entered the kingdom of God." fn The teaching was very secret and was limited to an "inner circle." fn

After administering the blood, Moses then took the oil of anointing and sprinkled it over Aaron and his sons, clothed in their garments; thereby they became sanctified (cf. Exodus 29:21). This is the oil of healing, which reverses the blows of death. The sons of Aaron were made bloody, as if they had been sacrificed, and then cleansed, as if cleared of their sins. Being "washed in the blood of the lamb" is thus no paradox — the blood actually cleanses them of what most needs cleansing by transferring their sins to another. Leviticus deals with the matter in detail. It begins with every man in Israel who is for Jehovah bringing his offering from the herd, a male animal without blemish, as a personal, voluntary offering. He, not the priest, lays his hand on the animal's head, after which it represents him as an offering and a ransom for his sins (Leviticus 1:2-4). The conditions of the atoning sacrifice are given; all follow the same pattern, and the feast that goes with it is eaten in humility — "and ye shall eat in sorrow" (cf. Genesis 3:17). The principle of proxy continues as we read that the priest is to serve as a substitute or proxy for the king or the people (Leviticus 4:10, 13). He in turn avoided being sacrificed by being bought off (redeemed) by another substitute, a bullock whose blood is sprinkled before the veil while some of it is put on the horns of the altar. This bull is not eaten; the whole animal is burned in the ashdump outside the camp to eliminate completely all the sins of the people (Leviticus 4:1-12).

And so anciently the principle of proxy was carried out: a goat for a prince who has unwittingly sinned (Leviticus 4:22), a bullock for all the unwitting sins of Israel (Leviticus 4:13-14), a female kid as ransom for any commoner for his unintentional trespasses, a lamb or a kid; or if you could not afford that, two turtle doves; or if you could not afford them, two young pigeons (one for a sin offering and one for burning); if you could not afford that, one tenth of an ephah of flour would do (Leviticus 1:2-2:1). The bread and wine in the temple represent sacrifice and atonement. For sins against holy things, a perfect ram must be brought, or its equivalent in shekels (i.e., by weight of pieces of silver; Leviticus 5:15). A clear case comes from Leviticus 8:12-15: First, oil is poured on Aaron's head to sanctify him; then his sons are brought in, properly attired, leading a bullock. They lay their hands upon its head, for it is to atone for their sins. Aaron kills the bullock, puts the blood on the altar, lokapper, to make atonement for them. The rites with the Levites are the same. Thus the sacrifices are carried out in the temple without the shedding of human blood, but if human blood can be spared, why not all blood? Because this was the similitude of the shedding of blood for the atonement of sin. Properly, of course, the sinner's own blood must be used, unless a go'el, a representative substitute advocate or redeemer, could be found to take one's place. The willingness of the candidate to sacrifice his own life (the c&acheckebar; -d ah) is symbolized by the blood on the right thumb and right earlobe, where the blood would be if the throat had been cut.

Symbolic Representations

Great emphasis is laid on the assembly of the people, both in the Old Testament and the Temple Scroll, as the camp of Israel in the wilderness — an armed, walled camp, the image vividly depicted in the appointments of the Temple Scroll. One of the most baffling titles connected with the temple is that of Metatron, the title normally reserved to Enoch as the guide of the initiates through the temple. After much argument and research, it is widely agreed now that the root of the word is metator — the metator being one who goes ahead of the host to set up the camp and supervise operations. This is also indicated in the name of Enoch, which signifies a guide or instructor of initiates into the temple — the hekaloth. Anyone approaching the holy enclosure must identify himself in three steps — the admission of initiates is the central theme of the Manual of Discipline. fn First, at a distance, he seeks admission, giving a visible sign by raising his arms (a greeting that can be seen from afar and is a sign, among other things, that he is unarmed); approaching closer for inspection, he gives his name; then approaching for the final test, he actually makes physical contacts with certain grips, which are the most secret and decisive. His final acceptance is by the most intimate tokens of all, including an embrace, or a unio mystica (mystic union), in which the candidate becomes not only identified, but identical, with the perfect model. fn

The Arrested Sacrifice

The gospel is more than a catalogue of moral platitudes; these are matters of either eternal life or nothing. Nothing less than the sacrifice of Abraham is demanded of us (D&C 101:4). But how do we make it? In the way Abraham, Isaac, and Sarah all did. fn Each was willing and each expected to be sacrificed, and each committed his or her all to prove it. In each case the sacrifice was interrupted at the last moment and a substitute provided: to their relief, someone else had been willing to pay the price, but not until after they had shown their good faith and willingness to go all the way — "lay not thy hand on the lad, . . . for now I know" (Genesis 22:12). Abraham had gone far enough; he had proven to himself and the angels who stood witness (we are told) that he was actually willing to perform the act. Therefore the Lord was satisfied with the token then, for he knew the heart of Abraham. This is the same for Isaac and Sarah and for us. And whoever is willing to make the sacrifice of Abraham to receive eternal life will show it by the same signs and tokens as Abraham, but he or she must do it in good faith and with real intent. Circumcision is another form of arrested sacrifice in which the victim's own blood was shed and a permanent mark was left. It represents the sacrifice of Abraham, who initiated it (Genesis 17:10-14; cf. Exodus 21:6-7). It was the misunderstanding of both the seriousness of temple ordinances and their symbolic nature that gave rise to all the horror tales about temple ordinances in anti-Mormon literature of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. fn

The Force of the Name

Anciently, the signs and tokens were accompanied by words, the most important being certain names. fn The epoch-making discoveries from Ebla put great emphasis on the primacy of the name in the rites of the temple and all its activities showing "local[ized] veneration of the divinised Name that corresponds to the veneration manifest in the personal names." fn They are for identification, but they are more than that. Why is it necessary that all be done "in the name of the Son?" There is no mystic or esoteric allure to the logos, or spoken word. Like the other elements of ordinance, it is a means of communication. God says there is "no end to my works, neither to my words" (Moses 1:38), explaining in the same passage that his work and his glory is to "bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39). His whole concern, then, is to pass on to others what he has. The glory of God is intelligence, which he wishes to share with all others. Glory is shared intelligence. Hence his works always go along with his words. They are the means by which his thoughts are communicated to other beings and made intelligible to his children. Without works, words would be a futile exercise in a vacuum, the subject of endless and perplexed speculation by the Doctors of the Middle Ages, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment. According to the oldest of all temple documents, the Shabako Stone, and the Sefer Yetzira, the way one becomes a member of the universe is through one's sensory perceptors. Whatever gets to us from out there must come through "the seven gateways" of the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. fn These are the avenues made functional by the initiatory rite of the Egyptian temples. The Opening of the Mouth, in which the organs of the senses are first washed and then anointed, is to make the organs efficient conveyors to a clear and active brain, by which the mind evaluates, structures, and comprehends reality. But the receptors work only one way: the eyes, ears, nose, and taste buds do not broadcast what they receive. There is only one way that all those impressions — unified, structured, and enjoyed by the mind — can be conveyed to others, and that is by speech, by the word alone. It is the word alone that releases us and opens up a common universe of discourse. If we are full of grace and truth, we have the desire to seek truth and the grace to share what we have so that all can rejoice together. This can only be done through the word. "There is no end to my works, neither to my words" (Moses 1:38; cf. 1:4). The two are inseparable, and all is made intelligible through that one circuit — the voice, the word, the name.

Secrecy

The ordinances are not deep, dark secrets to be kept as such from the world. It is easy to get a temple recommend and then later apostatize and spread abroad the so-called secrets of the temple. The basic idea of the ordinances from Moses back to Adam is separation from the world. The endowment represents steps by which one disengages from a corrupt, secular, imprisoned environment. Segregation is the first step in the law of Moses. The people must give up their worldly practices and avoid contamination. The Mosaic rites and especially the Temple Scroll show an almost fanatical preoccupation with being qaocirc;&scheck;, "sanctified" (cf. Gk. hagios, Lat. purus) — all of these words for holiness mean specifically "set apart," "cut off," not mingled to any degree, because we are dealing with two worlds, the one eternal and incorruptible, the other corruptible and temporal. The slightest taint of corruption means that the other world would be neither incorruptible nor eternal. The tiniest flaw in a building, institution, code, or character will inevitably prove fatal in the long run of eternity. The object of the rules laid down in Leviticus 10:10-12 is to make a sharp distinction lohabdil (between what is holy and unholy, clean and unclean). Chapters 11 and 12 give a detailed catalog of what is clean and what is unclean, with the strictest rules for keeping the two absolutely separate. The lesson of absolute separation is forcefully brought home to Israel in the beginning of Exodus 19, where certain fences are set up at the foot of Mt. Sinai, with death the fate of any who cross the line (fig. 12). The teachings of Moses begin with a warning to make the people keep their distance (Exodus 19:21). The priests are authorized to approach more closely. Why? Because they are willing to take things more seriously. They are required to sanctify themselves, and Jehovah will come to them as a special group (Exodus 19:22). The priests themselves, however, must keep their proper distance: "They must not try to ascend any nearer to Jehovah or they will be overpowered" — blown up, yi -p ra .z (cf. Exodus 19:24).



Purification is the beginning and end of the Temple Scroll, and it goes back to Adam (Moses 6:8). Temple work began among Adam's children when God set them apart, gave them a blessing, gave them a new name, registered them in the new Book of the Generations of Adam (Genesis 5:1-2), setting the true family of Adam on its course beginning with Seth (whose name means "second, substitute, equal" — he was the living image of Adam [D&C 107:48], and his name shows that), followed by his son, Enos (meaning "man," exactly the same as Adam and Enoch) — the line of patriarchs being carried down in the record.

The ordinances are not secret, and yet they are, so to speak, automatically scrambled for those not authorized to have them. Satan disobeyed orders when he revealed certain secrets to Adam and Eve, not because they were not known and done in other worlds, but because he was not authorized in that time and place to convey them. Likewise he conveyed certain secrets to Cain, who became Master Mahan, and to Lamech, who achieved the same degree of negative glory (Moses 5:29-31, 49-52). Lamech's wives in turn "had not compassion" and spread the secret things abroad (Moses 5:47-48, 53). This is the classical account of the Watchers, angels who came to call the human race to repentance, but who, being tempted by the daughters of men, fell and gave away the covenants and the knowledge they possessed. fn This was their undoing, and was always treated as the most monstrous of crimes, divulging the pure ordinances of heaven to people unworthy to receive them, who then proceeded to exercise them in unrighteousness while proclaiming their own righteousness on the grounds of possessing them (cf. Genesis 6:4-6).

The oldest tradition common to many ancient people is that of the woman who got the secret name from the most high god. It is the Egyptian story of Re and the Son's Eye. Isis, wishing to found the Egyptian Dynasty along matriarchal lines by endowing her sons with the priesthood, begged Re, their father, to tell her his secret name. It is the story of Epimetheus, who loosed all evils upon mankind when he deferred to Pandora's request. Recently that story has turned up in the early Coptic Christian Third Apocryphon of John. Moreover, a two-volume work by Ludwig Laistner traces the Sphinx motif through ancient times. In the Bible it is Samson and Delilah. But the most significant telling of the story is in Moses 5:47-55, the story of Lamech, which reports how this pattern was spread throughout the entire world in the abominations of the ancients. This opens up a whole world of comparative studies telling us how it is that ceremonies resembling those of the temple are found throughout the ancient world. fn

Why are these temple ordinances guarded with such secrecy when anyone who really wants to can find out what goes on? Even though everyone may discover what goes on in the temple, and many have already revealed it, the important thing is that I do not reveal these things; they must remain sacred to me. I must preserve a zone of sanctity which cannot be violated whether or not anyone else in the room has the remotest idea what the situation really is. For my covenants are all between me and my Heavenly Father, all others being present only as witnesses. Why witnesses, if this must be so intimate and private? Plainly others are involved in it, too. God's work and his glory is to share that work and glory with others. Abraham said he sought diligently for these ordinances that he might administer them to others (Abraham 1:2). It is because others are engaged in the work that we know that we are not just imagining it. On the other hand I can never share my understanding of them completely with anyone but the Lord. No matter what happens, it will, then, always remain secret: only I know exactly the weight and force of the covenants I have made — I and the Lord with whom I have made them — unless I choose to reveal them. If I do not, then they are secret and sacred no matter what others may say or do. Anyone who would reveal these things has not understood them, and therefore that person has not given them away. You cannot reveal what you do not know! The constant concern is to keep Israel out of contact with the profane things of the world; the reason given is not absolute secrecy, but to keep these sacred things from becoming .h alal, that is, vulgar, popular, the subject of everyday discussion, in a word, trivia. This is what is meant by blasphemy, which signifies not some awful and horrible commitment to evil but simply taking holy things lightly. And what is wrong with being .h alal? What is evil in innocent everyday conversation about the temple? Even at its most innocuous, the bringing up of such matters in public can only lead to their cheapening, but, worst of all, to all manner of misunderstanding, misrepresentation, disputation, contention, contamination, and corruption. fn This is exactly what has happened throughout history — the possession of God's secrets was a cause for vanity and self-congratulation. In some parts of the world where the greatest secrecy was observed — as at Eleusis and in Egypt, and it would appear that some of the secrets never leaked out — scholars marveled at how well those secrets were kept; the rites appear today surprisingly like those in the real temple.

When the Lord speaks of giving precious things to the dogs and pearls to the swine, it is not with contempt for those creatures, but with the futility of such a thing for all concerned — the dogs would find no value in precious things, which would be thrown away into dirt and trodden under foot.

With the sectaries of the second century and following, secrecy becomes a subject of great fascination; it tickles vanity and gives even the lowliest a feeling of superiority. It was not so with the early Christians: "Everyone should be given the highest mystery which he is worthy to receive. For if ye hide any mystery from a worthy person ye may be guilty of great condemnation." Whoever asks and knocks should be given the benefit of the doubt, but we must not forget that it is very dangerous to give mysteries to the unworthy — it will harm them and everyone else. fn The mischief resulting from secrecy has been apparent throughout the history of religion.

There is no doubt at all that the early Christians were not only concerned with the temple but kept their knowledge of it and its ordinances secret. fn The Roman Catholics have always denied this, claiming that everything Christ taught was to be "preached from the house tops." Roman Catholics are also very uncomfortable with the traditions of the temple. George MacRae goes so far as to assert that Luke gives a completely warped view in his attempt "to show that the primitive Christian community in Jerusalem focused its life around the temple. . . . I don't think Luke had any acquaintance with Jerusalem itself," he writes, "and how the temple actually functioned in the lives of people." fn The Christian temple ordinances emerge in the forty-day teachings of the Lord to the apostles, which MacRae calls the "revelation-discourse[s]." fn He considers them based on a complete misunderstanding perpetrated by the Gnostics. fn In all of his works to disqualify the teachings of the Lord after the resurrection, MacRae never gives the slightest hint that there might really have been a fortyday ministry.

Are the Conventional Ordinances Enough?

The ordinances of some Christian churches today are Baptism, Confirmation, Communion (sacrament), Penance, Anointing of the Sick (Extreme Unction), Holy Order, and Matrimony. All of these have come in for examination, and some of them recently for drastic revision. The ancient records show that what corresponds to these rites today is complex and conflicting. Nobody really understands them. The discovery of early records has required constant reappraisal. The Reformation got rid of much ritual and liturgy of patently non-Christian origin, but as a result the liturgical poverty of Protestantism is one of its serious failings. How can such a defect be corrected? Can we trust to the taste and judgment of self-certifying institutions to impart sanctity to forms and observances? An example is the academic caps and gowns. Whether the design is by committees, synods, conventicles, or individuals, by what authority do they act? Wherein does the sanctity of these costumes reside?

The Catholic case is even more dubious. When at the monastery of Solesmnes in 1830 the serious study of old and forgotten manuscripts dealing with the mass was undertaken, it became apparent that there was nothing particularly ancient or Christian in the rites. fn Today the standard work on the mass is that of Eisenhofer and Lechner, who trace the origin of the Holy Office to four sources — and if there is one thing in which one is not lacking for evidence it is in the ritual of the church, attested in thousands of documents all over Europe. fn The four sources are as follows:

1. The rites of the synagogue consisted of singing, preaching, scripture reading, and prayer. Reminders of the temple are important, but they didn't make it a temple or transfer any of the ordinances. fn

2. The adoption of antique cult practices, for example the practice of the annona, are clearly present in the mass. The word mass, messis, is in fact the Latin word for harvest ceremony. The council of Elvira in A.D. 444 forbade the use of candles and incense in churches, since they were a basic pagan practice everywhere. Parts of the mass thought by the apologists of the nineteenth century (such as the naive G. K. Chesterton) to go back to the days of the apostles are no later than the sixteenth century in origin. Such are the epiclesis and the monstrance, that climactic elevation of the host which has become the high point of the mass (fig. 13). The core of the Western rite was the Milanese order brought by Ambrose, a convert when he came from Antioch, via Ephesus and Lyons, while the foundation of the present Roman mass is the rite established at Aachen in the days of Charlemagne.



3. Much of the splendor of the mass may be attributed to the Roman Imperial cult, as Andreas Alföldi has shown at length. fn

4. The Germanic and Celtic courts of the North contributed some of the most venerated rites of Christian churches. Henry St. John Feasey's studies on the English Holy Week's Ceremony show how deeply rooted in pagan antiquity these rites are. fn

For years it was accepted doctrine that the early Christians had a choice between Amt and Geist ("office" and "spirit"), the two being mutually exclusive. Rudolph Sohm made this into an article of faith: Whereas the old Jewish religion was steeped in hierarchy, form, and authority, the early Christians relinquished all that to be governed by nothing but a spirit of love — no organization of any kind, no offices, no orders, no structure, just the spirit that bloweth as it listeth. But then there was a reaction. It was easy for Adolf von Harnack to show how involved the Christians were in an ordinance such as the laying on of hands, on which they were absolutely insistent and which served, as the earliest writings make clear, as an ordinance of initiation, which would necessarily be initiation into an organization. fn

More recently the coming forth of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the early Coptic Christian texts, as well as the rediscovery of a mass of apocalyptic writings, such as the books of Enoch and Abraham, bring out an intense concern with the ordinances of the temple. But this is the ideal temple, the heavenly temple after which the earthly temple is modeled. Needless to say, it is a very different structure from that which scholars have tried to construct through the years: To this day no one is sure what the temple was like or what was done in it. But the Temple Scroll is a link between the two; that document shows how the earthly temple insensibly fuses with the holy city and eventually embraces all the spirits in the world. fn The numerous accounts of the heavenly temple are found in a multitude of Ascension texts. fn These might appear as altogether fanciful were it not that they show a consistent picture of the temple and are supported by numerous points of contact with actual practices. We must not forget the forty-day literature, in which the Lord instructs the apostles in great secrecy after his resurrection in the rites and ordinances of a higher order, such as the prayer circle and "the bridal chamber." fn

The Terrible Questions

Since the 1950s there has been a revival of the liturgical movement — as if there was merit in liturgy itself — with an inevitable drift to pomp and ceremony. But if there is anything that sets the Mormon temple apart, it is the total lack of display, pomp, or ceremony within its precinct. It is amusing that after the many books written in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries describing the temple rites as a carnival of glamorous and occult shenanigans in the manner of Aleister Crowley, it should turn out that the Mormons have actually fewer ceremonial doings than almost any other church, including even the Quakers and Baptists, who make a conscious effort to put on some kind of show, even if it is only a show of austerity; for example, the severe eighteenth-century guise of the Mennonites at this late date seems to me to be pure theater. But no such pretense is necessary for the Latter-day Saints, because for them the temple should be a place for serious concern, with no place for pretense or show, no musical chants, bells, gorgeous vestments, processions, declamation, recitatives, trumpets, adornments, color, resounding intonements, nor incense — it is the temple work alone that counts. It should show soberness and austerity, and yet not show severity. It is there that one comes to grips with what the Doctors of the synagogue and the church have banned as "the Terrible Questions," which deal with the fundamental questions of existence, and not in a philosophical, allegorical, or abstract manner. The rabbis and the fathers alike forbade discussion of these issues. Various Gnostic sects tried to keep reviving them, but to do that they had to resort to all manner of contrivance and fakery, mingling scripture with rumors and some authentic traditions.

How do we explain this vacuum? When the apostles met with the Lord behind closed doors, they asked the Lord why he always spoke to the people in parables. "Because," he said, "to you it is given to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them, it is not given" (cf. Mark 4:11). By the mysteries of heaven he meant "the mysteries of godliness," those ordinances which were closely guarded by the early saints, even at the risk of misunderstanding, scandal, and persecution. At a very early time, Origen, in his work on the first principles of the gospel, regretted that the church did not have clear information on any one of them. Thus, he says, the Bible tells us that there are angels but does not give us the slightest indication of what they were like (did they have wings?). fn In the same way Basil, in the fourth century, regrets the same lack of specific information about any of the ordinances. fn We know that the Christians baptized and married, he says, but we haven't the slightest instruction as to how they did it. Was the Lord's supper distributed in the same manner as the loaves and fishes? Were they the same ordinances?

The Creation Motif

According to the eminent N. A. Dahl, "most important has been the discovery of the importance of the worship of the temple, especially the great festivals [i.e., the rites in which all participate] as a common point of departure and coincidence. In the common worship, the creation was commemorated and re-enacted, and the future renewal for which Israel hoped, was prefigured." fn M. Dahood sees the closest association between the name and the creation motif in the earliest temples, in such names as "the Voice has Created" — Creation by the Word. fn Where did the creation begin? The answer for the Jews was in the temple: "The first thing which emerged from the primordial waters was the temple," from which point creation spread in all directions, specifically this earthly creation, for the temple was actually transplanted from a preexistent world created long before. fn The ancient temple drama begins with the council in heaven when the creation is being planned. fn

Many features of the Latter-day Saint version of creation are sound and scientific. First of all, this earth was part of a system of worlds made of the same elements and subject to the same physical laws. The creation was neither instantaneous nor simultaneous, as Aquinas describes it. fn The latter have become the fundamental ideas behind the word creation as it is used by scientists and religionists alike. All are agreed today that the word creation implies bringing something out of nothing instantaneously and completely. On the contrary, creation is a process in which one step leads to another over an indefinite period of time. The "episodic" nature of life is essential in this version. What we have is one ever ongoing play divided into distinct acts and scenes. Since there is no point at which everything emerges from nothing, we begin with an act and a scene in a play that has already been going on for untold ages and has already seen countless worlds come and go. Our story opens with unorganized matter, then an earth which is "only" earth, then a globe completely invested with water, then a division of the waters, causing the upthrust of earth by plate techtonics, which proceeds to form mountains and hills, down from which rush great rivers and small streams, supplied by the torrential rains that fall from the darkness that covers the face of the deep — the dense cloud-cover which begins to break up as first the sun, then the moon, then the stars appear. They were not created at that time; they were already there. Human history is not primarily concerned with the creatures of other ages or of other planets; its proper beginning is placed at that momentous period of transition between the Cretaceous and the Tertiary when the first angiosperms appeared as grass, flowers, shrubs, and trees, supplying sustenance for the elephant, the lion, and other large mammals. The mammoths were the first to appear of those herds of grazing animals, the herd which emerged as soon as the grass was provided — a very sudden event in the course of nature, "an explosion," Loren Eiseley calls it. fn They supplied a livelihood for the predators — the lion, the tiger, and the bear, which preyed upon the herds. All these were in preparation for man. If the above rules out the whole fundamentalist picture of creation, Darwinism is no less rejected by the basic doctrine that the creation was both directed and planned. The planning began long before the actual operation was carried out, and the process required constant oversight and direction.

The Temple Drama

The principal recorded activity which took place at the ancient temples on the occasion of the great assembly was the temple drama, a ritual combat, a showdown between good and evil. Before the world could be safely launched on a new age or cycle of existence, the problem of evil had to be settled, for a faulted world could not be a safe or enduring one.

The drama began with a prologue in heaven. The premortal council, as well as good and evil, are the subjects of the discussion. The argument is that an eternal, spiritual being is to be subjected to temptation, to which, in fact, it must yield if it is to experience a part of existence which must be taken into account; for sooner or later there must be opposition in all things, and the new world is to be set apart as a special place for testing. fn For that purpose it must be quarantined. Man must be temporarily cut off from the presence of God and angels, that he might demonstrate to himself his capacity or incapacity for coping with evil. By yielding to temptation, man loses his immunity and innocence as the price of gaining knowledge. But since he cannot return to God in his fatally flawed condition, a Savior will be provided on certain conditions of obedience. The situation, and indeed the whole plot of the temple drama, is vividly set forth in the book of Moses, way back in 1830, before anyone ever thought of serious study of ancient temples except on a mystic or occult basis. The fourth chapter contains the provisions for Adam's redemption, but first comes a matchless presentation of man's condition. Moses' situation is that of a man trapped in a sewer. The only way for him to escape is for someone to go beneath him so that he can stand on his shoulders and climb out. He must recognize the situation and make an effort to respond: the whole plan is one of repentance — the man must "repent and call upon God . . . forever-more" (Moses 5:8) in the name of the Son, who is to help him. He is, as it were, calling upon God to send the Son to his aid. Inter finitum et infinitum non est proportio, which means that all are equally in need of repentance. Ten miles falls as far short of infinity as 10,000 miles, and I am just as far from being "full of grace and truth" today as I ever was or will be.

The Combat

Every drama must have a conflict, and nothing is more impressive than the manner in which the problem of evil was treated in the temple. The showdown is of course between good and evil; and these, following the usual temple practice, are represented figuratively or by proxy.

Before the altar in Jerusalem all the sins and vices of the people were shifted to the figure of a scapegoat, which thereby became an object of utter loathing, a pharmakos, an embodiment of all evil, driven out into the wilderness to perish, taking all the sins of the people with him. Elsewhere in the ancient world the combat is between the holy king and Mot or Seth, who is everything that is evil — the good guy versus the bad guy. But the God of Moses was wiser than that. In the scapegoat, Israel recognized that the enemy they were driving with stones and curses was the evil that was in themselves. They were the bad guys. In the Songs of David composed for the temple drama, the king cries out de profundis, from the depths; he is in utter despair, overwhelmed by the waters of darkness, overpowered and beaten by the evil one; yet the cause of it all, as he recognizes, is the king's own guilt. That is the evil he is combatting: his psalms are penitential. By contrast, the ancient Greek choruses at the temple mourn for their afflictions but never for their sins — the characters in the play seek for the guilty parties but, like Oedipus, they absolutely refuse to recognize the guilt in themselves. fn

Satan cannot force us to sin, in which case we would be helpless (innocent — no contest!); but he can bribe us to sin, in which case we are guilty and follow him on our own free will. We make covenants with the understanding that we mean to keep them, and the alternative is to place ourselves in Satan's power (Moses 4:4; 5:23). We are placed here expressly to be proven herewith whether we will be true and faithful to our understanding with God, while Satan is allowed to try us and to tempt us, to invite and to entice, to see how far he can shake us.

In a direct frontal attack, as Moses discovers, Satan is stronger than mere mortals, and, for that reason, Satan is not permitted to make such frontal attacks. God has placed enmity, a wall of first defense, between the seed of the woman and the serpent; the first reaction to sin is one of loathing and revulsion, which is the safest protection one can possibly have against evil. Satan, however, knows how to overcome that, and God allows him to play his own game, which is to break down our resistance and win us to his side with money. There is no more impressive aspect to the ancient temple drama than dealing with the problem of evil, which philosophers and theologians to this day consider ultimately insoluble. It is by using money as bait that Satan leaves it up to us to decide whether we will follow him or not, and God permits that arrangement, since that is the very purpose of the test. His maxim is a true one: "money answereth all things" (Ecclesiastes 10:19), which means that in this world money is the name of most every game going; and anyone who would play any other game must pay a heavy penalty for what Stuart Chase called the "the luxury of integrity." In Satan's world, "he who turneth away from sin maketh himself a prey" — you must play this game merely to survive.

The existence of this primordial temple drama has long been recognized. It is vividly set forth in the Memphite Theology, the oldest written record known — whether or not it began in Egypt; and the Shabako Stone makes it clear that the drama was already very old when it was performed to celebrate the dedication of the temple and the founding of the first dynasty of Egypt (cf. fig. 43, pp. 180-81). It spread from there to Greece, where we have a collection of horrendous tragedies dealing with the subjects of good and evil, and in terms of power and gain. fn Not only Greece, however, but the rest of the world sooner or later adapted the same standard temple drama. fn It should be noted that this drama in its oldest and purest form was not meant to be a spectacle but an instructive demonstration. fn The theme is fully developed throughout the ancient world in all its detail, which can't be treated here, though it should be noted that the purpose of it is a participation of mankind in rites and in seeking the assurance of resurrection. fn

There is an instructive parallel between the loss of the First Temple and the Second Temple by the Jews, and the loss of the Kirtland and Nauvoo temples. In every case, it was for the same reason — the covetousness of the people. The temple doesn't need to be protected; it doesn't need security, since it is the only security. The positive side of the injunction to live up to every covenant made is that it will absolutely guarantee prosperity — the law of consecration being the most difficult of the tests. We have been repeatedly assured that if the Saints observe that law, they will never suffer by privation or persecution.

The Archaic Background

The greatest of Jewish philosophers, Maimonides, says that the altar in the temple was where Adam offered a sacrifice after he was created. Indeed, Adam was created from the very ground; as the Sages taught, Adam was created from the place where he made the atonement offering. In 2 Baruch we read, "This building . . . is not that . . . which was prepared beforehand here from the time when I took counsel to make Paradise, and showed it to Adam before he sinned." Adam was shown the heavenly temple. "After these things I showed it to my servant Abraham by night among the portions of the victims, and again also I showed it to Moses on Mount Sinai when I showed him the likeness of the tabernacle and all its vessels. And now behold it is preserved with me, as also Paradise" fn (this was written just after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem). At the dedication of the St. George temple in 1877, Brigham Young said, "It is true that Solomon built a temple for the purpose of giving endowments, but . . . they gave very few if any endowments. . . . I will not say but what Enoch had temples and officiated therein, but we have no account of it"; fn but today we have a great amount of ancient material concerning Enoch, and much of it centers in the temple. Indeed, the principal Hebrew record of Enoch's doings is called the Hekhalot, or chambers of the temple, indicating the steps in initiation to which Enoch introduced his people as the guide or teacher of the ordinances. "The first man brought the five ordinances with him when he came out of the aeon of light," says a newly discovered Mandaean manuscript; and "having completed his testing [agoRoman he ascended again with these good tokens and was received into the aeons of light." fn Today much is being made of Abraham as the restorer rather than the initiator of the knowledge of God, recapitulating what had been given to Adam. This is symbolized by his rebuilding of the ancient altar of the first fathers, last used by Noah. Abraham, according to Maimonides, dedicated the spot on Mount Moriah where the future temple was to stand, and "God also showed him the future temple service and the law." fn There is a wealth of tradition now being zealously studied to show that the temple ordinances really go back to the beginning, as Joseph Smith declared. The four names associated with the tradition are those of Adam, Enoch, Abraham, and Elijah. The main concern is salvation for the dead, as is brought forth repeatedly in the so-called ascension literature. It is here that we find the significant equation of John the Baptist and Elijah. We recall that when Dives, the rich man, looked up to see Lazarus in heaven, he beheld him resting in Abraham's bosom (Luke 16:22). Abraham, according to tradition, cooperates with Michael in interceding with God for sinners who have died. In fact, as K. Kohler observes, "The main power of Abraham is his constant intercession for spirits awaiting judgment in the other world." This idea is expressed in the Kaddish, or prayers for the dead, in which Abraham seeks to bring about their salvation in the temple. fn

Work for the Dead

At the time of the Crusades the orders of the Hospitalers and Templars were founded to provide protection and hospitality for those coming to the temple at Jerusalem. No one has the vaguest idea how it all began, writes a contemporary, and there are all sorts of wild stories going around. fn The accepted account was that such hospitality went back to the time when the temple was retaken by the Jews and Judas Maccabeus, when he "rescued the temple from profane hands" and found in the holy place great amounts of gold and silver. This money Judas dedicated for the salvation of the dead. fn To explain this activity we are told that when the Jewish casualties of the war were being collected and buried, it was found that many of them were wearing pagan charms around their necks. For this they would be condemned to hell. "When Judas Maccabeus saw and understood that it was a good and proper practice to pray for the dead he sent twelve pieces of silver to Jerusalem to be used for the building of a hospice for the poor who would be asked to pray for the dead, and Melchiar established the practice as a regular order of appointed brethren. Then Christ appeared to Zacharias while he was sacrificing and told him to go to the house in Jerusalem where John the Baptist was born." fn Here we have garbled accounts connecting the work of John the Baptist to turn the hearts of the dead fathers to the children, a work for the dead which survived in the temple till the time of the Maccabees. Today some Roman Catholics see in Matthew 16:18, in the mention of the keys and the stone, the much desired admission to or exclusion from the temple, the gates in question being expressly the gates of the temple. The keys are the keys that open the gates that hold back (katischuo) those who are being retained in the other world. Along with this, the Rock is now identified with Abraham as well as with Peter, particularly in his capacity as the champion for simple mortals. fn

The Ancient Significance of the Veil

A study of the earliest Jewish shrines and monuments has pointed out the importance of the veil and its identity with the mantle worn by the high priest. fn It is at one and the same time the veil that hangs between the worlds (his "curtains are stretched out still" [Moses 7:30]), bearing on it the cosmic marks of the compass, the square, the omphalos or universal center, and the e-ben shotiyyah or solid earth on which a man kneels to praise God. In the temple these marks are clearly shown in the Astana examples (Taoist-Buddhist-Nestorian veils from the sixth to seventh centuries A.D.; cf. fig. 28, pp. 114-15). It is, according to the Talmud, at the veil that information is exchanged between the worlds. fn "For the man who is privileged to have children in this world will through them be worthy to enter," according to the Zohar," 'behind the partition [veil]' in the world to come." fn In the Testament of Levi the garment of the priesthood "refers to the garment of the angel or of the personified temple itself." fn The mysteries of the marriage covenant, according to the Gospel of Philip, are hidden in types and images behind the veil. fn These symbols, it notes, are despised and misunderstood by the world. fn Second Jeu is one of those baffling documents conveniently and loosely designated as Gnostic. The Gnostics were numerous sectarians who copied the secrets of the early church, claiming to have received them secretly from one of the apostles or other disciples. They waited, says Hegesippus, until the last apostle or eyewitness was dead before they came out of the woodwork, each claiming that he had the true gnosis. fn What they pretended to have was a catalogue mixing traditions and customs from various sources but always including some authentic teaching by which they could claim the allegiance of Christians. One of the most remarkable of these is 2 Jeu. It tells how one approaches through the stages, passwords, and mysteries in a process which alone qualifies one to return to the Father. These ordinances cannot be obtained until one first receives baptism. fn "There are three stages to be passed through and at each one a password or name is required." fn "There is a series of veils that are drawn before the great king. When you come to this barrier you must recite the mystery and give the proper answer." fn

The final stage is the complete Adam or Jeu (the name is a form of Jehovah). There Christ checks to make sure that everything has been done correctly; he questions everyone at the veil personally. fn All who pass through are in a world surrounded by light. This whole thing, says one of the most recent and thorough students of the subject, "introduces us into a world of the most mystifying speculation: the Temple is here considered as a person and the veil of the temple as a garment that is worn, as a personification of the sanctuary itself." fn Theophylactus, commenting in the eleventh century on Hebrews 9:3, says the veil is of course the entrance to the tent. "The first veil divided the court of the people and the bronze altar from the tent where only the priests could enter. Next there was another veil to the holy of holies and through this veil only the high priest could go once a year. It was called the tent" fn because it was the place where one entered into the presence of God or was allowed to get a glimpse of him. Somewhat later, Simplicius describes the inner shrine rather as an anapausis or resting place, where the saints are given rest or, as in the celestial room, may rest awhile on their upward journey to the father.

The Opposition

It has always been a well-known principle among the Jews and Christians that Satan's tactic is not the frontal attack but the clever counterfeit. The devil inverts the truth and imitates the divine ordinances, writes Tertullian, fn exactly as the Lord does them: "He baptizes the faithful,

he promises by the bath the expiation of sins; in the rites of Mithra he marks the forehead of the soldiers. He has his ritual oblation of bread, he presents the image of a resurrection, and he crowns you with a throne under the blade"; it is all corruption and contamination.

But Is It Real?

If the gospel is more than a catalogue of moral platitudes, if we are really dealing with the things of eternity, it cannot be practiced on an everyday level. Joseph Smith has given us the temple ordinances, but are they real? As the Temple Scroll tells us, these ordinances can only be had by revelation, and therefore they lie beyond the pale of ordinary discussion. It was Descartes who insisted that we are wasting our time trying to talk of eternal and infinite things in an everyday idiom. But Descartes also realized that there are certain tests which justify taking propositions seriously and pursuing further investigation. fn In the case of Joseph Smith we have to consider that (1) what he has given us is the only thing of its kind — true, there are resemblances everywhere but always they are speculative, fragmentary, uncertain, and conflicting; (2) there was in ancient times such an institution as he has given us; it is found at various levels of splendor or decay, but in the early days men were working hard to bring heaven down to earth; (3) this unifying and teaching institution was the core of every civilization; and (4) Joseph Smith brought forth the whole vast complex in a perfectly consistent and coordinated form, a work totally without parallel in the world today. fn

The study of world religions and comparative religions which has exploded since the beginning of this century shows that Joseph Smith was right on target; moreover, he recognized a primal archaic order which had produced all manner of broken fragments and scattered traditions. The reality of this archaic order has been emerging only in the last two decades through the insight of men like de Santillana, who bring a scientific knowledge to a serious contemplation of the ancient heritage. fn The supreme issue remains today as then ever the same: Is this life everything? Is that all there is? Is there another dimension? In the temple, time, space, and lives are extended; everything there is "as in other worlds." No matter how men try, they have never been able to liberate themselves from that question. The only alternative to eternal life remains, as the foremost artists and scientists of our time emphatically declare, an existence of absurdity. Between the temple and the absurd we are given no other choice.

To Prove Him Herewith

The supreme test was, in ancient as in modern times, an economic one. Every Israelite made his token sacrifice at the temple once a year, but at the same time he brought his basket, and consecrated all his property. The bulk of the old law is taken up with the economic obligations of the individual. The beginning and ending of the law is not legalism or ritualism but grace and truth; the whole teaching of the law is to be fair, compassionate, magnanimous, with heavy emphasis on equality. The first two commandments tell it all: If you really love God and your neighbor, there is no need to be commanded not to steal or lie, or do any contemptible thing. Yet they enter their covenants with the understanding that unless they fulfill rigorously and completely every covenant they make in the temple, Satan will have power over them. We are also told by the prophet that the ordinances are the same in every dispensation. Yet attempts have been made to mitigate and qualify the law of consecration, which, said Brigham Young, was easier to understand and more unequivocally clear than any other commandment. Unless the ordinances are observed exactly as prescribed, they will be a curse and not a blessing. And this is where Israel fails: The last of the covenants and promises is fittingly the hardest. The story of the rich young man shows that this is the breaking point: he was faithful in his prayers, tithes, and alms, but when the Lord said, "There is yet one thing remaining" (cf. Mark 10:21), namely the law of consecration, the young man could not take it. Many Latter-day Saints, also, are pure Teflon where this principle is concerned.

Footnotes

1. Discussed in Hugh W. Nibley, "The Idea of the Temple in History," MS 120 (1958): 228-37, 247-49; Hugh W. Nibley, What Is a Temple? The Idea of the Temple in History (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1963); reprinted as "What Is a Temple?" in CWHN 4:357-61, esp. n. 13; cf. Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica (Ecclesiastical History) X, 4, in PG 20:848-80.

2. See Shaye J. D. Cohen, "The Temple and the Synagogue," in Truman G. Madsen, ed., The Temple in Antiquity (Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1984), 152-74.

3. Discussed in Hugh W. Nibley, "Christian Envy of the Temple," Jewish Quarterly Review 50 (1959-60): 97-123, 229-40; reprinted in CWHN 4:391-434.

4. Carol L. Meyers, "The Elusive Temple," Biblical Archaeologist 45 (Winter 1982): 41.

5. A. Dupont-Sommer, The Jewish Sect of Qumran and the Essenes (New York: Macmillan, 1956), 69-70.

6. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews XVIII, 1, 5.

7. Cohen, "The Temple and the Synagogue," 169.

8. Nibley, "Christian Envy of the Temple," 97-123, 229-40; in CWHN 4:391-434; cf. S. G. F. Brandon, The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church (London: SPCK, 1951), 120-21; James Hastings, ed., Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, 2 vols. (New York: Scribner, 1918), 2:556-57.

9. Brandon, Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church, 127.

10. Ibid., 263.

11. Matthew Black, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Doctrine (London: Athone, 1966), 80-81.

12. Samuel Davidson, An Introduction to the Study of the New Testament, 2 vols. (London: Longmans and Green, 1868), 1:264.

13. Hastings, Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, 2:556.

14. H. E. Dana, Jewish Christianity (New Orleans: Bible Institute Memorial, 1937), 18.

15. Nibley, "What Is a Temple?" in CWHN 4:357-61.

16. Hugh W. Nibley, "The Hierocentric State," WPQ 4 (1951): 226-53; reprinted in CWHN 10:99-147. Varro, De Lingua Latina VII, 6-9.

17. Stefan Weinstock, "Templum," Römische Mittheilungen 47 (1932): 100-101. Cf. Alfred Jeremias, Handbuch der altorientalischen Geisteskultur (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1929), 146, 185. Eric Burrows, "Some Cosmological Patterns in Babylonian Religion," in Samuel Hooke, ed., The Labyrinth (London: SPCK, 1935), 45-70.

18. Weinstock, "Templum," 102-3.

19. G. W. Ahlstrom, "Heaven on Earth — At Hazor and Arad," in Birger A. Pearson, ed., Religious Syncretism in Antiquity, Essays in Conversation with Geo Widengren (Missoula, MT: Scholars, 1975), 67-71.

20. Ibid., 67-69.

21. Cf. Hugh W. Nibley, "Unrolling the Scrolls," in CWHN 1:131-70; Hugh W. Nibley, "Treasures in the Heavens: Some Early Christian Insights into the Organizing of Worlds," DJMT 8 (Autumn/Winter 1973): 76-98; reprinted as "Treasures in the Heavens," in CWHN 1:171-214.

22. Cf. Frank M. Cross, "The Priestly Tabernacle in the Light of Recent Research," in Madsen, ed., The Temple in Antiquity, 94; William F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1942), 103-5; cf. CWHN 1:210.

23. Cross, "Priestly Tabernacle in the Light of Recent Research," 94.

24. Bed&rcheck;ich Hrozńy, Ancient History of Western Asia, India and Crete, tr. J. Prochazka (New York: Philosophical Library, 1953), 93.

25. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, 154 (emphasis added).

26. See Hugh W. Nibley, An Approach to the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976), x, 243; reprinted in CWHN 6:xv, 295.

27. Brigham Young, MS 15 (1853): 488 (emphasis added).

28. Deseret News, May 2, 1877.

29. Paul Jouö "Les mots employé fnpour dé fngner 'le Temple' dans l'Ancien Testament, le Nouveau Testament et Josèe," Recherches de science religieuse 25 (1935): 329-43.

30. Carol L. Meyers, "Jachin and Boaz in Religious and Political Perspective," in Madsen, ed., Temple in Antiquity, 136, notes that "countless attempts have been made to explain, describe, and otherwise comprehend . . . the twin pillars flanking [Solomon's temple] entrance."

31. Meyers, "Elusive Temple," 33-41.

32. Yigael Yadin, The Temple Scroll (New York: Random House, 1985), 112-15.

33. Cross, "Priestly Tabernacle in the Light of Recent Research," 93.

34. TPJS, 305.

35. Cf. Cross, "Priestly Tabernacle in the Light of Recent Research," 93; Yadin, Temple Scroll, 122-46.

36. Gospel of Philip 115:27-29; Carl Schmidt, ed. and tr., Kephalaia (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1940), 33-38; Cohen, "Temple and the Synagogue," 158.

37. Jacob Milgrom, "The Temple Scroll," Bibilical Archaeologist 41 (1978): 119.

38. Cohen, "Temple and the Synagogue," 157-58.

39. Gospel of Philip 115:27-29.

40. Schmidt, Kephalaia, 38.

41. Hugh W. Nibley, "The Sacrifice of Isaac," IE 73 (March 1970): 88.

42. Ibid., 84-93.

43. Herbert G. May, "Ephod and Ariel," American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 56 (1939): 44.

44. Ibid., 51.

45. Morton Smith, The Secret Gospel (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), 83.

46. Ibid., 28.

47. Ibid., 96.

48. Ibid., 113-14.

49. Ibid., 141.

50. Hugh W. Nibley, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1975), 255-62. Brigham Young says that "they have been fully acquainted with every password, token and sign which have enabled them to pass by the porters through the doors into the celestial kingdom," JD 10:172. Associated with these signs are the pilgrim signs of antiquity and the Middle Ages, badges of marks borne by pilgrims to various holy shrines. Thus in Piers Plowman we read, "On his hat were the signs of Sinai and the Shells of Galicha [the shrine of St. James of Compostella; they are the Western equivalent of the Jerusalem Temple], and the keys of Rome, . . . for men should know and see by his signs whom he hath sought," Thomas Hugo, "Notes on a Collection of Pilgrims' Signs, of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Centuries, found in Thames," Archaeologia 38 (1860): 130.

Also related to these signs were the tesserae hospitales, which figure so largely in ancient rites; see Hugh W. Nibley, "Sparsiones," Classical Journal 40 (1945): 538-43; reprinted in CWHN 10:162-65. Those who are finally saved, says the Pistis Sophia, will not hereafter "have to give answer at the topos (station or place) nor apologies nor tokens, for they are without tokens and have not receivers (paralemptores, guides through the temple) but penetrate through all the kingdoms until they reach the highest level to which they have received the ordinances. They cannot put on the orders of the inheritance unless a sign and seal of the ineffable is placed upon them. . . . Then the veils will be parted to souls purified anew and they will receive new mysteries of the ultimate order." Pistis Sophia II, 98, in Carl Schmidt, Pistis Sophia, tr. Violet McDermot (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 243.

51. Cf. Nibley, Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, 266, 278.

52. Nibley, "Sacrifice of Isaac," 84-93.

53. See for example, Bruce Kinney, Mormonism: The Islam of America (New York: Revell, 1912), 123-27, and N. W. Green, Mormonism: Its Rise, Progress, and Present Condition (Hartford, CN: Belknap and Bliss, 1870), 41-53.

54. Nibley, Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, 250-53, 271-72.

55. Mitchell J. Dahood, "The Temple and Other Sacred Places in the Ebla Tablets," in Madsen, ed., The Temple in Antiquity, 85-86.

56. Knut Stenring, tr., The Book of Formation (Sefer Yetzirah) (London: Rider and Son, 1923), 27-28. Shabako Stone, line 56; cf. Kurt Sethe, Das "Denkmal memphitischer Theologie": Der Shabakostein des Britischen Museums (Hildesheim: Olms, 1964), 59.

57. See Hugh W. Nibley, "Enoch the Prophet," in Pearl of Great Price Symposium (Provo: Brigham Young University, 1975), 78-87; reprinted in CWHN 2:3-18.

58. Ludwig Laistner, Das Räel der Sphinx (Berlin: Hertz, 1885).

59. 2 Jeu 43, in Carl Schmidt, The Books of Jeu and the Untitled Text in the Bruce Codex, tr. Violet McDermot (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 100-101.

60. Pistis Sophia III, 105-6, in Schmidt, Pistis Sophia, 268-70.

61. Cf. Hugh W. Nibley, "Evangelium Quadraginta Dierum," Vigiliae Christianae 20 (1966): 1-24; reprinted as "Evangelium Quadraginta Dierum: The Forty-day Mission of Christ — The Forgotten Heritage," in CWHN 4:10-44.

62. George MacRae, "The Temple as a House of Revelation in the Nag Hammadi Texts," in Madsen, ed., The Temple in Antiquity, 186-87.

63. Ibid., 188.

64. Ibid., 187.

65. Hugh W. Nibley, Since Cumorah (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1970), 14; reprinted in CWHN 7:12-13.

66. Ludwig Eisenhofer and Joseph Lechner, The Liturgy of the Roman Rite (Freiburg: Herder and Herder, 1961).

67. Cohen, "Temple and the Synagogue," 152-53.

68. Andreas Alföldi, Studien zur Geschichte der Weltkrise des 3. Jahrhunderts nach Christus (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1967), 297-301.

69. Henry J. Feasey, Ancient English Holy Week Ceremonial (London: Baker, 1967), 297-301.

70. Adolf von Harnack, The Constitution and Law of the Church in the First Two Centuries (New York: Williams and Norgate, 1910), 26.

71. Yadin, Temple Scroll, 112-15.

72. Cf. Martha Himmelfarb, "Apocalyptic Ascent and the Heavenly Temple," Society of Biblical Literature 1987 Seminar Papers (Atlanta: Scholars, 1987), 210-17.

73. See n. 61.

74. Origen, Peri Archon (De Principiis) I, 9, in PG 11:120.

75. Basil, Letters 363, 265, 266, in PG 32:976-81, 984-96.

76. N. A. Dahl, cited in W. D. Davies and D. Daube, eds., The Background of the New Testament and Its Eschatology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), 424 (emphasis added).

77. Dahood, "Temple and Other Sacred Places in the Ebla Tablets," 85-86.

78. Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis IV, 151; Questions and Answers on Exodus II, 83; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History X, 4, in PG 20:848-80. Alfred Jeremias, Das alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1916), 49-51.

79. Hugh W. Nibley, "The Expanding Gospel," in Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless (Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1978), 24-34; reprinted in this volume, pages 179-95.

80. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica q. 44-45, 65-66, 71 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), 426-57, 609-28, 662-64.

81. Loren Eiseley, The Star Thrower (New York: Times Books, 1978), 67.

82. Nibley, "The Expanding Gospel," 34-37; reprinted in this volume, pages 195-99.

83. Cf. Hugh W. Nibley, "Three Shrines: Mantic, Sophic, and Sophistic," in The Ancient State, CWHN 10 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and F.A.R.M.S.), 343-51.

84. B. H. Stricker, "The Origin of the Greek Theatre," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 40 (December 1954): 34-47.

85. Jean Capart, Review of A. Rosenvasser, Nuevas textos literarios del antigio Egipto, in Chronique d'Égypte 13 (July 1937): 202.

86. Éenne Drioton, Le Texte Dramatique d'Edfou (Cairo: Imprimerie de l'Institut Franç d'Archéogie Orientale, 1948), 7-8.

87. Jan Zandee, Review of Siegfried Morenz, Ägyptische Religion, in Bibliotheca Orientalis 19 (1962): 40.

88. 2 Baruch 4:3-6, in APOT 2:482.

89. JD 18:303.

90. Schmidt, Kephalaia, 38, lines 8-13.

91. Moses Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed III, 45 (New York: Dover, 1955), 355.

92. K. Kohler, "The Pre-Talmudic Haggada," Jewish Quarterly Review 7 (July 1985): 603-4; cf. Nibley, "Sacrifice of Isaac," 58.

93. De Primordiis et Inventione Sacrae Religionis Jerosolymorum (On the Origin and Discovery of the Holy Religion of Jerusalem), in Monumenta de Bello Sacro (Memorials of the Holy War), Appendix II to Godfrey of Bouillon, in PL 155:1097.

94. Ibid., in PL 155:1098.

95. Ibid., in PL 155:1101.

96. Hugh W. Nibley, "Setting the Stage — The World of Abraham," IE 73 (January 1970): 58.

97. J. Massyngberde Ford, "Thou Art 'Abraham' and upon This Rock . . .," Heythrop Journal 6 (1965): 289-301.

98. TB Hagigah 16a, in Goldschmidt, Babylonian Talmud, 3:839.

99. Vayera 115a, in Harry Sperling and Maurice Simon, trs., The Zohar, 5 vols. (New York: Soncino, 1984), 1:361.

100. Testament of Levi 10:3, in M. de Jonge, ed., Testamenta XII Patriarchum (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 16.

101. Cf. Gospel of Philip 84:21-30, in NHLE, 150.

102. Gospel of Philip 85:10-18, in ibid., 150.

103. Hegesippus in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History IV, 8, 103, in PG 5:1319-20; 20:321-24.

104. 2 Jeu 45, in Schmidt, Books of Jeu and the Untitled Text, 108.

105. 2 Jeu 44, ibid., 104.

106. 2 Jeu 44; 1 Jeu 33-38, in ibid., 105, 83-87.

107. 1 Jeu 41, in ibid., 97-98; cf. 2 Nephi 9:41.

108. Marc Philonenko, Les interpolations chréennes des Testaments des Douze Patriarches et les manuscrits de QoumrâRoman (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1960), 18.

109. Theophylactus, Expositio in Epistolam ad Hebraeos (Exposition on the Epistle to the Hebrews), in PG 125:297-98.

110. Tertullian, De Praescriptionibus adversus Haereticos (The Prescription against Heretics) I, 9, in PL 2:66-67.

111. Cf. René Descartes, "Discours de la méode," in Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, eds., Oeuvres de Descartes, 10 vols. (Paris: Vrin, 1973), 6:4-5, 31-40; René Descartes, "Meditationes de Prima Philosophia," in ibid., 7:36-37; René Descartes, "Principia Philo sophiae," in ibid., 8:14-15.

112. Hugh W. Nibley, "Looking Backward," in Madsen, ed., The Temple in Antiquity, 51; reprinted in CWHN 4:383.

113. Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, Hamlet's Mill (Boston: Gambit, 1969).


(Hugh Nibley, Temple and Cosmos: Beyond This Ignorant Present, edited by Don E. Norton [Salt Lake City and Provo: Deseret Book Co., Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1992], .)