Because the threshold is recognized as an altar, nearness to the altar
is nearness to God, or to the gods worshiped at that altar. Hence
appeals are made and justice is sought at the gate, or at the threshold,
as in the presence of deity.
To present one’s self at the tent doorway, or to lay hold of the
supports, or cords, at the entrance of an Arab’s “house of hair,” is
recognized as an ever-effective appeal for hospitality in the East. Even
an enemy can thus secure the protection of the home sanctuary.[153]
In the excavation of Tell-el-Hesy, in Southwestern Palestine, supposed
to cover the remains of ancient Lachish,[154] Dr. Petrie discovered
various ornamented door-jambs. In one case a simple volute on a pilaster
slab suggested to Dr. Petrie “a ram’s horn nailed up against a wooden
post;” and “he sees in this the origin of the type of the ‘horns of the
altar,’[155] so often mentioned in temple architecture.”[156] If Dr.
Petrie be correct in this thought, the horns of the altar were first of
all at the house doorway, above the threshold altar.
One of the fundamental laws of the Afghans makes it incumbent on a host
to “shelter and protect any one who in extremity may flee to his
threshold, and seek an asylum under his roof.” Property or life must be
sacrificed in his behalf, if need be. “As soon as you have crossed the
threshold of an Afghan you are sacred to him, though you were his deadly
foe, and he will give up his own life to save yours.” A favorite poem of
the Afghan, entitled, “Adam Khan and Durkhani,” tells of a son who
killed his father because that father had betrayed a refugee who sought
the sanctuary of his threshold. And all Afghans honor the memory of that
son.[157]
Among the Arabs of the Syrian desert, when a man would leave his own
tribe and join himself to another, he takes a lamb or a goat with him,
and presents himself at the entrance of the tent of the shaykh of the
tribe he would find a home in. Slaying the animal there, and allowing
its blood to run out on the ground at the threshold of the tent, he
makes his appeal to the shaykh to accept him as a member of his tribe,
or as a son by adoption. And this appeal has peculiar force, as a voice
by blood.[158]
When a man among these tribes is in peril of his life, pursued by an
enemy, he can similarly make an appeal for sanctuary at the threshold
altar of a shaykh’s tent, with a like outpouring of the blood of an
animal brought by him; and protection must be granted him by the shaykh.
It is as though he had laid hold of the “horns of the altar.” So, again,
when a man would be reconciled with an enemy who has cause for bitter
hostility, he goes to the tent of that enemy and sacrifices an animal at
the threshold, with an appeal for forgiveness. This offering of a
threshold sacrifice secures his safety.
In other portions of Arabia this same idea finds a different but similar
expression. “With bare and shaven head the offender appears at the door
of the injured person, holding a knife in each hand, and, reciting a
formula provided for the purpose, strikes his head several times with
the sharp blades. Then drawing his hands over his bloody scalp, he wipes
them on the door-post. The other must then come out and cover the
suppliant’s head with a shawl [covering the offense, in covering the
offender], after which he kills a sheep, and they sit down together at a
feast of reconciliation.”[159]
A record on a Babylonian clay tablet, of the twenty-eighth year of
Nebuchadrezzar, affirms that “on the second day of the month of Ab” a
certain “Imbiʿa shall bring his witness to the gate of the house of the
chief Bel-iddin, and let him testify” as to a certain matter.[160] The
gate of the chief man, or local magistrate, would here seem to have been
the recognized court of justice.
In the palace ruins at Persepolis and Susa, the great doorways show, in
their architecture, the influence of Babylonia, Assyria, and Egypt. And
in the relief sculpture of those doorways there is seen a representation
of “the king sitting on his throne rendering justice at his palace
gate.”[161]
At one of the gates of modern Cairo, the writer has seen a venerable
Arab sitting in judgment on a case submitted to him by the contestants.
And such a scene may be often witnessed at the gates of an Oriental
city.
In accordance with this primitive idea, it became a custom in India for
one who would obtain justice from another to seat himself at the door of
a house, or a tent, and refuse to move from that position until he
starved to death, unless his claim were heeded. If the suitor died at
the door, or the household altar, the sin of his death rested upon the
householder. The suitor’s blood cried out against the evil-doer.
Even to the present time appeals at the household altar are made in
blood, in portions of India. A case recently before the British court in
Kathiawar involved an illustration of such an appeal. One of the
Charaus, a caste of heralds, had become responsible with his life,
according to custom, for the repayment of a loan made to a land owner.
The land owner delayed payment, and seemed disposed to avoid it. “The
herald and his brother, with their old mother for a sacrifice, went to
the door of the debtor’s house and demanded payment, as their family
honor was at stake. When the land owner would not pay, the herald struck
off the head of his mother with his sword before the door, the brother
at the same time wounded (intending to kill) the debtor, and the two
brothers sprinkled the mingled blood of the sacrifice on the
householder’s door-posts. The land owner, smitten by public infamy and
the guilt of the matricide, starved himself to death.”[162] References
to this responsibility of the heralds are found in the Mahabharata.[163]
Even where the primitive custom of sacrificing at the doorway has died
out, there sometimes seems to be a survival of it in popular
phraseology. Talcott Williams, of Philadelphia, relates an incident of
his experiences in Morocco, which illustrates this. He says: “As I was
riding through the Soko at Tangier on a morning in June, 1889, a servant
stopped me, and said: ‘Four men, from near Azila (a town on the seacoast
of Morocco, about thirty miles away), are waiting for you at the gate of
the house of Mr. Perdicarus, and they have killed a sheep.’ ‘What have
they killed a sheep for?’ said I. ‘Oh!’ said the servant, ‘I don’t mean
that they have actually killed a sheep, but they are sitting at the
gate, asking for your help, and expect you to aid them in their trouble,
because they have heard that you have influence with the American
consul, and are a man of importance in your own country, and we call
that “killing a sheep.”’ I think he added ‘at the gate,’ but my memory
is not perfectly clear at this point. I rode on to the house of my
friend, where I was stopping, and found there the kinsman of a sheikh,
who had been imprisoned by the American consul. They seized my horse’s
bridle, and, with the usual Oriental signs of respect, refused to let me
dismount until I had heard them and their plea for help.
“I was told by my own servant and the other Orientals there, that this
plea ‘at the gate,’ accompanied as it was by the readiness to ‘kill a
sheep,’ was one which no man in Morocco would dream of disregarding. I
made some inquiry on the subject afterwards, and found that the habit of
sitting at the gate waiting for a man of supposed influence or
authority, while absent, to return to his house, often actually
accompanied, though less frequently at present, by the slaughter of a
sheep, whose blood is poured across the road over which he must pass,
was a form used only in cases of dire necessity, and one to which a man
with whom other pleas would avail nothing, felt compelled to give
attention. I am glad to add that in my own case this ancient rite was
not without its fruits to those who had used it.”[164]
See the Bible references to this idea. Moses stood “in the gate of the
camp,” at a crisis hour in Israel’s history, when he would execute
judgment in the Lord’s cause.[165] All Israel was aroused to do judgment
against the sinning Benjamites because of the appeal of the dying woman
who fell at the door of the house, “with her hands upon the
threshold.”[166] Boaz “went up to the gate,” to meet the elders there,
when he would covenant to do justice by Ruth and the kinsman of
Naomi.[167] Absalom sat in “the way of the gate” when he would show
favor to those who came there with their appeals for justice.[168] And
when Absalom was dead, David as king was again sitting in the gate.[169]
Zedekiah, the king of Judah, was sitting in the gate of Benjamin when
Ebed-melech appealed to him in behalf of Jeremiah.[170] Daniel’s post of
honor in Babylon was “in the gate of the king,” as a judge in the king’s
name.[171]
Wisdom, personified, says of him who would seek help where it is to be
obtained:
“Blessed is the man that heareth me,
Watching daily at my gates,
Waiting at the posts of my doors.”[172]
The Lord’s call to Israel, through the prophets, was: “Establish
judgment in the gate,”[173] and “Execute the judgment of truth and peace
in your gates.”[174] A reference to a just and righteous man is to “him
that reproveth in the gate.”[175]
Lazarus in his need is laid daily at the gate of the rich Dives, seeking
help.[176] So, again, the poor man who was a cripple from his birth was
“laid daily at the door of the temple ... called Beautiful, to ask alms
of them that entered into the temple.”[177]
It is written in the Mosaic law, that, when a bondman would bind himself
and his family in permanent servitude to his loved master, “his master
shall bring him unto God [or to the place of judgment and of covenant],
and shall bring him to the door, or unto the door-post; and his master
shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall [thenceforward]
serve him forever;”[178] or, as it is elsewhere said, the master shall
thrust the awl “through his ear, unto [or into] the door.”[179] Here,
apparently, the master and servant appeal together at the household
altar, in witness of their sacred covenant.
The high court of Turkey is still called the “Sublime Porte,” the
“Exalted Gateway;” and the subjects of the Sultan seek imperial favor at
his palace door. He, or his representative, administers justice there,
to those who are waiting at his gate.
A promise to Abraham was: “Thy seed shall possess the gate of his
enemies.”[180] And again Jesus says of his Church, that “the gates of
Hades shall not prevail against it.”[181] In both these cases “gates”
are obviously equivalent to the power of those who are within the gates.
Thus, also, when the overthrow of a city is foretold in prophecy, it is
said, that “the gate is smitten with destruction.”[182]