In all the modern excavations in the region of Babylonia and Assyria,
including Tello, Nippur, Sippara, Borsippa, Khorsabad, and Nineveh, it
has been found that the threshold, or foundation-stone, of the temple
doorway is marked with inscriptions that show its peculiar sanctity;
while underneath it, or near it, are frequently buried images and
symbols and other treasures in evidence of its altar-like sacredness. On
this point evidence has been furnished by Botta,[304] Bonomi,[305]
Layard,[306] George Smith,[307] Lenormant,[308] and yet more fully by
Dr. Hilprecht, in his later and current researches.
Bonomi suggests that the word “teraphim,” as an image of a household
divinity, has its connection with the threshold or the boundary limit;
and that the phrase “thy going out, and thy coming in,” which is common
in Egyptian, Babylonian, and Hebrew[309] literature, has reference to
the threshold and its protecting deities.[310] The outgoing and the
incoming are clearly across the threshold and through the door.
The inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar II., concerning his building of the
walls of Babylon, comprise various references to the foundations, to the
thresholds, and to their guardians. He says: “On the thresholds of the
gates I set up mighty bulls of bronze, and mighty snakes standing
upright.”[311] Again of the gates of Imgur-Bêl and Nimitti-Bel, of these
walls of Babylon, he says: “Their foundations I laid at the surface
(down at) the water, with pitch and bricks. With blue enameled tiles
which were adorned with bulls and large snakes, I built their interior
cleverly. Strong cedars I laid over them as their covering (or roof).
Doors of cedarwood with a covering of copper, a threshold (_askuppu_)
and hinges of bronze, I set up in their gates. Strong bulls of bronze,
and powerful snakes standing upright, I set upon (or at) their threshold
(_sippu_). Those gates I filled with splendor for the astonishment of
all mankind.”[312]
In a similar manner Nebuchadrezzar describes his work at the gates of
“the royal castle of all mankind,” at Babylon,[313] and of his
palace.[314] In connection with the shrine or chapel of Nebo (Ezida),
within the walls of the temple of Merodach, in Babylon, he says: “Its
threshold (_sippu_), its lock and its key, I plated with gold, and made
the temple shine daylike.”[315] When he built Ezida (the “eternal
house”), the temple of Borsippa, Nebuchadrezzar says: “The bulls and the
doors of the gate of the sanctuary, the threshold (_sippu_), the lock,
the hinge, I plated with _zarîru_”[316] (an unknown metal, a kind of
bronze).
References to the foundations, to the thresholds, to the gates and
doorways, and to bulls and upright serpents, as the guardians of the
threshold of the temples and palaces of Babylonia and Assyria, are
numerous on unearthed cylinders and tablets, and always in such a way as
to indicate their peculiar sacredness. In the recent unearthing, at
Nippur, of a small building or shrine, between two great temples, an
altar was found in the eastern doorway.
It is to be borne in mind that many early temples in Babylonia, as in
Mesopotamia, in Egypt, in Mexico, Central America, and Peru, and in the
South Sea Islands, were in the form of a stepped pyramid, or a staged
tower, with either inclined planes or stairways from each lower stage to
the next higher, and with an altar, or a sanctuary or shrine, at the
summit.[317] Herodotus, describing one of these temples in Babylon, says
that the altars, larger and smaller, were outside the temple.[318]
Light is thrown on the dream of Jacob at Bethel by the shape of the
ancient temple in the East. In his vision it was probably not a ladder,
but a conventional stepped-temple structure, with its stairways rising
heavenward, and its sanctuary, that Jacob saw.[319] The angel ministers
were passing up and down the steps, in the service of the Most High God,
who himself appeared above the structure. When Jacob waked he said:
“Surely the Lord is in this place [or sanctuary]; and I knew it not....
How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and
this is the gate of heaven;” and he took the stone which had been his
pillow at the threshold of that sanctuary, and set it up for an altar
pillar.[320]
In the literature and legends of Babylonia, as of other portions of the
ancient world, there is prominent the idea that an entrance into the
life beyond this, as in the entrance into this life, the crossing of a
threshold from the one world to the other, from the earlier state and
the passing of a door, or gate, marks the change to the later, from the
sacred to the more sacred. This is peculiarly illustrated in the famous
legend of Ishtar’s descent into the under-world in order to bring back
to earth her lover Dumuzi.
The Hades of the Babylonians was surrounded by seven high walls, and was
approached through seven gates, each of which was guarded by a pitiless
warder. Two deities ruled within it–Nergal, “the lord of the great
city,” and Beltis-Allat, “the lady of the great land,”–whither
everything which had breathed in this world descended after death. Allat
was the actual sovereign of the country; and even the gods themselves
could enter her realm only on the condition of submitting to death, like
mortals, and of humbly avowing themselves her slaves.[321] “The
_threshold_ of Allat’s palace stood upon a spring, which had the
property of restoring to life all who bathed in it or drank of its
waters.” Yet it was needful that another life should be given for one
who would be reborn into this life, after crossing the threshold of the
regions beyond.[322]
In the descent of the goddess Ishtar into Allat’s realm, in pursuit of
her lover Dumuzi, Ishtar was gradually stripped of her garments and
adornings at the successive gates, until she appeared naked, as at
birth, at the final threshold of the new state.[323] But she was held
captive by Allat until Ea, chief among the gods, exerted himself in her
behalf, and sent his messenger to secure for both Ishtar and Dumuzi the
waters of life which were underneath the threshold of Allat’s
realm,–which must be broken in order to their outflowing.[324]
There would seem to be a reference to this primitive idea of the waters
of life flowing from under the threshold of the temple, in the vision of
the prophet Ezekiel, writing in Babylonia, concerning restored Jerusalem
and its holy temple. “Behold, waters issued out from under the threshold
of the house eastward, for the forefront of the house was toward the
east: and the waters came down from under, from the right side of the
house, on the south of the altar.” (Evidently the altar in this temple
was near the threshold.) These flowing waters from under the threshold
were life-giving. “Upon the bank of the river,” as it swelled in its
progress, “were very many trees on the one side and on the other;” and
it was said of this stream: “It shall come to pass, that every living
creature which swarmeth, in every place whither the rivers come, shall
live; and there shall be a very great multitude of fish: for these
waters are come thither, ... and every thing shall live whithersoever
the river cometh.”[325] In a curse pronounced against Assyria by the
prophet Zephaniah, it was declared that “drought shall be in the
thresholds,”[326] instead of life-giving waters.
So, again, the waters of the life-giving Jordan flow out from the
threshold of the grotto of Pan, a god of life.[327] And both at the
beginning of the Old Testament, and at the close of the New, the waters
of life start from the sanctuary of the Author of life.[328]
This Dumuzi of Babylonia has linkings with Tammuz of Syria, with Osiris
of Egypt, and with Adonis of Greece, and there are correspondences in
all these legends in the references to the door and the threshold of the
under-world and the life beyond. Thus, for instance, the Lord’s prophet
counts as most heinous of all idolatries the transfer of the weeping
worship of Tammuz from the door in the hole of the temple wall to the
door of the temple sanctuary.[329]
At the right hand of the entrance of the larger temple unearthed at
Nineveh by Layard, a sculptured image of the Assyrian king, with his arm
uplifted, was on a doorway stele just outside. And an altar for
offerings was in front of that image. Altars
were found similarly situated, just outside the doorway, in a smaller
temple in the same region.[330]
An exceptional reverence is shown to the doorway and threshold of their
sanctuary, or temple, by the sect of the Yezidis, in the neighborhood of
ancient Nineveh, at the present time. Describing an evening service
which he attended, Layard says: “When the prayers were ended, those who
marched in procession kissed, as they passed by, the right side of the
doorway leading into the temple, where a serpent is figured on the
wall.” Again, “Soon after sunrise, on the following morning, the sheikhs
and cawals offered up a short prayer in the court of the temple.... Some
prayed in the sanctuary, frequently kissing the threshold and holy
places within the building.”[331]
When the sacred ark of the Hebrews was captured by the Philistines, and
brought into the house of the god Dagon, the record is: “When they of
Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face
to the ground before the ark of the Lord. And they took Dagon, and set
him in his place again. And when they arose early on the morrow morning,
behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of
the Lord; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands lay cut
off upon the threshold.” It is added, in our present Bible text:
“Therefore neither the priests of Dagon, nor any that come into Dagon’s
house, tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod, unto this day.”[332]
It would seem, from the words “unto this day,” that this added statement
was a gloss by a later writer or copyist. The original force of the
wonder was in Dagon’s being overthrown at his very shrine, falling
maimed on the threshold altar of his temple. But the suggestion of the
gloss is that the unwillingness of the Philistines to tread on the
threshold of the temple (which appears to have been of primitive origin)
did not exist among the worshipers of Dagon prior to this incident. The
Septuagint adds,[333] concerning the later practice of the Philistines
at the threshold, “because leaping they leap over it.”
Leaping over the threshold is at times spoken of in the Bible as if it
had a taint of idolatry. Thus Zephaniah, foretelling, in the name of the
Lord, the divine judgments on idolaters, says: “In that day I will
punish all those that leap over the threshold.”[334] This is explained
in the Targum as “those that walk in the customs of the Philistines.”
Yet the Bible sometimes refers to the temple threshold as a fitting
place of worship, and its recognition as a holy altar as commendable.
Ezekiel prophesies that the restored Prince of Israel “shall worship at
the threshold of the gate”[335] of the Lord’s house; and he sees, in
vision, “the glory of the Lord ... over the threshold of the
house.”[336] Again the Lord complains of the profanation of his temple
by idolaters “in their setting of their threshold by my threshold, and
their door-post beside my door-post, and there was but the wall between
me and them.”[337]
That it was the threshold or doorway of the tabernacle which was counted
sacred, is evident from the wording of the Levitical laws concerning the
offering of blood in sacrifices. “This is the thing which the Lord hath
commanded, saying, What man soever there be of the house of Israel, that
killeth an ox, or lamb, or goat, in the camp, or that killeth it without
the camp, and hath not brought it _unto the door of the tent of
meeting_, to offer it as an oblation unto the Lord before the tabernacle
of the Lord: blood shall be imputed unto that man; he hath shed blood;
and that man shall be cut off from among his people: to the end that the
children of Israel may bring their sacrifices, which they sacrifice in
the open field, even that they may bring them unto the Lord, _unto the
door of the tent of meeting_, unto the priest, and sacrifice them for
sacrifices of peace offerings unto the Lord. And the priest shall
sprinkle the blood _upon the altar of the Lord at the door of the tent
of meeting_, and burn the fat for a sweet savour unto the Lord....
Whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that
sojourn among them, that offereth a burnt offering or sacrifice, and
bringeth it not _unto the door of the tent of meeting_, to sacrifice it
unto the Lord; even that man shall be cut off from his people.”[338]
It was _at the doorway_ of the tent of meeting that Aaron and his sons
were consecrated to the holy priesthood;[339] and it was there that the
bullock was sacrificed, and its blood was poured out as an offering at
the base of the altar.[340] It was _at the doorway_ of that tent, above
the threshold, that the pillar of cloud descended in token of the Lord’s
presence, when Moses met the Lord there in loving communion, while the
people stood watching from the doorways of their own tents.[341] The
altar of burnt offering, at the base or foundation of which the blood of
the offerings was outpoured, was itself at the doorway of the tent of
meeting, and he who offered a sacrifice to the Lord offered it at that
threshold.[342]
A post of honor in the temple was as a guardian of the threshold, as was
also the place of a keeper of the gate. In the assignment of the priests
and Levites to service, by Jehoiada the priest, in the days of Athaliah,
a third part of them were in attendance at the “threshold,” and a third
part “at the gate of the foundation.”[343] Later, in the days of Josiah
and Hilkiah, the guardians of the threshold had the care of the money
collected for the repairs of the Lord’s house.[344] And a keeper of the
threshold, or of the door, of the house of God, was always mentioned
with honor.[345] When the Psalmist contrasts the house of God with the
tents of wickedness, he speaks of the honor of a post at the temple
threshold, not of the humble place of a temple janitor, when he says:
“For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand [elsewhere].
I had rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God,
Than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.”[346]
In the Temple at Jerusalem, the altar of burnt offering was before the
threshold of the Holy Place; and those who came with sacrifices must
stop at that threshold, and proffer the blood of their offering to the
priests, who then reverently poured it out at the altar-threshold’s
base.[347]
When offerings were accepted for the repairs of the temple, in the days
of Jehoash, king of Judah, it is said that “Jehoiada the priest took a
chest, and bored a hole in the lid of it, and set it beside the altar,
on the right side as one cometh into the house of the Lord. And the
priests that kept [or guarded] the threshold put therein all the money
that was brought into the house of the Lord.”[348] This would seem to
decide the position of the altar as at the threshold, where “one cometh
into the house of the Lord.”
An altar stood at the doorway, or before the door, of temples of later
date in Phenicia and Phrygia, as shown on contemporary medals and
coins.[349] And so in temples in other lands.
Among the early Christian remains unearthed in Asia Minor are
indications of the former position of an altar on the threshold of a
sanctuary. At the site of ancient Aphrodisias, “some of the sarcophagi
of the Byzantine age are richly wrought, and although many are of
Christian date, they appear to have retained the pagan devices.” At the
end of one of these sarcophagi “appears an altar burning in front of a
door,” standing indeed on the very threshold.[350]
An oath of peculiar sacredness among Hindoos is at the threshold of a
temple, as at its primal altar. “Is a man accused of a great crime? He
goes to the temple [threshold], makes his prostrations; he pauses, then
steps over it, declaring at the same time that he is not guilty of the
crime laid to his charge. It is therefore very common to ask a person
who denies anything that he is suspected to have done, ‘Will you step
over the threshold of the temple?’”[351]
Among the stories told in India of judgments at the temple threshold, is
one of a thieving goldsmith, who had secreted himself in a pagoda of
Vishnoo, in order to take from the sacred image one of its jewel eyes.
Having obtained the precious stone, he waited for the opening of the
pagoda doors in the morning, in order to escape with his booty. But as
he attempted to cross the threshold, when the door was opened, he was
stricken with death by Vishnoo “at the very threshold.”[352] Justice was
administered at the very seat of justice.
Bloody sacrifices are still known at the temple thresholds in India,
notwithstanding the prejudice of Hindoos against the shedding of blood.
Within recent times an English gentleman, in an official position in
India, discovered a decapitated child at the very door of a celebrated
pagoda; and an investigation showed that a father had there sacrificed
his son to avert an impending evil.[353]
When a famous idol was destroyed in the temple of Somnauth, during the
Muhammadan conquest of India, pieces of the shattered image were sent by
the conquerors to the mosks of Meccah, Medina, and Ghuznee, to be thrown
down at the thresholds of their gates, there to be trodden under foot by
devout and zealous Mussulmans.[354] The accursed idol fragments might be
trampled on at the threshold, even while the threshold itself was
counted sacred.
In Muhammadan mosks generally the threshold is counted sacred. Across
the threshold proper, at the beginning of the sacred portion of the
interior, “is a low barrier, a few inches high.”[355] Before this
barrier the worshiper stops, removes his shoes, and steps over it, with
the right foot first. In some smaller mosks a rod above the outer
door-sill stands for this barrier.
Describing his visit to one of the mosks in Persia, Morier says: “Here
we remarked the veneration of the Persians for the threshold of a holy
place.... Before they ventured to cross it, they knelt down and kissed
it, whilst they were very careful not to touch it with their feet.”[356]
On the tomb of the kings of Persia, at Com, the inscription appears:
“Happy and glorious the believing one who in reverence bows his head
upon the threshold of this gate, in imitation of the sun and moon.[357]
All that _he_ will ask with faith in this gate, shall be as the arrow
that reaches the mark.”[358] And on the tomb of Alee, son-in-law of
Muhammad and one of his successors, there stands the declaration: “The
angel messenger of the truth, Gabriel, kisses every day the threshold of
thy gate; for that is the only way by which one can come to the throne
of Muhammad.”[359]
Even among Christians in this primitive region, this reverence for the
threshold as the earliest altar of the temple and the church manifests
itself in various ways. Dr. Grant, an American missionary, tells of
seeing the Nestorian Christians kissing the threshold of the church on
entering the sanctuary for the Lord’s Day service.[360]
At Baveddeen, near Bokhara, is the tomb of Baha-ed-deen Nakishbend, the
national saint of Turkestan, which is a place of pilgrimage second only
to the tomb of Muhammad. “In the front of the tomb,” as a threshold, “is
the famous _senghi murad_,” the “stone of desire,” “which has been
tolerably ground away, and made smooth, by the numerous foreheads of
pious pilgrims that have been rubbed upon it.”[361]
A peculiar sacrifice in Tibet is the disemboweling of a devotee in the
presence of a great multitude, as an act of worship. An altar on which
this act is performed is erected for the occasion “in front of the
temple gate.”[362]
In the more sacred shrines of Japan and Korea, Shinto or Booddhist
temples, pilgrim worshipers are permitted to go no farther than the
threshold of the inner sanctuary. There they may deposit their offerings
and may prostrate themselves in prayer, but they cannot pass beyond.
At Kitzuki, “the most ancient shrine of Japan,” multitudes of pilgrims
gather for worship. They are coming and going ceaselessly, but all pause
before the threshold of the inner sanctuary. “None enter there: all
stand before the dragon-swarming doorway, and cast their offerings into
the money-chest placed before the threshold; many making contributions
of small coin, the very poorest throwing only a handful of rice into the
box. Then they clap their hands, and bow their heads before the
threshold, and reverently gaze through the hall of prayer at the loftier
edifice, the holy of holies beyond it. Each pilgrim remains but a little
while, and claps his hands but four times; yet so many are coming and
going that the sound of the clapping is like the sound of a
cataract.”[363] The same is true of “the great Shrines of Isé, chief
Mecca of the Shintō faith,”[364] of those of famous Nikkō, and of other
centers of worship.[365]