“I may perhaps with advantage give you very roughly some historical
facts which tend to negative Diamond’s theory,” the Professor said,
turning to Farquhar while Gwen was absent.
“That is what I’m most desirous of hearing,” replied the young man. “I
can claim no special knowledge like yourself. Indeed, no man in England
is more capable of expressing an opinion than you are.”
The Professor passed his hand through his scanty grey hair and smiled.
He saw that his wide knowledge impressed this young man whose only
thought was a “sensation” in one or other of the Gavin group of
publications.
Then, when Gwen had re-entered the room with a Bible in her hand, he
said in that slow, deliberate habit of his, the habit of the scholar and
deep thinker:
“The theory of this Doctor Diamond is that the treasures of Solomon’s
temple were hidden by the priests prior to the taking of Jerusalem by
Nebuchadnezzar. Well, that is a bold but quite unsubstantiated
assertion. As early after Solomon as the reign of Jeroboam the First,
King of Judah, the golden calves, the symbols of the Heliopolitan deity,
were set up in the two extremities of the kingdom, and the temple was
put to sacrilegious usages. These sins were continued by his
successors, until in the reign of Asa, the third King of Judah, the
impure orgies of Ashtoreth were suppressed, for ‘having his heart
perfect with Jehovah all his days’ the king repaired Shishak’s plunder--
the first plunder of the temple, mark you--with ‘rich offerings of gold
and of silver.’ Asa made war against the Ethiopians, and on returning
to Jerusalem the prophet Azariah, son of Oded, met him and exhorted him
and his subjects to be strong heart in hand in seeking God. He gave an
affecting description of the former state of Israel: ‘For a long season
Israel hath been (or was) without the true God, and without a teaching’
priest, and without law. [2 Chronicles, xv, 3.] His words roused the
hearers to a new and more thorough reformation. The idols were removed
from all the cities of Judah and Benjamin, and those which had been won
from Ephraim. The altar of burnt-offering, which had been polluted by
Jeroboam, was renewed, and in the third month of the fifteenth year
(B.C. 940) Asa called a great convocation at Jerusalem. Jehoshaphat
followed his father’s piety, but the darkest night of Israel’s spiritual
declension came with the accession of Ahab, seventh King of Israel, and
husband of Jezebel. The service of Baal was established throughout
Israel, a grove was made for the orgies of Ashtoreth, and by Jezebel’s
orders the prophets of Jehovah were put to death, all except one hundred
who were hidden in a cave by Obadiah, the governor of Ahab’s house.”
“But was the temple already plundered?” asked Gwen, seated with her chin
resting upon her hand, listening intently.
“We know that it was plundered seriously by Shishak, King of Egypt, who
carried off many of its greatest treasures, including the celebrated
golden shields of Solomon’s house, which Rehoboam replaced by brass to
keep up the display,” was the Professor’s prompt reply. “Recent
discoveries at Karnak tell the whole story of the conquest from the
Egyptian point of view. The kingdom of Judah, it seems, became for a
long time tributary to Shishak, and upon the walls of the great temple
at Karnak there are the sculptured representation of the siege and the
hieroglyphics ‘Fuda Melchi’--meaning ‘The Kingdom of Judah.’ That was,
you will bear in mind, the first spoliation.”
“Were there others?” asked Frank. “I mean others that are authenticated
by recent discoveries?”
“Yes, Jehoram reigned in Jerusalem from B.C. 895-892, and after his
marriage with Athaliah, daughter of Ahab, the temple was again
despoiled, and the daughters of Judah were once more prostituted to the
rites of Ashtoreth,” replied Professor Griffin. “Joash, in B.C. 884,
repaired the fabric of the temple by public subscription, for he was the
inventor of the modern money-box--and there were enough funds left over,
we are told, to purchase vessels for the sanctuary. [2 Kings, xii, 4-6;
2 Chronicles, xxiv, 4-14.] This, however, did not last long, for in the
reign of Amaziah, ninth King of Judah, Jehoash, King of Israel, defeated
him in B.C. 826, took him prisoner and, entering Jerusalem again,
reached the temple and conveyed all its treasures to Samaria.
“In the reigns of Jeroboam the Second, Shallam, Menaham and Pekehiah,
other vessels and treasures were provided for the temple. Jonathan
built the high gate, but his successor, Ahaz, after plunging into all
the idolatries of the surrounding nations, making molten images for Baal
and sacrificing his children to Moloch in the valley of Hinnom, found
himself, according to our best chronologer, Ussher, involved in war. He
was therefore compelled to apply for help to Tiglath-pileser, the
‘Tiger-Lord of Asshur,’ King of Assyria, against Syria and Israel, and
declaring himself his vassal, sent him all the treasures then left in
the temple. Ahaz, we learn from 2 Kings, xvi, 10-18, profaned the
temple by dismounting the brazen altar and replacing it by another.
Likewise the ‘Great Sea of Solomon,’ too large to be removed at previous
despoliations, was dismounted from its supporting oxen, and the lavers
from their bases, which were also sent to the King of Assyria, together
with the coverings which had been built for the King’s entry to the
house, and for the shelter of the worshippers on the Sabbath. The
golden vessels of the House of God were cut in pieces and sent with the
rest, and the sanctuary itself was shut up. Hezekiah, who came after
him in B.C. 726, reopened and restored the Holy Place, though it was now
devoid of most of its treasures.
“To trace the history of the Temple through the days of Hoshea, son of
Elah, Manasseh and Amon is perhaps unnecessary. Under Josiah, whose
reign marks the last dying glory of the earthly kingdom of David,
idolatry was put away, the Temple was renovated and the Ark of the
Covenant which had been hidden restored to its place. [2 Chronicles,
xxxiv, 3-13; xxxv, 3.] During these repairs the high priest Hilkiah
found the sacred copy of the book of the law and delivered it to
Shaphan, the scribe, who read it before the king. It was afterwards
publicly read, and incited a new zeal among the people, and once again
was the sanctuary filled with gold and silver vessels. Therefore you
will see that by this period there could not have been any of the actual
treasures placed by Solomon remaining in the Temple.”
“The Ark of the Covenant was still there,” remarked young Farquhar.
“That is not at all certain,” was the old man’s reply. “Many of the
events chronicled in the Old Testament are corroborated by the
inscriptions found by Flinders Petrie in Egypt and by Layard at Nineveh.
Others are negatived, and our chronology rendered uncertain. Certain
it is, however,” he went on, “that in the fourth year of the reign of
Jehoiakim, eighteenth King of Judah (B.C. 608-597), Nebuchadnezzar
arose, and a few years later advanced to Jerusalem, which he took after
a brief siege. The vessels of the sanctuary were carried off to
Babylon, where they were dedicated in the temple of Belus. If you turn
to 2 Kings, xxiv, 13, you will there read: ‘And he carried out thence
all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the
king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon,
King of Israel had made in the temple of the Lord, as the Lord had
said.’”
“Surely it was Ezekiel who went as one of the prisoners of
Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon,” remarked Gwen.
“Yes,” replied her father, “on the second occasion when the Babylonian
king attacked the city. But,” he added, “in the reference I have just
given you, you will note that the vessels are described as ‘those that
Solomon had made.’ Either therefore they had been too massive for
removal on the many previous occasions when the temple was plundered or
they had been made to replace the ancient originals. The latter is my
own theory. Now, as I dare say you will recollect, in B.C. 586, on the
tenth day of the fifth month, Ab, Nebuchadnezzar again advanced against
the rebellious city of Jerusalem and destroyed it. The two great
pillars of the temple porch, Jachin and Boaz, and Solomon’s brazen sea
with the twelve bulls supporting it, were broken in pieces and their
brass transported to Babylon, together with a great number of captives.
And on the third day of the catastrophe, in the nineteenth year of
Nebuchadnezzar, the temple and the city were committed to the flames
with the palaces of the king and princes, and all the chief houses of
Jerusalem, and their walls levelled to the ground.”
“Then that was the actual end of Solomon’s temple,” remarked Frank
Farquhar. “Is that authentic?”
“Without a doubt,” said the Professor. “Yet did not Jeremiah comfort
the Jews amid all these judgments by contrasting His destruction of the
other nations of their present oppressors with His correction of
themselves? ‘Fear thou not, O Jacob, my servant, saith Jehovah, for I
am with thee; for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I
have driven thee; _but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct
thee in measure_; yet will I not leave thee wholly unpunished.’ Surely
no words could more fully express the principle of Jehovah’s dealings
with the Jews, His own people, in every age.”
“Belshazzar, at his feast in Babylon, put to sacrilegious uses the
vessels of the temple, did he not?” asked the young man.
“Yes,” answered Griffin, and addressing Gwen said: “Turn to the fifth
chapter of Daniel, dear, and read out the first four verses.”
The girl found the place and read as follows: “Belshazzar, the King,
made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the
thousand. Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the
golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out
of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the King and his princes, his
wives and his concubines, might drink therein. Then they brought the
golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God
which was at Jerusalem; and the King, and his princes, his wives, and
his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine and praised the gods of
gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.”
“And at that moment,” remarked the Professor, “was seen the prophetic
handwriting on the wall: ‘_Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin_,’ being followed
by the city’s surprise by Cyrus the Great, and its fall and destruction.
Then under Cyrus, the Israelites returned from their captivity, and by
his decree another temple was built by Zerubbabel, the prince of Judah,
who was leader of the migration. Cyrus caused his treasurer Mithredath
to deliver up the vessels which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from
Jerusalem, five thousand four hundred in number, to Zerubbabel to be
re-consecrated to the service of Jehovah.”
“Is it to this second temple which our manuscript relates, do you
think?” queried Frank. “Or is it to Solomon’s temple?”
“Of the temple of Zerubbabel we have but few particulars,” answered the
Professor, “and no description that would enable us to realise its
appearance. But there are some dimensions given in the Bible and
elsewhere which are extremely interesting as affording points of
comparison between it and the temple of Solomon and Herod after it. The
first and most authentic are those given in the Book of Ezra [Ezra vi,
3-4] when quoting the decree of Cyrus, wherein it is said: ‘Let the
house be builded, the place where they offered sacrifices, and let the
foundations thereof be strongly laid; the height thereof three-score
cubits, and the breadth thereof three-score cubits, with three rows of
great stones and a row of new timber.’ Josephus quotes this passage
almost literally, but in doing so enables us with certainty to translate
the word here called ‘row’ as storey, as indeed the sense would lead us
to infer--for it could apply only to the three storeys of chambers that
surrounded Solomon’s, and afterwards Herod’s temple, and with this again
we come to the wooden talar which surmounted the temple and formed a
fourth storey. It may be remarked that this dimension of sixty cubits
in height accords perfectly with the words which Josephus puts into the
mouth of Herod when he makes him say that the temple built after the
Captivity wanted sixty cubits of the height of that of Solomon. For as
he had adopted the height of a hundred and twenty cubits in the
Chronicles for that temple, this one remained only sixty. This temple
was still standing in Herod’s time, and was repaired by him. Hecataeus
mentions that the altar was twenty cubits square and ten high. But he
unfortunately does not supply us with the dimensions of the temple
itself. Therefore if the priests and Levites and Elders of families
were disconsolate at seeing how much more sumptuous the old temple was
than the one which on account of their poverty they had just been able
to erect, [Ezra, iii, 12-13; Joseph Ast., xi, 4, 2] it certainly was not
because it was smaller, as almost every dimension had been increased
one-third; but it may have been that the carving and the gold and other
ornaments of Solomon’s temple far surpassed this, and the pillars of the
portico and the veils may all have been far more splendid, so also
probably were the vessels; and all this is what a Jew would mourn over,
far more than mere architectural splendour.”
“It is a pity we do not know more about this second temple,” remarked
Gwen, in a tone of disappointment and regret.
“For our present purpose its history, down to the taking of Jerusalem by
Titus, does not concern us, my dear,” remarked the old scholar, drawing
his hand rather wearily over his white brow. “The problem before us
evidently has to do with the days of Jehoiakim, prior to the advance of
Nebuchadnezzar. Later facts and traditions do not concern us at the
moment. I think, however, I have given you an outline of the varied
history of the temple and its treasures based upon the very latest
readings of Egyptian, Assyrian and other inscriptions, sufficient to
show you quite plainly that Solomon’s treasure could not possibly have
existed in the reign of Jehoiakim, and that the theory of this friend of
yours, Diamond, is utterly and entirely without the foundation of
tradition or of ancient legend.”
“Well,” remarked the young man, “such an opinion coming from your mouth
is, of course, final, Professor. Yet you must admit that the statement,
even as it stands, is full of interest.”
“Full of very cleverly conceived mystery--and mystery is always
attractive,” laughed the Professor, looking at him through his big,
round, highly magnifying spectacles.
In the statement he had made there was one discrepancy, one that only a
scholar would notice. He had purposely withheld one Biblical
reference--one which, above all, had caused him to reflect and believe
that the writer of the half-burnt screed was correct, that the secret
and its key were actually genuine.
But it was his fixed intention to turn Frank Farquhar from further
investigation, and to laugh at Doctor Diamond as a fool, ignorant of any
knowledge of the history of the Hebrew race.
A silence fell. Gwen Griffin and her lover were both staring straight
at the fire without uttering a word.
The old man sat watching the effect of his words upon the pair, and
before Frank left, he handed back to him the charred remnants which he
had received from the photographer.
But his thoughts were of that other man--the short, white-bearded
foreigner, his rival--who was so busy with his researches, the stranger
from across the Channel who also held the remarkable secret.