Part 9

Speaking of the growth of the early church buildings, Bingham says: “In the strictest sense, including only the buildings within the walls, they were commonly divided into three parts: (1.) The _narthex_ or ante-temple, where the penitents and catechumens stood. (2.) The _naos_ or temple, where the communicants had their respective places. And (3.) the _bēma_ or sanctuary, where the clergy stood to officiate at the altar. But in a larger sense there was another ante-temple or _narthex_ without the walls, under which was comprised the propylæa, or _vestibulum_, the outward porch; then the _atrium_ or area, the court leading from that to the temple, surrounded with porticos or cloisters.... There were also several _exedræ_, such as the baptistery, the _diaconicum_, the _pastophoria_, and other adjacent buildings, which were reckoned to be either without or within the church, according as it was taken in a stricter or a larger acceptation.”[401]

In the early churches, the place of baptism was outside of the church proper, or the _naos_, it is said. “There is nothing more certain than that for many ages the baptistery was a distinct place from the body of the church, and reckoned among the _exedræ_, or places adjoining to the church.”[402] “The first ages all agreed in this, that, whether they had baptisteries or not, the place of baptism was always without the church.”[403] Even in mediæval times, in the churches of England, baptisms were on the outer side of the threshold of the church proper, “the child being held without the doors of the church”[404] until baptized. In many churches of Europe at the present time the baptismal font is at or near the door of the church.

In 1661, a formal reply of the Church of England bishops to a request of the Presbyterians that the font might be placed before the congregation, that all might see it, was: “The font usually stands, as it did in primitive times, at or near the church door, to signify that baptism was the entrance into the church mystical.”[405]

Marriages, like baptisms, were at the church porch or outside of the threshold. “The old missals direct the placing of the man and the woman at the church door during the service, and that at the end of it they shall proceed within up to the altar.”[406] The idea would seem to be that a holy covenant like marriage, which is the foundation of a new family, must be solemnized at the primitive family altar,–the threshold.

Describing the marriage rites of Germany in the middle ages, Baring-Gould says: “In a Ritual of Rennes, of the eleventh century, we find a rubric to this effect: ‘The priest shall go before the door of the church in surplice and stole, and ask the bridegroom and bride prudently whether they desire to be legally united; and then he shall make the parents give her away, according to the usual custom, and the bridegroom shall fix the dower, announcing before all present what (witthum) he intends to give the bride. Then the priest shall make him betroth her with a ring, and give her an honorarium of gold or silver according to his means. Then let him give the prescribed benediction. After which, entering into the church, let him begin mass; and let the bridegroom and bride hold lighted candles, and make an oblation at the offertory; and before the Pax let the priest bless them before the altar under a pall or other covering [the wedding canopy], according to custom; and lastly, let the bridegroom receive the kiss of peace from the priest, and pass it on to his bride.’”[407]

“In ancient times the people of France were married, not within the church at the altar as now, but at the outer door. This was the case in 1599, in which year Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry II., was married to Philip II. of Spain; and the Bishop of Paris performed the ceremony at the door of the cathedral of Notre Dame. Another instance of this kind occurred in 1599 in France. Henrietta Maria was married to King Charles by proxy at the door of Notre Dame, and the bride, as soon as the ceremony was over entered the church, and assisted at [attended] mass.”[408]

“The pre-Reformation rule was to begin the marriage service at the door of the church. In his ‘Wyf of Bathe,’ Chaucer [in the days of Edward III.] refers to this custom:–

‘Housbandes atte chirche dore I have had fyve.’

This old usage was abandoned by authority in the time of Edward VI. Yet there is reason for thinking that it was not entirely given up. “There is a poem of Herrick’s, written about 1640, which is entitled, ‘The Entertainment or Porch Verse at the Marriage of Mr. Hen. Northly.’”[409]

“When Edward I. married Marguerite of France, in 1299, he endowed her at the door of Canterbury Cathedral.” Selden declares that “dower could be lawfully assigned only at the door;” and Littleton affirms to the same effect.[410]

“At Witham in Essex it is, or was, the custom to perform the first part of the marriage service at the font [near the door]. When the Rev. A. Snell was appointed to the benefice in 1873, he spoke to a bridegroom about this usage, and he (the bridegroom) particularly requested that he might be married at the font, as he liked old customs.”[411]

Another survival of the primitive rite of threshold covenanting seems to be shown in certain customs observed in various parts of Europe, which look like the substitution of an altar-stone for a threshold altar, in the marriage ceremony.

“Thus in the old temple of Upsal [in Sweden], wedding couples stood upon a broad stone which was believed to cover the tomb of St. Eric.”[412] Corresponding customs in other regions would go to show that the earlier practice was to leap over the stone, as a mode of threshold covenanting, instead of standing on it. The latter was a change without a reason for it.

For instance, just outside “the ruined church, or abbey, of Lindisfarne, is the socket or foot-stone, in which was mortised a ponderous stone cross, erected by Ethelwold, and broken down by the Danes. This socket stone is now called the “petting stone,” and whenever a marriage is solemnized in the neighborhood, after the ceremony the bride is obliged to step upon it; and if she cannot stride to the end thereof, the marriage is deemed likely to prove unfortunate and fruitless.” While this would seem to point to the custom of standing upon the stone, in the modern marriage customs of the same region, a barrier is “erected at the churchyard gate, consisting of a large paving-stone which was placed on its edge and supported by two smaller stones. On either side stood a villager, who made the couple and every one else jump over it.”[413]

“In Lantevit Major Church was a stone called the ‘marriage stone,’ with many knots and flourishes, and the head of a person upon it, and this inscription:

‘_Ne Petra calcetur Qu[a]e subjacet ista tuetur_,’

Brides usually stood upon this stone at their marriages.”[414] Yet the inscription itself:

“Let not the stone be trodden upon; What it lies under, it guards,”

forbids standing upon this threshold altar; and it is probable that in earlier times it was stepped over in marriage covenant, and not upon.

At Belford, in Northumberland, it is still the custom to make the bridal pair, with their attendants, leap over a stone placed in their path outside the church porch. This stone also is called the “petting stone,” or the “louping stone.” At the neighboring village of Embleton, in the same county, two stout young lads place a wooden bench across the door of the church porch, and assist the bride and groom and their attendants to surmount the obstacle; for which assistance a gift of money is expected. In some places a stick has been held by the groomsmen at the church door for the bride to jump over. And again a stool has been placed at the churchyard gate, over which the whole bridal party must jump one by one; and this stool has been called the “parting-stool.”[415]

A “mode of marriage” current in Ireland, until recent times, was that of jumping over a form of the cross;[416] and jumping over a broomstick as a form of marriage would seem to be a survival of this custom of leaping across the threshold-stone, in token of a covenant. “Jumping the broomstick” is sometimes spoken of as an equivalent of marriage.

These various obstacles to progress, at wedding time, would seem to be as suggestions of the threshold altar, which must be passed in the marriage covenant. The church threshold, like the home threshold, is a temporary hindrance to an advance. Unless it is stepped across, the covenant is incomplete.

An illustration of the popular idea of the sacredness of the church threshold, and of the impropriety of stepping on it, in its passing, is found in a Finnish mode of judging a clergyman. “In Finland, it is regarded as unlucky if a clergyman steps on the threshold, when he comes to preach at a church.” A writer on this subject says: “A Finnish friend told me of one of his relations going to preach at a church, a few years ago,–he being a candidate for the vacant living,–and the people most anxiously watched if he stepped on the threshold as he came in. Had he done so, I fear a sermon never so eloquent would have counted but little against so dire an omen.”[417] Here is a new peril for pulpit candidates, if this primitive test becomes widely popular!

Even to the present time, it is customary, in portions of Europe, for Jews to rub their fingers on the posts of a synagogue doorway, and then kiss their fingers. Quite an indentation in the stone at the door of the synagogue in Worms is to be seen, as due to this constant sacred rubbing.[418]

6. TEMPLE THRESHOLDS IN AMERICA.

In the West, as in the East, traces of the primitive sacredness of the threshold and the doorway are to be found. The stepped pyramid, or uplifted threshold, with the sanctuary at its summit, was the earliest form of temple or place of worship in Mexico, and in Central and South America. In the later and more elaborate temples there was no altar within the building, although an image of the god was there.

The altar, or stone of sacrifice, was without, before the door of the sanctuary.[419] When a sacrifice was offered on the altar, the blood of that sacrifice was smeared on the doors of the temple of the god.[420] Human sacrifices were included in these offerings, in earlier times.[421] Even when larger temples were erected, and altars were enclosed within them, human victims were brought to the temple entrance into the hands of the priests; and from the threshold they were borne by the priests themselves, to be laid on the altar.[422]

Among the Pipiles, a Maya people, in Central America, there were “two principal and very solemn sacrifices; one at the commencement of summer, and the other at the beginning of winter.” Little boys, from six to twelve years old, were the victims of sacrifice. At the sound of trumpets and drums, which assembled the people, four priests came out of the temple with braziers of coals on which incense was burning, and after various ceremonies and religious exercises they proceeded to the house of the high-priest, near the temple, and took from it the boy victim of the sacrifice. He was then conducted four times round the court of the temple, with dancing and singing.

When this ceremony was finished, the high-priest came out of his house with the second priest and his major-domo, and they proceeded to the temple steps, accompanied by the principal men of the locality, who, however, stopped at the threshold of the temple. Then and there the four priests “seized the victim by his extremities, and the major-domo coming out, with little bells on his wrists and ankles, opened the left breast of the boy, tore out his heart, and handed it to the high-priest, who put it into a little embroidered purse, which he closed.”

The blood of the victim was received by the priests in a vessel made of a gourd, and was by them sprinkled in the direction of the four cardinal points. Then the heart, in its purse, was put back into the body of the victim, and the body itself was interred inside of the temple. This sacrifice, at the threshold altar, was performed at the threshold, or the beginning, of each of the two chief seasons of the year.[423]

In the temples of Central America, generally, the doorway was hardly less prominent than in the temples of Egypt. There were massive decorations on and above the lintels; the door jams were richly sculptured; and there were male and female figures, or figures of animals, as guardians on either side of the entrance. In some instances a winged globe was above the door; and the uplifted hand was found over the doorway or at the sides.[424]

Among the Natchez Indians, along the lower Mississippi, there was an annual “Harvest Festival,” or “Festival of New Fire,” which was celebrated with great ceremony. An altar was in front of the temple, just before the door. On this occasion the priest of the sun stood on the threshold of the temple in the early morning, watching for the first rays of the rising sun. The chiefs, and braves old and young, stood near the altar. The women with infants in their arms stood in a semicircle facing the priest. When he gave the signal of his recognition of the sun, by rubbing two pieces of wood to start a new fire for the altar, they faced about to the east and held up their infants to the sun. Other exercises of worship followed. The priest’s place in this ceremony was on the threshold, before the altar of that temple.[425]

In America, as in the other continents, there are survivals of the primal sacredness of the threshold of a place of public worship, in the formal ceremonies attending the laying of the corner-stone, or threshold-stone, of a new church building of any denomination; and in the use of holy water at the doorway on entering Roman Catholic churches. More or less importance is attached in Protestant Episcopal churches to the location of the baptismal font near the door, and to the beginning of the marriage service before the bridal party approaches the threshold of the sanctuary proper.

If indeed, there be found no trace of the fountain of life flowing from under the threshold sanctuary of the gods worshiped by the aborigines of America, such a fountain was searched for in this land by Ponce de Leon and his followers.

7. TEMPLE THRESHOLDS IN ISLANDS OF THE SEA.

There is a certain resemblance in the plan of some of the temples of the South Sea Islands to those of Central America. A stepped pyramid in a large court was the central shrine; “in front of which the images were kept, and the altars fixed.”[426] In both cases the altars were outside of the shrine,–at its threshold, as it were. A method of sacrificing was by bleeding a pig to death before the altar, “washing the carcass with the blood, and then placing it in a crouching position on the altar.”[427] An uplifted hand was one of the symbols on these stepped pyramid shrines.[428] The temple foundation, or the threshold of the sacred building, was formerly laid in human blood.[429]

A recognition of the threshold, in a sacred service, and in a form of covenanting, is found in the ceremonies of circumcision as observed in Madagascar. This rite is not at infancy, as among the Jews, but is at the threshold of young manhood. Its period is fixed by the king, who, on “an application from the parents or the friends of any number of children in a given province, appoints a time, and orders the observance of the rite.” He is the “high-priest on this occasion.” The rite marks the transition of the boy from his dependence on his parents to his personal service of the king, as a member of the community.

Holy water is brought from a distance to the house of the master of ceremonies, as the sanctuary for the occasion. A sheep is killed immediately before this house, and the boys are caused to step across its blood. This sacrifice is called “fahazza,” or “causing fruitfulness,” and it is supposed to be the means of causing fruitfulness in all the women who obtain a share of it.

A tree is planted at the northeast corner of the house, and a lamp is fixed on it. Honey and water are poured upon the tree, and the boys partake of this mixture. The next day the persons present walk three times round the house, with various ceremonies, and then stop at the doorway. The rite of circumcision is performed on each boy as he sits on a drum at “the threshold of the door,” held firmly by several men. The knife with which it is performed is previously dipped in the blood of a young bullock, an ear of which is slit by the operator. A covenant of fealty to the king is entered into by the youth on this occasion. Sacrifices and feasting follow this ceremony.[430]

One of the ancient gods of Maui, an island of Hawaii, was Keoroeva. “In all the temples dedicated to its worship, the image was placed within the inner apartment, on the left-hand side of the door; and immediately before it stood the altar, on which the offerings of every kind were usually placed.”[431] The altar was at the doorway, in this case, as so generally elsewhere. Tiha was a female idol, as Keoroeva was a male, and much “the same homage and offerings” were given to her as to him.[432]

In Kohala, one of the large divisions of Hawaii, stood a prominent temple called Bukohōla, built by King Kamehameha, at the time of his conquest of the Sandwich Islands. “At the south end of this great edifice was a kind of inner court, which might be called the _sanctum sanctorum_ of the temple, where the principal idol used to stand, surrounded by a number of images of inferior deities.” “On the outside, near the entrance to the inner court [at the threshold of the _sanctum sanctorum_] was the place of the _rere_ [or _lélé_] (altar), on which human and other sacrifices were offered.”[433]

Human victims were ordinarily slain in sacrifice outside of the sanctuary proper, and then their bodies, carefully preserved whole, were taken within to be presented to the idol.[434]

There were Hawaiian cities of refuge, or _puhonuas_, as sanctuaries for guilty fugitives. A thief, or a murderer, might be pursued to the very gateway of one of those cities, but as soon as he crossed the threshold of that gate, even though the gate were open, and no barrier hindered pursuit, he was safe, as at the city altar. When once within the sacred city, the fugitive’s first duty was to present himself before the idol, and return thanks for his protection.[435] This was substantially the Hebrew law as to the cities of refuge.[436] Safety was only within the threshold.

There are traces of the primitive idea of a spring of life-giving waters flowing from under the threshold of the goddess of life, in the Islands of the Sea. According to the myths of that region, Vari, or “The-very-beginning” of life was a woman. She plucked off a piece of her right side and it became a man, or part man and part fish, known as Vātea, or Avatea. From the under-world there came to Vātea a supernatural woman called Papa, or Foundation. From this union the human race began. Rongo was the first-born son. The Hades of Polynesia is Avaika, or Hawaika. In the days of Rongo, and later, there was an opening from earth to Avaika; but because of the misdoings of the denizens of that realm, coming up through that passage-way, Tiki, a lovely woman, a descendant of Rongo, “rolled herself alive down into the gloomy opening, which immediately closed upon her.” She was the first to die. And now “Tiki sits at the threshold” of her home below, to welcome the descendants of Rongo, who bring her an offering. A sacred stream of water, “Vairorongo,” comes up from below into the sacred grove devoted to the worship of Rongo, and near that stream it is possible for a spirit to be returned to life and to a home on earth again.[437]

It is obvious that the idea of the sacredness of the threshold, in home, in temple, or in sanctuary, is not of any one time or of any one people, but is of human nature as human nature everywhere. It shows itself all the world over, and always. And it has to do with life, and its perpetuation or reproduction.

8. ONLY ONE FOUNDATION.

An idea tangent to, rather than identical with, the thought of the altar sacredness of the temple threshold, as found among primitive peoples, is that the first temple foundation is the foundation for all subsequent temple building at that place. And it has already been shown that the threshold, or hearthstone, or corner-stone, is considered the foundation.[438]

In ancient Babylonia a temple, however grand and extensive, was supposed to be built on the foundation of an earlier temple; the one threshold being the first threshold and the latest. If, indeed, there was a variation from the original foundation in the construction of a new temple, there was confusion and imperfectness in consequence, and the only hope of reformation was in finding the first temple threshold and rebuilding on it.

There is an illustration of this in an inscription discovered in the foundation of a temple at “Ur of the Chaldees.”[439] Nabonidus (556–538 B.C.), the last Babylonian king, tells with interest of his search for the old foundation, or outline plan, of the ancient temple, Eulbar, or, more properly, Eulmash, of the goddess Istar of Agade, as follows:[440]

The foundation of Eulmash in Agade had not been found from Sargon, king of Babylon (3800 B.C.), and Narâm-Sin, his son, kings living formerly, until the government of Nabunaʾid king of Babylon.

King Kurigalzu (II.), about 1300 B.C., had, in his reign, searched for this foundation, but had failed to find it, and he had left this record: “The foundation of Eulmash I sought, but did not find it.” Later on, Esarhaddon, king of Assyria and Babylonia (681–669 B.C.), searched for it, but without success. Again, Nebuchadrezzar (605–561 B.C.) mobilized his large armies, and ordered them to search for the foundation stone, or threshold, but all his efforts were in vain. Finally Nabunaʾid, the last king of Babylon before its fall under Cyrus, gathered his many soldiers, and ordered them to search for the foundation stone. For “three years in the tracks of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon,” says Nabunaʾid, “I sought right and left, before and behind, but did not find it.”

Encouraged by a prompting from the moon-god Sin, Nabunaʾid tried at another time and in another place, and this time with success. He found the inscription of King Shagarakti-Buriash (1350 B.C.), which tells that he had laid a new foundation exactly upon the old one of King Zabû (about 2300 B.C.). Then Nabunaʾid made sure to preserve the exact outline of the old shrine. He laid the foundation, and restored the ancient temple, so that “it did not deviate an inch to the outside or the inside.”[441]

There are indications of the same high value set upon the primal foundation of a temple in the records of ancient Egypt. A temple at its highest grandeur is in the location of a prehistoric sanctuary. “The site on which it is built is generally _holy ground_,[442] that is, a spot on which since the memory of man an older sanctuary of the god had stood. Even those Egyptian temples which seem most modern have usually a long history,–the edifice may have seemed very insignificant, but as the prestige of the god increased larger buildings were erected, which again, in the course of centuries, were enlarged and rebuilt in such a way that the original plan could no longer be traced. This is the history of nearly all Egyptian temples, and explains the fact that we know so little of the temples of the Old and of the Middle Empire; they have all been metamorphosed into the vast buildings of the New Empire.”[443]