CHAPTER XXX. THE DEVOTIONAL RITUAL IN THE JEWISH TEMPLE. 1. Fragments of the Temple Liturgies reveal the Characteristics of the Temple Worship.-2. Ceaseless Public and Private Worship in the Temple.-3. The Public Daily Sacrifices.-4. Responsive and Congregational Worship in the Temple.-5. Reverence in the Temple Services.-6. Musical Worship: the Temple Choir.-7. Beautiful and Dignified Worship.-8. Silent Worship. 1.—Fragments of the Temple Liturgies reveal the FROM our childhood we have heard so much and read so much of the Temple at Jerusalem-of its architectural glories, great festivals, ceaseless sacrifices and services, and wondrous history, as at once the centre and symbol of the religious life of the most wondrous people upon the earth-that we are apt to suppose, from our consciousness of long familiarity with the subject, that we know all about it. But, in truth, our knowledge of it is very fragmentary and imperfect. In this case, as in many other matters more simple in themselves and more closely connected with our daily personal experience, long familiarity is not so much a help to accurate knowledge, as a convenient veil by which we hide our ignorance from ourselves. The Temple Liturgies-which, with the multitude of strict sacrificial and devotional rules necessary for the due performance of the annual round of Temple Services, must have been of great length-were probably never committed to writing while the Temple itself was standing. Priests, Levites, and worshippers, as the result of careful and systematic oral instruction, doubtless knew their parts by rote, and performed them with the utmost solemnity, ease, and precision. But no perfection of ritual order, however valuable in ministering to and expressing real religious devotion, can keep the heart of religion alive when the faith of Priests and worshippers has been shattered, and their spiritual perceptions darkened or destroyed, by the influences of worldly and wicked lives. In an evil age, the ministers and worshippers in the Temple forgot the eternal purity, righteousness, and truth of the Great Object of worship, and of His law. Heartless infidels of the ruling class, and heartless pedants, conceited, worldly, and rapacious, out of whose condemned souls every drop of true manliness had been drained by lives of habitual meanness and immorality, consummated the terrible work of national apostasy. The pure vision of Eternal Love, manifested in human form, was "despised and rejected" by them: was outcast from His Father's sacred Courts; and became the Bleeding Vision of Calvary. Swift judgment followed. The vices which ruined the national faith, soon ruined the nation. The wrath of God took the place of His gracious Presence. The Holy Temple itself was utterly destroyed. The schools connected with its services were broken up. Hundreds of thousands of Priests, Levites, and worshippers were slaughtered by the enemy's hand, or perished by hunger and pestilence in the siege of Jerusalem; and the residue were scattered abroad in all lands, as fugitives and slaves. Consequently, the Temple Liturgies, like many other Oriental liturgies which were treasured up in the vast but perishable storehouses of the human memory, have been, as a whole, lost for ever. Happily, however, the researches of the learned have exhumed,1 from the wreck and ruins of the past, many broken fragments of the ancient Temple Liturgies; and these testify eloquently of the splendour of the originals. The mist and darkness which, in the course of ages, had settled around the Temple worship and ordinances, are, here and there, beginning to clear away. But a complete view of the Temple worship can probably never be hoped for. The Liturgical fragments known to us, although not few or unimportant, afford nothing approaching to an adequate basis for a complete reconstruction of the Temple Services. Happily, however, they are abundantly sufficient for the more limited purpose of the present volume. The reader will recollect that our subject is not Worship in all its mystery and developed complexity: but merely a few of the External Characteristics of Worship. And it so happens that the imperfect glimpses which these rescued Liturgical fragments give us of the Temple Worship, reveal that Worship as prominently marked by the ritual characteristics which we have here in view. They prove beyond doubt that it was Responsive, Congregational, Reverent, Musical, Beautiful, and (in part) Processional Worship. 2.-Ceaseless Public and Private Worship in the Temple. The Temple (and before it, the Tabernacle) was always-as Christian churches ought to be-much used as a quiet and sacred place for private Prayer. Hannah, when she "was in bitterness of soul," "prayed unto the Lord," in "the Temple of the Lord" (as the Mosaic Tabernacle at Shiloh was called). Hers was a silent 1 See Lightfoot's Temple Service, and Edersheim's The Temple and its Services. prayer: "she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard."" The holy widow Anna "departed not from the Temple, worshipping with fastings and supplications night and day." The penitent Publican "went up into the Temple" to unburden his heart in prayer. "Standing afar off," remote from the Holy House of God and from the Great Altar, he "would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote his breast, saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner." At the same time, the Pharisee was standing in a more prominent position, probably at the front of the Court of Israel, self-complacently offering up his devotions.3 The Public Daily Services in the Temple were at the offering of the Morning and Evening Sacrifices, namely, about 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. In addition to these Public Services and Sacrifices, the performance of "occasional services," connected with the offering of minor and personal sacrifices, must have been almost ceaseless in the Temple. From morning till evening, Priests and Levites were busily engaged at the Altar, and worshippers from all parts of Palestine, and indeed from all parts of the world, frequented the sacred Courts. The Temple was "a House of" both Public and Private "Prayer for all the nations." 115 3.-The Public Daily Sacrifices. The Jewish Priests were divided by King David into 24 Courses, which-excepting on Great Festivals, when all the Courses were in attendance-served the Temple by turns, each Course ministering for one week. 1 1 Sam. 1. 9, 13. 2 Luke 2.37. 3 Luke 18. 10–13. 4 Josephus, Ant. xiv. 4. 3. Edersheim, The Temple and its Services, pp. 115, 116. Is. 56. 7. Mark 11. 7. Early each morning, all the Priests of the Course on duty assembled in the "Hall of Polished Stones" in the Temple, and divided the various ministrations of the day amongst themselves by lot. The first lot designated the Priests who were to cleanse the Great Altar and to prepare its fires. These Priests immediately performed ceremonial ablutions, and departed to the discharge of their duties. The Priest on whom the second lot fell was designated, along with the twelve who stood nearest to him, for slaying the principal sacrifice (a lamb) at the Great Altar, and for cleansing the Golden Candlestick and the Altar of Incense in the Holy Place. After a solemn prayer, the third lot was cast for the high privilege of burning the Incense in the Holy Place. No Priest was permitted to burn the Incense more than once in the whole of his life, unless in the very rare case that all present had previously so officiated. He on whom this coveted lot fell, chose from among his friends two assistants. The fourth and last lot designated the Priests who were to lay the prepared sacrifice and meat-offerings on the Great Altar, and to pour out the drink-offerings. The first, second, and fourth lots held good for the Evening Service: that for the Incense required to be repeated.1 When the lamb had been duly slain, dismembered, salted, and laid upon the Great Altar, which was ceremonially sprinkled with its blood, the Incensing Priest and his assistants ascended the Altar. One assistant filled a golden censer with Incense, while another took burning coals from the Altar, in a golden bowl. They then descended from the Altar, passed Westward across the Court of the Priests, slowly and reverently ascended the steps of the Porch, and, bowing low, entered the 1 Edersheim, The Temple and its Services, pp. 130-137. |