THE BUILDER, JUNE 1917

THE PILLARS OF THE PORCH
BY BRO. JOHN W. BARRY, P. S. G. W., IOWA

One of the characteristics of worthy Masons everywhere is their
fidelity to the "old landmarks," by which is meant those things
that are at the foundation of Masonry, and, therefore, inherent in
every lodge. The height of the pillars Jachin and Boaz, being given
in the Bible in four separate books, is an architectural fact in
sacred history, and, therefore, could in no proper, or even remote,
sense be classed with the revered landmarks. Yet out of respect for
any one that might at first think otherwise, but more particularly
to learn the height given in other jurisdictions, the question was
submitted to the Grand Secretary of each Grand Lodge of the United
States and Canada. The Secretaries replied as follows:

Jurisdiction.      Reply.

Alabama ............18 cubits
Arizona ............No reply
Arkansas ..........18 cubits
California .........35 "
Connecticut:        18, or 35 for the united length.
Colorado ...........35 cubits
Delaware ...........18 "
Dist. of Columbia...18 "
Florida ............35 "
Georgia ............35 "
Idaho ..............35 "
Indiana: "Not regulated by edict." 
Indian Territory ...18 cubits
Iowa ...............35 "
Kansas .............35 "
Kentucky ...........18 "
Louisiana ..........No reply
Maine ..............35 cubits
Manitoba ...........18 " 
Maryland: "Matter we do not present."
Massachusetts ......35 cubits
Michigan ...........35 "
Minnesota ..........35 "
Mississippi ........18 "
Missouri ...........35 "
Montana ............35 "
Nebraska ...........35 cubits
Nevada .............No reply
New Hampshire ......35 cubits
New- Jersey ........18 "
New Mexico .........35 "
New York ...........35 "
North Carolina .....35 "
North Dakota.....No reply
Ohio ...............18 cubits
Oklahoma ...........35 "
Oregon .............35 
Pennsylvania: "Height of Jachin and Boaz not given."
Rhode Island .......35 cubits
South Carolina..... 18 "
South Dakota .......35 "
Tennessee ..........18 "
Texas ..............35 "
Utah ...............30 "
Vermont ............35 "
Virginia: "It is not proper to print or write any esoteric work."
Washington .........18 cubits
West Virginia: "Height not mentioned in West Virginia work."
Wisconsin ..........35 cubits
Wyoming ............35 "

Summarizing the foregoing, of the forty-four jurisdictions
replying, in three the height of Jachin and Boaz is not given; in
fourteen, the height is eighteen cubits, and in twenty-seven it is
thirty-five cubits, while in one the height is given as thirty
cubits. Here is a very wide variation, and among Masons, too, who,
above all others, are supposed to have correct information
regarding Solomon's Temple. Now, the simple question: What was the
correct height of Jachin and Boaz? is the task assigned your
committee, and were it not for the fact that the resolution
requires the compiling of the best evidence in support of the
answer, this paper would have been very short, because eighteen
cubits is the only height for which there is any warrant of any
kind in either sacred or profane records.

SOLOMON'S TEMPLE WAS LIKE CONTEMPORANEOUS BUILDINGS

That Solomon's Temple corresponded with the architecture of his
time is a self-evident proposition, but just what that architecture
was is not so easily determined. The evidence of what it was will
be covered by what may be classed as direct and circumstantial The
circumstantial evidence consists of:

First. The influence of other countries and architecture on
Solomon's Temple.

Second. The influence of Solomon's Temple on succeeding buildings.

Third. Opinions of Masonic investigators, Bible students, and
architects.

While the direct evidence consists of Josephus and the Bible.

FIRST AS TO INFLUENCE OF OTHER COUNTRIES

Palestine, Phoenicia, Egypt, and Greece are all on the eastern end
of the Mediterranean sea, and a cruise of their various ports might
be likened to a cruise on Lake Michigan. The people of those
countries had intimate commercial relations in time of peace, and
in time of war invasions and counter invasions were the rule. So
that each country was familiar. with the architecture of the other
countries. Indeed, one cannot read the history of Solomon's time
without being convinced that together Solomon, King of Israel, and
Hiram, King of Tyre, stood in much the same relation to the then
known world as do the United States and England to the world of our
day. In every port of every sea were the ships of Solomon and
Hiram. Together they organized a fleet at the head of the Red sea
to sail to the land of Ophir for gold, ivory, and precious stones.
Together their crews traversed the Nile valley, where in the days
of Joseph the Jews had attained eminence and power. The Jews and
Phoenicians were the merchants, sailors, and artizans of the world
in the time of Hiram, and it was they who built Solomon's Temple.
What then are some of the evidences of--

EGYPTIAN INFLUENCE?

In every Egyptian temple was a sacred room, or holy of holies, in
which was deposited a miniature tabernacle containing the image of
the deity in whose honor the temple was erected. In the smaller
temples this article was made of wood, and but few of them have
been preserved. There is one of very great age in the Museum at
Turin, Italy, shown in cut No. 1. In the larger temples, the
material used was granite. In the temple at Edfou a little granite
tabernacle of this kind is still in place, but generally those
little tabernacles have been carried away, and may now be seen in
the various museums of Europe. A most perfect one is in the museum
of the Louvre, and bears the name Amasis, who founded the
eighteenth dynasty, 1700 B. C. See cut No.2. They are described by
Herodotus, Volume II., page 175, who traveled in and wrote of Egypt
450 B.C. Now, compare the central idea of Solomon's Temple with
this of the Egyptian. The holy of holies in Solomon's Temple was
the sacred chamber to contain the Ark of the Covenant, just as the
sacred chambers in Egyptian temples were devoted to a very similar
purpose. 

Again, Egyptian temples were surrounded by walled-in courts,
providing open air meeting places for the people, the priests alone
being admitted to the temple itself. To this general rule Solomon's
Temple corresponded in every particular, including the small rooms
for the priests. Inasmuch as Solomon's Temple corresponded in
purpose and in form with the Egyptian, is it not reasonable to
conclude that it corresponded in elevation also ? There is much
direct and indirect evidence that it did. The excavations made by
the Palestine Exploration Fund have demonstrated intimate relations
between Palestine and Egypt, and there are numerous records to show
that the builders of Solomon's Temple were familiar with the
temples on the Nile. Indeed there are existing architectural
remains, which though of a later time, yet confirm beyond a doubt
the proposition that the Jews and Phoenicians constructed with full
knowledge of what had gone before on the banks of the Nile. Let the
tombs at Beni Hassan and at Jerusalem illustrate. Figure 3 shows
the tombs cut into the rocky cliffs of the Nile as they appear now,
dating from 3000 years B. C. There are forty such tombs at Beni
Hassan alone, entered by a porch-like structure. The pillars are
not set in, but cut out of the rock, or rather the rock is all cut
away, leaving only so much of it as is now seen in the pillars.

Cut No. 4 is a near view of Ameni's tomb, made about 2500 years
B.C. The modern iron grating shows that it is now carefully cared
for, for the reason that it contains a record of the famine in the
time of Joseph, 1700 B. C.

When the Egyptian died he began to live, and so long as his
mummified body, or a stone image, or painted likeness thereof
existed he continued to live. He took an active part in the
hunting, fishing, racing, sowing, harvesting, and other scenes
depicted on the walls of his tomb. The familiar salutation: "O,
King, live forever," here finds its true meaning, for should the
body or its image be destroyed, then, and then only, did life end.
From Beni Hassan down, every rock-cut tomb and every temple is a
memorial to the belief of man that he shall live beyond the grave,
or rather that he shall never, no never die.

These pillars, cut from the living rock, are almost true Doric,
with sixteen flutes or sides. They are sixteen feet eight inches in
height. The distance between the pillars is about seven feet, and
the diameter of the pillars is three feet eight inches, making the
porch nearly the exact length of Solomon's. Cut No. 5 is an
interior view of the audience room, which is forty feet square and
about eighteen feet high. Every inch of its walls and ceiling is
covered by Egyptian writing or painting.

Go now with me to Jerusalem, which is but a comparatively short
distance. A map of the city is shown in cut No. 6. The square
portion to the right is the top of Mt. Moriah, now known as the
Temple area, and contains about thirty five acres. The Tyropoean
valley is on the west, and the Kedron, or Valley of the
Jehoshaphat, is on the east, forming a deep gulch between the Mt.
of Olives and the Temple area. Cut No. 6a is a view from the Mt. of
Olives. The dome-like building is the Dome of Rock on the site of
the Temple. On the eastern side of the Kedron, facing the Temple,
are ancient rockcut tombs, duplicates of those at Beni Hassan, on
the Nile. Their position is shown by plat No. 7, the center group
being opposite the Temple altar. Two of them are shown in cut No.
8. The one with the pyramid roof is the Tomb of Zachariah, and
corresponds with that of Absalom, about equally distant to the
left. In the center is the Tomb of St. James, the duplicate of
Ameni, at Beni Hassan on the Nile.

These tombs, together with the tombs of the Kings of Juda, are held
by Canina and other archaeologists t o prove to a demonstration
that those who cut the tombs about Jerusalem knew of the
corresponding tombs at Beni Hassan and that Jewish architecture in
general and the architecture of Solomon's Temple in particular are
based upon the architecture of Egypt. Certain it is that Beni
Hassan was the model for temple porches on the Nile and elsewhere.


Using the short cubit of eighteen inches, Solomon's Temple was
thirty feet wide, ninety feet long, and forty-five feet high. If
the pillars of the porch were forty cubits, or sixty feet high,
then they projected above the roof of the Temple fifteen feet, and
the porch was relatively higher than the Temple itself.

Now in none of the remains of temples on the Nile is there the
remotest suggestion of a building so constructed. Numerous examples
might be given, but, as they are all to the same effect, a few will
answer.

Cut No. 9 is a front view of the porch of the Temple of Amenhotep
IIl, at Luxor, as it now appears. Previous to 1885 this temple was
buried to the depth of forty feet, and upon this debris stood a
modern village, the "House of the Mission Defrance" standing above
the part here shown. In January, Maspero, with a force of one
hundred and fifty men, began to dig, and finally unearthed this,
the most beautiful porch of Egypt. The pillars represent a bundle
of lotus plants, stalks, and buds; the stalks bound together at the
top by a ligature, and the cluster of buds forming the capital.
Twelve of them remain standing, six in each row. The pillars
support the architrave, and, therefore, are not higher than the
temple itself. Though the completed temple was eight hundred feet
long and many times the width of that of Solomon's, its pillars did
not reach sixty feet, the erroneous height now assigned to Jachin
and Boaz.

In cut No. 10 is a view through the porch of the Temple of Kurneh,
Thebes, showing the five remaining pillars. Here, as in all, the
pillars support the facade, and, therefore, the porch is relatively
lower than the temple. Both these temples date from 1500 years B.C.

Cut No.11 is a porch of a Nubian Temple looking from within. This
cut was used by Past Grand Master George C. Connor, Grand Custodian
of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee, of which he wrote as follows: - "I
am fully persuaded in my own mind that the front or eastern side of
the porch was open, and that the pillars Jachin and Boaz supported
the wall of the facade. The picture gives, in a general way, our
idea of the eastern side of Solomon's Temple - its porch." In cut
No. 11a is another Egyptian temple erected after Solomon's 320 B.C.
It is the Temple of Dekkeh.

It will be noticed that the porches are relatively lower than the
main building, in that the pillars support the roof or ceilings.
Note this also in cut No. 12, in which the two round pillars
represent Jachin and Boaz.

This temple was built by Amenhotep III., 1500 B. C., and its
remains endured until 1822 A. D., when it was totally destroyed by
the Turkish Governor of Assoun. It was located at Elephantine, in
which immediate section temples of this kind were numerous. They
were usually small, the one shown being 31 x 40 and 21 feet 6
inches above grade.
(To be continued.)

We are today ruled and governed by laws made in the past.

It is indeed the dead that govern; the living only obey.

Our lot is but to work. The effort is the virtue. In the
perspective of eternity distinctions between the humblest and the
most exalted vanish and all is judged according to merit.

Our judgment of our contemporaries is practically worthless, unless
we are better judges than the ancient Brethren whom we follow.

Consider the errors of the past.

Toward the close of the 18th century the Grand Lodge of England
expelled William Preston. He was the Masonic intellectual giant of
his time and to his untiring efforts are very largely due our
lectures in their present form. But he was relentlessly crushed by
the brethren because he differed with them.

In the early part of the 19th century Krause. whose intense legal
mind contributed the basis for our present system of Masonic
Jurisprudence, was expelled from his lodge. He had sought the
light, the truth itself.

Even as late as the middle of the 19th century, Oliver, that sweet
charitable preacher of the south of England, whose prolific
writings on Masonic subjects have formed the basis for so much of
the symbolic writings of later years, was divested of his office of
Provincial Deputy Grand Master. He, too, had sought the real
purpose of Masonry and an understanding of its teachings.

In view of the treatment which the fraternity has accorded to its
illustrious dead, we must recognize how unjust we always are. Let
us therefore leave the issues with God and extend our helping and
sympathetic hand to all our brethren and to all their dear ones. To
help and to labor remains for us.

The lives of our departed brethren contain many experiences from
which we might learn most valuable 
--A. W. Gage, Illinois.

WHAT MORE?

To live a simple, sincere, serene life; to repel anger, envy and
anxiety; to cultivate gentleness, self control and gratitude; to
practice kindness, cheerfulness and helpfulness; to fill the days,
from dawn till dusk, with the joy of pure thoughts, kind words and
noble deeds--what more is asked of us?
--J. F. N.

