THE BUILDER October, 1926

High Places

TO the Hebrew priesthood after the return from Babylon, as to the
prophets before the exile, the "high places," the traditional local
sanctuaries of the land of Palestine were an utter abomination,
being in their eyes purely idolatrous and perversive of the true
worship of Jehovah. Yet in the Bible itself, if we read between the
lines, or rather if we distinguish between the older legends
collected and written down by pious hands and the later
denunciations and exhortations of the prophetic writers and the
legal and historical compilations of priestly editors, we can see
plainly that in earlier times these local sanctuaries were
perfectly orthodox. Mount Moriah was itself but one of these high
places, sacred doubtless from prehistoric times, but not
consecrated to Jehovah until Joab, David's Captain, had scrambled
up the gully at the head of a storming party and took the city from
the Jebusites by assault.

When one reads the ninth chapter of the first book of Samuel it is
obvious that no question had as yet arisen as to the propriety of
sacrificing at such places. In the book of Deuteronomy we have the
later regulations thrown back into the past by a kind of didactic
fiction very common in primitive codes. The later law is put into
a narrative form and ascribed to Moses. 

In chapter twelve the children of Israel are commanded to abolish
and utterly destroy the sanctuaries of the land that they were
about to enter and take possession of, and that they were to
sacrifice only in "the place which the Lord shall choose in one of
thy tribes," which, of course, was a reference to Jerusalem in
Judah. And this in spite of the fact that these very sanctuaries
that were condemned to destruction were precisely those that in
earlier stories had been the places where the patriarchs had set up
their altars or had had visions and revelations of God. Immediately
following this restrictive command comes a rather curious proviso--
"Notwithstanding thou mayest kill and eat flesh in all thy gates."
From our point of view this sounds wholly unnecessary and
meaningless. The force of it is not apparent until we realize that
among Semitic nomads the eating of flesh was always a sacrificial
rite, indeed to some extent it still bears traces of this character
among the Arabs, if we may judge from travelers' accounts. This
proviso in the Deuteronomic law sets out indeed the modern
distinction, that the killing of a sheep or calf need not have
anything to do with religion and sacrificial ritual.

Jacob set up a pillar at Bethel, and another at the grave of
Rachel. By the command of Joshua twelve stones were brought up out
of the bed of the river Jordan and set up at the place called
Gilgal. As Gilgal means "wheel" it is most probable that they were
placed in a circle. All these places were, or became, sacred, but
Bethel and Gilgal especially appear again and again in the history
of the Hebrews. Samuel sacrificed at Gilgal, and there Saul was
made king; Bethel was included in the circuit that Samuel made
yearly. Later it became one of the two great sanctuaries of Israel,
corresponding in the northern kingdom to Jerusalem in that of the
House of David.

The prophets, being reformers and puritans, denounced them all,
both the greater and the lesser, as they did indeed the whole
system of rites and ceremonies that went with them. As in the fifth
chapter of Amos:

I hate and dispise your feast days . . . though ye offer me burned
offerings and your meat offerings I will not accept them.

And in the second chapter of Isaiah:

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me, saith
the Lord.... Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul
hateth.

The priests and scribes who followed made a practical compromise.
They retained Zion and the Temple and the elaborated ritual of
sacrifice but condemned all the rest, a policy for which there was
doubtless excellent reasons, both moral and spiritual.

The Masonic ritualists of the eighteenth century very naturally,
considering their prepossessions, drew a parallel between the
traditional meetings on high hills and low vales with such Biblical
references, taken at their face value. There is reason to think
indeed that this had been done even before the formation of the
first Grand Lodge in 1717, for in some documents that seem to
reflect earlier usage we find references to the Valley of
Jehoshaphat as a place of Masonic meeting, as well, of course, as
the Temple which was built on the ancient "high place" above it.

In a sense there may be a connection if we take into our purview
the whole field of comparative religion, for the custom of holding
religious rites on hill and mountain tops is a very widespread one.
Especially is it to be found in the countries at the eastern end of
the Mediterranean, as well as in northern and western Europe. The
most superficial acquaintance with classical literature will recall
the names of Olympus, of Helicon, Cithaeron, and Mount Ida in Crete
where Zeus was born. In Asia Minor there is Sipylus and the
mountain on which the city of Pergamus was built, "where Satan's
throne is," as St. John tells us in the book of Revelations, a
reference to the wonderful altar to Zeus that was a temple in
itself, on the very summit. There is also the Capitol at Rome,
crowned by the temple of Jupiter Maximus, a hypaethral temple, too,
that is open (at least in part) to the sky; as P. E. Osgood thinks
the Temple of Solomon was also. But though such as these are the
more famous instances it would seem that traces of the worship of
the sky god and the "mountain mother," the earth goddess, was
performed in some fashion or other on almost every hill or mountain
overlooking a fertile valley. Traces of it in tradition or
archeological remains are to be found almost everywhere within the
extensive limits mentioned above. And in many cases the pagan cult
survived right down to modern times in more or less Christian
disguise.

Even where there were natural eminences, conspicuous in height or
contour, men were apt to add some artificial element, an altar, a
rock-cut throne, an image of the god, standing stones or pillars,
or an additional elevation shape of a mound of earth or stone. The
stupendous platform of the Temple at Jerusalem is exceptional for
there the rocky hill is literally encased in wrought stone, only
its utmost apex, the rock El Sakhra, appearing above the pavement;
though the same sort of thing has been done elsewhere, as at
Baalbec in Syria. At Pergamus and Corinth, though the mountain was
in each case quite covered, it was by building a city with its
streets and houses, right up to the sanctuary crowned summit.

The very earliest form of architectural effort, if indeed it may so
be called, would seem to have been the cairn and the barrow, mounds
respectively of stones and earth, with more elaborate forms
combining the character of each, as where the heap of earth was
ringed or outlined at the base by stones, or where stones were
piled over a core of earth. The purpose of many of these mounds is
by no means clear, as the so-called egg and serpent mounds, and
those in the form of crescents and other figures, but it is safe to
say that by far the greater number are sepulchral in character even
if secondarily serving as places for the performance of sacred
dances and other rites. The custom of interment in barrows survived
in the north of Europe right into the historic period.

The famous mausoleum erected by Queen Artemisia as the tomb of her
husband, the King of Caria, appears to have been in form a tumulus
of wrought stone elaborately adorned with sculptures, and we may
guess that from the same germ sprang the pyramids of Egypt, all of
which, with the mysterious exception of the greatest of them all,
were tombs. But the primitive connection between the tomb and the
sanctuary is so intimate that it is impossible to separate them.
Where a king or hero was buried there normally arose a cult, and
where there was a sacred place a legend of a burial very frequently
arose. So strong was this association that even in an ethical
religion like Buddhism the tope or stupa, which is essentially a
conical mound of solid masonry, always contains a small enclosed
chamber or cavity in which some sacred relic, the hair or bones of
some saint, are deposited.

The two countries where the use of elaborately built pyramidal
structures as places of sacrifice and worship are about as far
apart and as disconnected as they could well be, Mexico and
Mesopotamia. The tower temples of Babylonia have been explained as
an instance of religious conservatism. The race that built them is
supposed to have come down to the flat and fertile plains "between
the rivers" from the north, where worship at mountain shrines was
a marked feature of the various cults. As in their new home there
were no hills they built artificial ones to serve instead. The
earliest Chinese culture is supposed by some to have been derived
from Mesopotamia, or to have been influenced by it, and in China we
do find certain traces of the use of artificial mounds as temples.
The Temple of Heaven and Earth at Pekin for instance, where the
Emperor performed certain rites upon which the prosperity of the
whole country was supposed to depend, especially of its
agriculture, is essentially, although considerably disguised, a
circular mound open to the sky with very elaborate approaches.

If, as many have thought, the origin of the native civilizations of
America derived in part from China and Japan it might be supposed
that this particular feature was also borrowed. On the other hand
it is just as probable that it was an entirely indigenous
development, springing from the more primitive earth mound, such as
those which have been found in such numbers in the middle-west of
this country. These again, though it may be no more than a
coincidence, are most frequent on flat level plains far from any
prominent natural eminence.

Both the Tower of Babel and the pyramid appear in many old Masonic
designs, in both cases being apparently derived in the first
instance from allusions in the old MS. Constitutions. The two
pillars are there said to have been set up by the children of Seth
upon which to inscribe their scientific discoveries, especially in
geometry, so that they might be preserved, and were naturally
equated with the two pillars of the porch of Solomon's Temple. This
story was undoubtedly derived from Josephus, who said that one of
them was still standing in his own day. It has been conjectured
that this was an allusion to the great pyramid of Egypt. The
"Legend of the Craft" then referred to the Towel of Babel as the
place and occasion for the first organizing of the Mason's craft.
The representation of these structures in Masonic designs was
perhaps at first only a mnemonic symbol for these details in the
traditional story.

Although a great deal has been written about the pyramids and the
Temple, there still seems to be room for a comprehensive treatment
of this subject of the sanctity of high places.

