the Jewish historian assures us, that the temple was seen in its fullest grandeur and sublimity; for the light, falling on the vast roofs, which were sheeted and spiked with pure gold, brightly polished, and upon the turrets and pinnacles which glittered with the same precious metal, was reflected to the eye of the gazer with an insupportable brilliancy, from the million bright surfaces and shining points which covered it. Here, then, sat Jesus and his four adoring chosen ones, with this splendid sight before them crowning the mountain, now made doubly dazzling by contrast with the deep gloom of the dark glen below, which separated them from it. There it was, that, with all this brightness and glory and beauty before them, Jesus solemnly foretold in detail the awful, total ruin which was to sweep it all away, within the short lives of those who heard him. Well might such words sink deep into their hearts,—words coming from lips whose perfect and divine truth they could not doubt, though the things now foretold must have gone wofully against all the dreams of glory, in which they had made that sacred pile the scene of the future triumphs of the faith and followers of Christ. This sublime prophecy, which need not here be repeated or descanted upon, is given at great length by all the first three evangelists, and is found in Matthew xxiv. Mark xiii. and Luke xxi.
The view of the temple.—I can find no description by any writer, ancient or modern,
which gives so clear an account of the original shape of Mount Moriah, and of the
modifications it underwent to fit it to support the temple, as that given by Josephus.
(Jew. War, book V. chap. v.) In speaking of the original founding of the temple by
Solomon, (Ant. book VIII. chap. iii. sec. 2,) he says, "The king laid the foundations
of the temple in the very depths, (at the bottom of the descent,) using stones of a
firm structure, and able to hold out against the attacks of time, so that growing into a
union, as it were, with the ground, they might be the basis and support of the pile that
was to be reared above, and through their strength below, easily bear the vast mass
of the great superstructure, and the immense weight of ornament also; for the weight
of those things which were contrived for beauty and magnificence was not less than
that of the materials which contributed to the highth and lateral dimension." In the
full description which he afterwards gives in the place first quoted, of the later temple
as perfected by Herod, which is the building to which the account in the text refers,
he enters more fully into the mode of shaping the ground to the temple. "The
temple was founded upon a steep hill, but in the first beginning of the structure there
was scarcely flat ground enough on the top for the sanctuary and the altar, for it was
abrupt and precipitous all around. And king Solomon, when he built the sanctuary,
having walled it out on the eastern side, ([Greek: ekteichisantos], that is, 'having built out a
wall on that side' for a terrace,) then reared upon the terraced earth a colonnade;
but on the other sides the sanctuary was naked,—(that is, the wall was unsupported
and unornamented by colonnades as it was on the east.) But in the course of ages, the
people all the while beating down the terraced earth with their footsteps, the hill thus
growing flat, was made broader on the top; and having taken down the wall on the
north, they gained considerable ground which was afterwards inclosed within the
outer court of the temple. Finally, having walled the hill entirely around with three
terraces, and having advanced the work far beyond any hope that could have been
reasonably entertained at first, spending on it long ages, and all the sacred treasures
accumulated from the offerings sent to God from the ends of the world, they reared
