152 APPENDIX. 



import of the symbol caused the conviction and assurance that all sacred structures 

 ought, of necessity, to be constructed in its form. — {^Dudley on Symbolism, p. 43.) 



This conviction seems to have prevailed among the Hebrews : the " Ark of the 

 Covenant," in which were deposited the tables of the law, was essentially sym- 

 bolical in its form. The form of the Tabernacle in the wilderness, and of the 

 great temple on Mount Zion, we may infer, was regarded as a matter of importance, 

 from the specific directions given for their construction. And the primitive Chris- 

 tians, we are assured, were in a like manner influenced in the form of their sacred 

 edifices.* 



Vesta, in the later mythologies, was the igneous element personified ; her glo- 

 bular temple on the banks of the Tiber represented, we are told, the Orb of the 

 Earth, cherished and made prolific by the central fire. — {Maurice, Ind. Antq., Vol. 

 III., p. 130.) The reason for the obicular or oval form of her temple was recog- 

 nised in Ovid's day. He writes : 



" What now is roofed with brass, was then of straw, 

 And the slight osier formed the wattled wall. 

 This spot, that now the fane of Vesta bears, 

 The palace was of Numa, king unshorn. 

 'Tis said the form is now, as erst of old ; 

 And the true reason may be well approved : 

 Vesta and Earth dre one. A ceaseless fire 

 Burns in them both, and both alike pervades. 

 The earth, a globe supported on no prop, 

 Hangs, heavy weight, in all- subjected air." 



Ovid, Fast., Lib. VI., 261. 



Plutarch alludes, in similar terms, to the symbolical significance of the form of 

 this temple. " Numa built a temple of orbicular form, for the preservation of the 

 sacred fire; intending by ihe, fashion of the edifice to shadow out, not so much the 

 earth, or Vesta considered in that character, as the whole universe ; in the centre of 

 which the Pythagoreans placed fire, and which they called Vesta and Unity ."f 



* " In respect to the form and fashion of their churches, it was for the most part oblong, to keep (say 

 some, vide Constit. Apost., L. ii., C. 57) the better correspondence with the fashion of a ship ; the common 

 notion or metaphor by which the church was wont to be represented." — ( Cave's Prim. Christianity, p. 65.) 



f Plutarch, de Iside et Osiride. M. Kamee has well expressed this idea in his " Histoire Generale de 

 V Architecture," from which we translate the following passage : 



" Among all the people of antiquity, intimately connected with the idea of God, was that of the Earth 

 as his habitation, and Heaven as his eternal home. The universe, and especially the visible heavens, was 

 for this reason considered as a true Temple of the Divinit}', built by Himself, and was held as the primi- 

 tive Temple, to be taken as a model, as the type of all temples to be raised by the hand of man. It was, 

 therefore, considered unworthy of God and contrary to the idea held of Him, to erect sanctuaries to the 

 Supreme Being on the same plan as the houses which man built for himself as a shelter and protection 

 against the changes of the seasons. A habitation for God, it was thought, should resemble the Universe ; 

 and for that reason it would bear a divine character, and the Divinity would therein be, as it were, at 

 home. Hence the construction of temples was regarded, in all antiquity, as a religious or hieratic art, the 

 inventors and masters of which, at first, Avere the gods themselves." 



