“Against such intrusion it is very likely the priesthood rose and protested, and, before even the foundations were laid, he had to give up, at least for the time, the whole of the southeast hall, and a part of the southwest wing.” This conclusion is the result of recent investigation by careful scholars, and it is in accordance with the ascertained fact that in primitive thought an original foundation for a temple or shrine is counted sacred for all time as the foundation there for such a place of worship, not to be swept away or ignored in any rebuilding or new building.[451]
When from any reason, in early Europe, an ancient shrine must be removed from its primitive foundation, it was deemed desirable to remove to the new site a portion of the foundation itself, as well as the sanctuary or altar above that foundation. Thus, for example, when Thorolf of Norway, who had charge of the temple of Thor in Mostur, removed to Iceland in A.D. 833, he took with him the temple posts and furniture “and the very earth on which the altar of that idol had been erected.” And when he landed in Iceland, Thorolf built a new temple of Thor, with an altar on the foundation which he had brought from the earlier shrine. A thousand years after this the foundation-site of that second temple was still pointed out near Hofstad, in Iceland.[452]
Bible language and narrative abound with incidental evidence of the commonness of this primitive idea. When Jacob, on his way to Haran, came to Beth-el–a House of God–he lighted on “the place” (_hammaqâm_) where,[453] long before, his ancestor Abraham had worshiped, as he came from Egypt by way of the Negeb.[454] And yet earlier Abraham himself, as he came a pilgrim from Haran and Ur, had there “builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord.”[455] And if that place were already known as Beth-el it must have been a sanctuary before Abraham’s day.
Moses, in the wilderness of Sinai, is told that the ground whereon he stands is “holy ground,” and that he is to bring the Hebrews out of Egypt to worship God in that mountain.[456] And the Egyptian records give reason for supposing that that region of Mt. Sinai, perhaps of the moon-god “Sin,” was known as holy ground, and as the “land of God,” or of the gods, before the days of Moses.[457]