At Jerusalem the Temple was built on Mt. Moriah, where the ark of the covenant rested after its return from Philistia,[458] and where David erected an altar to the Lord after the staying of the pestilence from Israel.[459] And it is supposed that this same Mt. Moriah was where Abraham offered a sacrifice to God on an altar he had built for the sacrifice of his son.[460] And this site of the Temple at Jerusalem is held sacred to-day, in view of its being deemed by multitudes a holy place from the beginning of the world.[461]
When Naaman the Syrian was healed of leprosy by Elisha, the prophet of Israel, he desired thenceforth to worship Jehovah in his Syrian home. To this end he asked of Elisha the gift of “two mules’ burden of earth” from Samaria, in order that he might on that sacred foundation erect in Syria an altar to Jehovah.[462]
In a prophecy of the Messiah as the foundation, or threshold, of a new temple, it was declared by the Lord: “Behold, I lay [or, I have laid] in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone of sure foundation.”[463] Again, it was the promise of God to the Israelites that they should be restorers of worship on former foundations. “They that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.”[464]
New Testament phraseology makes frequent reference to this same idea. “According to the grace which was given unto me, as a wise master-builder, I laid a foundation,” says Paul. “But let each man take heed how he buildeth thereon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus.”[465] The Christian saints of the “household of God,” as “living stones,”[466] are “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone; in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord.”[467]
Muhammadanism, which shows many survivals of primitive ideas and primitive customs, emphasizes the importance of the first foundation as the only foundation, in the traditions and legends of the holy places of its most sacred city. Every _masjid_, or “place of prostration,” in that vicinity is on a site counted holy long centuries before the days of the Prophet of Islam.