temple, edifice or sometimes merely an enclosed area dedicated to the worship of a deity and the enshrinement of holy objects connected with such worship. The temple has been employed in most of the world's religions. Although remains of Egyptian temples of c.2000 B.C. show well-defined architectural forms, it seems likely that temples were hewed in living rock at a still earlier age: the cave temples of Egypt, India, China, and the Mediterranean basin may be viewed as later developments of such primitive shrines.

Egyptian Temples

In Egypt in the New Kingdom impressive rock temples were hewed from cliffsides, the finest being the great temple of Abu-Simbel constructed by Ramses II. In the developed structural temples of Egypt a doorway, flanked by monumental towers or pylons, led to an unroofed open court, generally surrounded on three sides by a colonnaded passage. Beyond the court lay the majestic hypostyle hall and a variety of chambers preceding and surrounding the holy of holies. From the temple entrance to this innermost sanctuary the various units diminished progressively in size and height, while the direct outside light was also reduced. The typical temple later accumulated additional pylons, courts, and rooms, the entire group being enclosed by a massive wall. Only monarchs and priests had access to the chambers beyond the hypostyle hall. The New Kingdom was the most active period of temple construction, although the grandest temple, that of Amon at Al Karnak, was begun much earlier.

Babylonian and Assyrian Temples

In the ancient Babylonian and Assyrian periods of W Asia the temple, or ziggurat, was a square pyramidal structure about 300 ft (90 m) high built up in successive, inclined terraces, sometimes as many as seven; with accessory buildings it was enclosed by walls. At its summit was a chamber that served both as a shrine and for astronomical observations. Glazed colored bricks faced the walls.

Jewish Temples

The temple of Solomon at Jerusalem, the only known monumental structure of the ancient Hebrews, consisted, according to biblical descriptions, of entrance pylons, courts, and a naos, a large rectangular chamber, giving entrance to the holy of holies, which housed the Ark of the Covenant. Its several destructions and reconstructions (one by Herod in 20 B.C.) have rendered unrecognizable any remains of the original edifice. The workmanship, characteristically Phoenician, was of stone, timber, and metal. The temple of Herod, to which Jesus went, was destroyed A.D. 70; its ruins have symbolized to the Jews their dispersion.

Greek Temples

The Dorian immigration (before 1000 B.C.) was a prelude to the building of Greek temples, at first made of timber and sun-dried brick. The superb stone and marble buildings on a defined floor plan were achieved in the middle of the 6th cent. B.C., although the most perfect examples, like the Parthenon (5th cent. B.C.), came later. The Greek temple customarily stood in a temenos, or sacred enclosure, along with accessory shrines, colonnades, and buildings housing the temple treasures. It was built not as a place for assembled worship but as the dwelling for the deity, whose colossal sculptured representation was placed in the naos, and illuminated by the daylight entering through the tall entrance portal. In larger temples, to support the roof lintels, two interior rows of columns divided the naos into nave and side aisles.

Roman Temples

The Roman temple, while based upon the Greek type, retained elements from Etruscan architecture, as in its deep front portico and its elevation upon a high base, or podium, whose wings extended forward to flank the broad entrance steps. The Maison Carrée at Nǐmes, France (1st cent. B.C.), the best-preserved Roman temple, is the common pseudoperipteral type, with engaged columns or pilasters attached to its walls. Unlike the long narrow Greek naos, the Roman cella was nearly square in plan. Of the polygonal and circular temples the circular pantheon at Rome (2d cent. A.D.) with its magnificent dome is the most remarkable. Many temples, particularly those of the Eastern colonies, as at Baalbek in Syria, had magnificent settings of entrance courts enclosed by colonnades.

Indian Temples

In India the most ancient remaining temples are the rock-hewed monuments of the Buddhist period (c.255 B.C.-c.A.D. 300); important groups exist in W India, east of Mumbai. The typical interior is a vast cave divided by lavishly sculptured rock piers into nave and aisles; the sculptured facade, hewed from the cliff face, has a single huge opening to admit light. The principal Indian temples are gradual accretions around a sacred site, forming a religious center comprising shrines, cells for priests, and accommodations for pilgrims. The expression of symbolism is of paramount importance in both structure and ornaments.

Far Eastern Temples

In China the characteristic temple differs from the form of a dwelling only in its size and richness. Besides the temple a Buddhist monastery includes a relic shrine, a pagoda, a library, and quarters for the monks. In Japan the temple harmonizes with the picturesque landscape in which it is set, with architectural emphasis on an unsymmetrical grouping of torii (sacred gateways), shrines, pagodas, and terraces.

Further Reading

See also Greek architecture; Roman architecture; Indian art and architecture; Chinese architecture; Japanese architecture; pre-Columbian art and architecture.

rock temple: see temple.

Temple, the, district of the City of London, England. The name refers to two of the four Inns of Court, the Middle Temple and the Inner Temple. The Temple was originally the English seat of the famous order of Knights Templars. The Inner Temple hall and library and the Temple Church—a Norman round church dedicated in 1185—have been restored in their original styles following severe damage in World War II. The Temple Bar is the gate designed by Christopher Wren c.1672 on the site of the bar or chain that marked one of the entrances to the City of London. The Bar was removed in 1878 and is now in Theobalds Park near Waltham; there is a monument on the old London site, at the junction of Fleet St. and the Strand. Here the lord mayor officially receives personages from outside the City. In the 17th and 18th cent. heads of traitors were displayed there.

Temple, William, 1881-1944, archbishop of York (1929-42) and archbishop of Canterbury (1942-44); son of Frederick Temple. At Balliol College, Oxford, he became (1904) president of the Oxford Union. He was fellow and lecturer in philosophy (1904-10) at Queen's College, Oxford, and in 1909 was ordained a priest. Temple served as headmaster (1910-14) of Repton School and as rector (1914-17) of St. James's, Piccadilly. He joined the Life and Liberty Movement, which strove for an autonomous Church of England; the goal was achieved in part by the Enabling Act of 1919. He was canon (1919-21) of Westminster and bishop (1921-29) of Manchester. He was made archbishop of York in 1929, and in 1942 he became archbishop of Canterbury. Keenly interested in social and economic reform, he was a friend of labor and the first president (1908-24) of the Workers' Educational Association. His leadership in the movement to form a world council of churches was outstanding. Among his numerous publications are Christianity and the State (1928), Nature, Man, and God (1934), and The Church Looks Forward (1944).

Temple, Sir William, 1628-99, English diplomat and author. He was married in 1655 to Dorothy Osborne. They settled in Ireland, and in 1661 Temple entered the Irish parliament. He moved (1663) to England, served on various diplomatic missions, and was made a baronet (1666). In 1668 he negotiated with great skill and speed a triple alliance with the Netherlands and Sweden to check the power of France. He became (1668) ambassador to The Hague but was secretly recalled (1670) after Charles II had concluded the secret Treaty of Dover with Louis XIV. He was reappointed (1674) at the conclusion of the unpopular English-Dutch war and negotiated the marriage (1677) of William of Orange to Princess Mary of England. Temple several times refused to become secretary of state, but he did promote a reorganization (1679) of the privy council. After this proved a failure, he retired (1681) to his estate, Moor Park, in Surrey, and devoted his time to writing. He produced a number of political works and essays. Jonathan Swift, who was Temple's secretary for various periods in the 1690s, helped prepare his letters (1700-1703) and memoirs for publication (parts of both had earlier unauthorized publication). Temple's essay, Of Ancient and Modern Learning (1690), precipitated the famous "ancients versus moderns" controversy, which caused Swift to write The Battle of the Books (1697). Temple's style in his personal essays was long considered a model of balanced and polished prose.

Temple, Richard Grenville-Temple, Earl, 1711-79, British statesman; elder brother of George Grenville and brother-in-law of William Pitt, 1st earl of Chatham. He succeeded to his mother's peerage in 1752. He was closer to Pitt than to his brother and, as first lord of the admiralty (1756-57) in the Pitt-Devonshire ministry and lord privy seal (1757-61) under Pitt and the duke of Newcastle, gave strong backing to Pitt's war policy. He also joined Pitt in vigorous opposition to Grenville's ministry (1763-65), financing John Wilkes in his attacks upon the government. However, when Pitt (by then Lord Chatham) formed another ministry in 1766, Temple quarreled with him and allied himself with Grenville. After Grenville's death (1770) he was reconciled with Chatham.

Temple, Frederick, 1821-1902, Anglican prelate, archbishop of Canterbury, b. Santa Maura, one of the Ionian Islands. A fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, he was ordained a priest in 1847. He was an advocate of educational reform and schooling for the poor, and from 1848 to 1857 he worked in the government education dept. He was appointed headmaster of Rugby in 1857. An essay published in the controversial Essays and Reviews (1860) awakened suspicions that Temple leaned toward radicalism. When Gladstone nominated him (1869) to the bishopric of Exeter there was much protest. However, he was consecrated in that year and in 1885 was made bishop of London. In his later years he was often in conflict with the High Church party. In 1896 he was created archbishop of Canterbury, and a year later he and the archbishop of York issued the official rebuttal to the papal encyclical that denied the validity of Anglican orders. His works include The Relations Between Religion and Science (1885).

Temple of Heaven: see Chinese architecture.

Temple University, mainly in Philadelphia, Pa.; coeducational; founded 1884 by Russell H. Conwell, chartered 1888 as a college, became a university 1907. In 1965 the university became a state-related institution. It has a well-known medical school and a campus in Rome, Italy. Esther Boyer College of Music and Tyler School of Art are affiliated.

Temple City, residential suburban city (1990 pop. 31,100), Los Angeles co., S Calif.; settled 1827, inc. 1960. The city has light manufacturing and service businesses.

Temple, city (1990 pop. 46,109), Bell co., central Tex.; inc. 1882. In a rich blackland region, Temple has grain and textile mills, railroad shops, and plants that make computer printers and terminals, furniture, and school and office supplies. Several state and federal agencies have agricultural research centers there. A campuse of the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine is in the city.

People's Temple: see Jones, Jim.

Palmerston, Henry John Temple, 3d Viscount, 1784-1865, British statesman. His viscountcy, to which he succeeded in 1802, was in the Irish peerage and therefore did not prevent him from entering the House of Commons in 1807. Initially a Tory, he served (1809-28) as secretary of war, but he differed with his party over his advocacy of parliamentary reform and joined (1830) the Whig government of the 2d Earl Grey as foreign minister. A firm believer in liberal constitutionalism, Palmerston was instrumental in securing the independence of Belgium (1830-31), and in 1834 he formed a quadruple alliance with France, Spain, and Portugal to help the Iberian countries put down rebellions aimed at restoring absolutist rule. He also organized the joint intervention with Russia, Austria, Prussia, and a reluctant France to prevent the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire as a result of the revolt of Muhammad Ali of Egypt (1839-41). He was in opposition during Sir Robert Peel's administration (1841-46) but returned to the foreign office under Lord John Russell. Palmerston was an impulsive man who often acted without consultation; during his second period as foreign secretary he succeeded in offending not only foreign powers but also his colleagues and Queen Victoria. He quarreled with France in the affair of the Spanish Marriages (1846; see Isabella II), gave encouragement to the European revolutionaries of 1848, and in 1850 caused widespread outrage by blockading Greece in order to secure compensation for Don Pacifico, a Portuguese merchant claiming British citizenship, whose house in Athens had been destroyed in a riot. Finally his unofficial and unauthorized approval of the coup in France by Napoleon III led to his dismissal in 1851. Nevertheless he became home secretary in 1852 and in 1855 succeeded the 4th earl of Aberdeen as prime minister. His vigorous prosecution of the Crimean War increased his already great popularity, as did the effective suppression of the Indian Mutiny, and although he lost office in 1858, he returned to power in 1859 and remained prime minister until his death. His attitude greatly facilitated the progress of the Italian Risorgimento and the proclamation (1861) of the kingdom of Italy, but his attempt (1864) to help the Danes in the Schleswig-Holstein question was unsuccessful. He maintained British neutrality in the American Civil War, despite his sympathy for the South and despite the irritating Trent Affair. Palmerston was not much interested in internal affairs, but he did firmly oppose further parliamentary reform. His diplomacy, reckless and domineering though it frequently was, usually served to advance British prestige.

Middle Temple: see Inns of Court; Temple, the.

Inner Temple: see Inns of Court and Temple, the.

Hornaday, William Temple, 1854-1937, American naturalist, b. Plainfield, Ind. He was educated at Iowa State College (now Iowa State Univ.), continued his study of zoology and museology in Europe, and was chief taxidermist (1882-90) of the U.S. National Museum. As the first director (1896-1926) of the New York Zoological Park and as an author, Hornaday was a leader in wildlife conservation. His book Extermination of the American Bison (1887) helped to save the bison from extinction. His works also include the classic American Natural History (1904), books on wild animals, and Thirty Years' War for Wild Life (1931).

Grenville, George Nugent Temple, 1st marquess of Buckingham, 1753-1813, British statesman; second son of George Grenville. He sat in the House of Commons from 1774 until 1779, when he succeeded his uncle as 2d Earl Temple. While lord lieutenant of Ireland (1782-83) he worked for enactment of the Irish Judicature Act (1783), which furthered Irish legislative independence. In 1783 he was George III's agent in defeating the East India bill of Charles James Fox in the House of Lords. Created (1784) marquess of Buckingham, he served again as lord lieutenant of Ireland (1787-89). He resigned after being censured by the Irish Parliament for not sending to England its invitation to the prince of Wales (later George IV) to assume the regency.

Dufferin and Ava, Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st marquess of, 1826-1902, British diplomat. He served on numerous missions abroad, as governor-general of Canada (1872-78), ambassador to Russia (1879-81), ambassador to Turkey (1881-82), commissioner to Egypt (1882-83), viceroy of India (1884-88), ambassador to Italy (1888-91), and ambassador to France (1891-96). His administration in India saw the annexation (1886) of Myanmar and an improvement in relations with the Afghans.

Buckingham, George Nugent Temple Grenville, 1st marquess of: see Grenville, George Nugent Temple, 1st marquess of Buckingham.

Edifice constructed for the worship of a deity. Features commonly include a sanctuary and an altar. Ancient Egypt had two kinds of temple: mortuary temples for the cults of dead kings, with a chapel in which offerings were presented, and cult temples that held images of deities. The cult temple typically included a massive pylon entrance with a court leading to a hypostyle hall and, at the heart of the temple, a shrine for the cult image. Most Classical Greek temples were rectangular and built of marble or other stone on a low stylobate (stepped platform). A gable roof was supported by columns, with a portico at each end (amphiprostyle temple), a colonnade extending all around (peripteral temple), or a double line of columns all around (dipteral temple). An inner cella housed the image of a deity, and an altar stood outside the temple. Roman temples were profoundly influenced by Greek style, but the altar was inside the temple and the colonnade was often reduced to a row of engaged columns. Hindu temples vary regionally, but generally consist of a towering shrine and a columned hall surrounded by an elaborate wall. Buddhist temples range from half-buried sanctuaries with richly carved entrances to single carved towers or statues. The Chinese and Japanese Buddhist temple is typically a one-story building of richly carved, painted, or tiled timber constructed around an atrium used for worship, though towering pagodas were sometimes built as temples over a shrine. In the Americas, Inca and Mayan temples were constructed of stone, often richly carved; they were generally stair-stepped pyramids, with the shrine at the top. Seealso synagogue.

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Japanese Hōryū-ji

Buddhist complex near Nara, Japan, comprising the oldest known wood buildings in the world. The temple was founded by Prince Shōtoku in 607 during the Asuka period, destroyed by fire in 670, and reconstructed circa 680–708. It retains the chū-mon (middle gate) of the roofed cloister enclosing the rectangular temple precinct, a five-storied pagoda, and a kondō (main hall).

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