Temple and Church

In a 1959 article “Christian Envy of the Temple,” H. Nibley points out that the early Christians derived their liturgical theology from the temple:

“They boast that the Church possesses all the physical properties of the Temple-the oil, the myrrh, the altar, the incense, hymns, priestly robes, etc., everything, in fact, but the Temple itself, for ‘in the place of the tangible Temple we behold the spiritual.’ Strange, that the solid walls should vanish and all the rest remain! Even the unleavened bread was retained in the West as an acknowledged heritage of the Temple, in spite of the much more appropriate spiritual symbolism of the leavened bread preferred by the Eastern churches, ‘ . . . for we do not reject all the practices of the Old Law,’ says Rupert in explaining this, ‘We still offer incense daily, anoint the holy oil, have bells in the place of ancient trumpets, and many suchlike things.’ So we find “veils of the Temple” in Christian churches, inner shrines called tabernacles, awesome Holies of Holies entered only by prince and patriarch for the Year-rite, buildings and altars orientated like synagogues-which imitated the Temple in that respect, dedication rites faithfully reproducing those of Solomon’s Temple, and a body of hymns ‘so obviously sung in the Temple that there is no need for any words to prove this.’ In ritual texts priests are regularly referred to as Levites, and the Bishop, though his office and title derive from the Synagogue and not the Temple, is equated with Aaron the high priest. Rabanus Maurus leaves us in no doubt of what his people were thinking when they hailed their fine church with templum Domini, templum Domini, templum Domini est! ”