‘All those things,’ says Rabbi Manasseh Ben Israel, one of their most learned commentators, ‘which are esteemed holy in the presence of God, or idea of man, may not be imitated in any known form or shape, although made without the intention of adoring them, so as to preclude the possibility of their being worshipped or deified hereafter. Thus the figure of the divine chariot, which Ezekiel saw, may not be made, nor the likeness of angels of any degree, nor of man, for these creatures are all superior from being made in the image of God.’ ... The prohibition is further applied by him to everything appertaining to the holy temple, and no house or palace could be built of its size or proportions. Poetry and music were exempt from this enactment. The importance and influence of the social and religious condition on the development of art may best be studied in the Jews. They had no great architects, sculptors or painters, no inventors, no philosophers in natural science, but many excellent poets, theologians, cabalists, necromancers, philologists and composers. In our times, however, influenced by the vivifying spirit of Christianity, they count amongst themselves, in addition to an inordinate number of picture-dealers, some creditable painters. They possessed legitimately only _one_ temple. Their first temple was a portable tent. The second was almost entirely of cedar-wood, richly provided with metallic ornaments, made by artists from Tyre and Sidon. They possessed one palace, that of Solomon. Babylonian or Assyrian architecture was probably reflected in this, and we may thus form a dim idea of what Solomon’s palace must have been. First the temple, then the palace was constructed. The fact that the first temple was a mere tent, shows at once the nomadic character of the Jews, at a period when the Egyptians had possessed their architectural marvels for thousands of years. To the student of history, architecture is a sure measure of the degree of artistic and social development of a nation. We may boldly say, show us the plans of the houses, palaces, and temples of any nation, and we can determine the degree of its civilisation; we can do even more, we can read its character and religious fervour in these wood, brick, or stone records. That the Jews, having been compelled to witness all the misery and superstitious dulness which the Egyptian hierarchy and theocracy produced, should have detested architecture, and looked upon sculpture or any stone and brick as a curse to humanity, was quite natural; and that, once escaped from the bondage of Egypt, they should have hated any monumental, architectural, or artistic sculptural attempt, is equally obvious.