Temple
The temple occupied a most important position. It received income from its estates, from tithes and other fixed dues, as well as from the sacrifices (a customary share) and other offerings of the faithful—vast amounts of all sorts of naturalia, besides money and permanent gifts. The larger temples had many officials and servants.
Originally, perhaps, each town clustered round one temple, and each head of family had a right to minister there and share its receipts. As the city grew, the right to so many days a year at one shrine (or its gate) descended within certain families and became a kind of property that could be pledged, rented or shared within the family, but not alienated. Despite all these demands, the temples became great granaries and storehouses and were also the city archives. The temple had its responsibilities. If a citizen was captured by the enemy and could not ransom himself, the temple of his city must do so. To the temple came the poor farmer to borrow seed, grain, or supplies for harvesters, etc.—advances that he repaid without interest.
The king's power over the temple was not proprietary, but administrative. He might borrow from it, but repaid like other borrowers. The tithe seems to have been considered the rent due to the god for his land. It is not clear that all lands paid tithe; perhaps only such as once had a special connection with the temple.
The Code deals with a class of persons devoted to the service of a god, as vestals or hierodules. The vestals were vowed to chastity, lived together in a great nunnery, were forbidden to enter a tavern, and, together with other votaries, had many privileges.
Read more about this topic: Babylonian Law
Famous quotes containing the word temple:
“After Voltaire: envy is chained to the portico of the temple of glory and can neither enter nor leave.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The divinity in man is the true vestal fire of the temple which is never permitted to go out, but burns as steadily and with as pure a flame on the obscure provincial altar as in Numas temple at Rome.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“The heathen are come into thine inheritance,
And thy temple have they defiled.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)