Anglicans and Judaism: From Ceremony to Legalism

Abstract

The poem’ sion’ (1633) by George Herbert, part of his cycle The Temple’, encapsulates both the attraction and the danger of Old Testament Judaism:

Lord, with what glorie wast thou serv’d of old, When Solomons temple stood and flourished! Where most things were of purest gold; The wood was all embellished With flowers and carvings, mysticall and rare: All show’d the builders, crav’d the seers care. Yet all this glorie, all this pomp and state Did not affect thee much, was not thy aim; Something there was, that sow’d debate: Wherefore thou quitt’st thy ancient claim: And now thy Architecture meets with sinne; For all thy frame and fabrick is within.¹