This architecture, anterior to the Christian era, may be broadly divided into three great periods, during which it was successively practiced by three peoples:  the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans.  Then intervened the Dark Ages, and a new art arose, the Gothic, which was a flowering out in stone of the spirit of Christianity.  This was in turn succeeded by the Renaissance, the impulse of which remains to-day unexhausted.  In each of these architectures the peculiar genius of a people and of a period attained to a beautiful, complete and coherent utterance, and notwithstanding the considerable intervals of time which sometimes separated them they succeeded one another logically and inevitably, and each was related to the one which preceded and which followed it in a particular and intimate manner.

The power and wisdom of ancient Egypt was vested in its priesthood, which was composed of individuals exceptionally qualified by birth and training for their high office, tried by the severest ordeals and bound by the most solemn oaths.  The priests were honored and privileged above all other men, and spent their lives dwelling apart from the multitude in vast and magnificent temples, dedicating themselves to the study and practice of religion, philosophy, science and art—­subjects then intimately related, not widely separated as they are now.  These men were the architects of ancient Egypt:  theirs the minds which directed the hands that built those time-defying monuments.

The rites that the priests practiced centered about what are known as the Lesser and the Greater Mysteries.  These consisted of representations by means of symbol and allegory, under conditions and amid surroundings the most awe-inspiring, of those great truths concerning man’s nature, origin and destiny of which the priests—­in reality a brotherhood of initiates and their pupils—­were the custodians.  These ceremonies were made the occasion for the initiation of neophytes into the order, and the advancement of the already initiated into its successive degrees.  For the practice of such rites, and others designed to impress not the elect but the multitude, the great temples of Egypt were constructed.  Everything about them was calculated to induce a deep seriousness of mind, and to inspire feelings of awe, dread and even terror, so as to test the candidate’s fortitude of soul to the utmost.

The avenue of approach to an Egyptian temple was flanked on both sides, sometimes for a mile or more, with great stone sphinxes—­that emblem of man’s dual nature, the god emerging from the beast.  The entrance was through a single high doorway between two towering pylons, presenting a vast surface sculptured and painted over with many strange and enigmatic figures, and flanked by aspiring obelisks and seated colossi with faces austere and calm.  The large court thus entered was surrounded by high walls and colonnades, but was open to the sky.  Opposite the first doorway was another, admitting to a somewhat smaller enclosure, a forest of enormous carved and painted columns supporting a roof through the apertures of which sunshine gleamed or dim light filtered down.  Beyond this in turn were other courts and apartments culminating in some inmost sacred sanctuary.