Emily Dickinson Lexicon

TEM'PLE, n.¹ [Fr., L. templum; It. tempio; Sp. templo; W. temyl, temple, that is extended, a seat; temlu, to form a seat, expanse or temple; Gaelic, teampul.]

1. A public edifice erected in honor of some deity. Among pagans, a building erected to some pretended deity, and in which the people assembled to worship. Originally, temples were open places, as the Stonehenge in England. In Rome, some of the temples were open, and called sacella; others were roofed, and called ædes. The most celebrated of the ancient pagan temples were that of Belus in Babylon, that of Vulcan at Memphis, that of Jupiter at Thebes, that of Diana at Ephesus, that of Apollo in Miletus, that of Jupiter Olympius in Athens, and that of Apollo at Delphi. The most celebrated and magnificent temple erected to the true God, was that built by Solomon in Jerusalem. In Scripture, the tabernacle is sometimes called by this name. 1 Sam. i. – iii.
2. A church; an edifice erected among Christians as a place of public worship. Can he whose life is a perpetual insult to the authority of God, enter with any pleasure a temple consecrated to devotion and sanctified by prayer? Buckminster.
3. A place in which the divine presence specially resides; the church as a collective body. Eph. ii.
4. In England, the Temples are two inns of court, thus called because anciently the dwellings of the knights Templars. They are called the Inner and the Middle Temple.