reverence my sanctuary," makes the same remark in relation to this custom.
On this subject Dr. Oliver observes, "Now, the act of going with naked
feet was always considered a token of humility and reverence; and the
priests, in the temple worship, always officiated with feet uncovered,
although it was frequently injurious to their health." [90]

Mede quotes Zago Zaba, an Ethiopian bishop, who was ambassador from David,
King of Abyssinia, to John III., of Portugal, as saying, "We are not
permitted to enter the church, except barefooted." [91]

The Mohammedans, when about to perform their devotions, always leave their
slippers at the door of the mosque. The Druids practised the same custom
whenever they celebrated their sacred rites; and the ancient Peruvians are
said always to have left their shoes at the porch when they entered the
magnificent temple consecrated to the worship of the sun.

Adam Clarke thinks that the custom of worshipping the Deity barefooted was
so general among all nations of antiquity, that he assigns it as one of
his thirteen proofs that the whole human race have been derived from one
family.[92]

A theory might be advanced as follows: The shoes, or sandals, were worn on
ordinary occasions as a protection from the defilement of the ground. To
continue to wear them, then, in a consecrated place, would be a tacit
insinuation that the ground there was equally polluted and capable of
producing defilement. But, as the very character of a holy and consecrated
spot precludes the idea of any sort of defilement or impurity, the
acknowledgment that such was the case was conveyed, symbolically, by
divesting the feet of all that protection from pollution and uncleanness
which would be necessary in unconsecrated places.