The first court, which encompassed the temple and the other courts, was called the court of the Gentiles; because Gentiles were allowed to come into it, but no farther. It was enclosed with a wall, twenty cubits high, on the top of which were chambers, or galleries, supported by the wall on the outer side, and by rows of columns on the inside; as the sides of the Royal Exchange, or the Piazzas in Covent Garden are. These piazzas of the temple are called oroa by Josephus, and in the New Testament; which we translate porches, though not very properly, for the English word porch conveys a very different idea from the Greek word σroa, which is better rendered piazza. That on the east side was called Solomon's piazza (see John x. 23; Acts iii. 11), because it stood upon a vast terrace, which he built up from the valley beneath, four hundred cubits high, in order to enlarge the area on the top of the mountain, and make it equal to the plan of his intended building. As this terrace was the only work of Solomon's remaining in Herod's temple, the piazza, that stood upon it, still retained the name of the former prince.

Of the same kind with these piazzas were doubtless the five Toa, which surrounded the pool of Bethesda; John v, 2. The pool was probably a pentagon, and the piazzas round it were designed to shelter from the weather the multitude of diseased persons who lay waiting for a cure by the miraculous virtue of those waters.

Within this outward great court was a less court, of an oblong, rectangular figure, near to the west end of which the temple stood. Into this court none but Israelites might enter. It was also surrounded with a wall, and adorned with piazzas, in the manner of the great court. The rabbies speak of two walls, and a space between them of ten cubits broad, which they call the chel, that parted the court of the Israelites from the court of the Gentiles. This is what they understand by the word in the Lamentations of Jeremiah, chap. ii. 8; "He made the chel and the wall to lament; they languished together."* But however that be, the wall that divided be

Vid. Maimon. de Edificio Templi, cap. vii. sect. iii. p. 39, Crenii Fasciculi Sexti. There is, however, a mistake in the translation; instead of

tween the court of the Gentiles and the court of the Israelites is evidently alluded to in the following passage of St. Paul: "But now in Christ Jesus, ye, who sometime were afar off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ: for he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us," Eph. ii. 13, 14: which expresses the union of the Jews and Gentiles in one church by Jesus Christ.

In the outer court was probably kept the market of beasts for sacrifice, which is mentioned by St. John, chap. ii. 14; and there likewise were the money-changers, which he also speaks of, who for a small gratuity furnished people, in exchange for other coin, with half shekels, for payment of the annual tribute which every Israelite was to give into the sacred treasury.

The court of the Israelites was divided into two parts. The first, entering at the east end, was called the court of the women, because they were allowed to come no nearer the temple than that court. Of this, indeed, we have no account in Scripture, except it be the same that was called, in Jehoshaphat's time, the new court; 2 Chron. xx. 5. There seem to have been but two courts originally belonging to Solomon's temple; one called "the court of the priests;" the other, "the great court," chap. iv. 9; and we read that "Manasseh built altars for all the hosts of heaven, in the two courts of the house of the Lord;" chap. xxxiii. 5. In the great, or outward court, devout Gentiles were allowed to pay their devotion to the God of Israel; and in the court of the priests, or the inner court, the priests and other Israelites worshipped. And as in those times there seems to have been no other distinction of courts but these two, the setting the women at a greater distance from the temple, and from the special tokens of God's presence, than the men, must have been the contrivance of some later ages, without any divine institution, that we find, to support it.

In this court of the women there was placed one chest, or

being altidudine, in height ten cubits, it should be latitudine, in breadth. Vid. Mishn. tit. Middoth. cap. ii. sect. iii. L'Empereur, not. 3, in loc. tom. v. p. 326, Surenhus.

more, the Jews say eleven, for receiving the voluntary contributions of the people toward defraying the charges of public worship: such as providing the public sacrifices, wood for the altar, salt, and other necessaries. That part of the area where these chests were placed, was the yakopvλakiov, or treasury, mentioned by St. Mark, chap. xii. 41. And perhaps the whole court, or at least the piazza on one side and the chambers over it, in which the sacred stores were kept, was from hence called by the same name; as the following passage of St. John seems to imply: "These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple;" John viii. 20.

From the court of the women, which was on higher ground than the court of the Gentiles, they ascended by fifteen steps into the inner court, in which the temple and altar stood. Into this court, not only the priests, but all male Israelites might enter. Nevertheless, in this court there was a distinction made in Herod's temple, of which we read nothing in Solomon's, between the court of the priests and that of the people. The court of the priests was nothing but an inclosure of a rail or wall of one cubit high, round about the altar, at a convenient distance from it, to which the people were to bring their offerings and sacrifices; but none beside the priests were allowed to come within that enclosure.

From hence probably the Papists have taken the hint of railing in their altars.

Herod began to build the temple about sixteen years before the birth of Christ, and so far completed it in nine years and a half, that it was fit for divine service. In all which time, the Jews say, it never rained in the day time, but only. in the night, that the sacred building might not be retarded. However, the outbuildings of the courts were not finished till several years after our Saviour's death; so that when he was about thirty years old, the temple had been forty-six in building: which is the meaning of this passage in the evangelist John: "Forty and six years was," wкodoμnin, which should rather be rendered, hath been, "this temple in building;" chap. ii. 20.

The external glory of this latter temple consisted not only

in the opulence and magnificence of the building, but in the rich gifts, avanuara, with which it was adorned, and which excited the admiration of those who beheld them; Luke xxi. 5. The hanging up of avanuara, or consecrated gifts, was common in most of the ancient temples; as we find it particularly was in the temple at Jerusalem; where, among the rest, was a golden table given by Pompey, and several golden vines of exquisite workmanship, and of an immense size, with clusters, saith Josephus, avèpounkie, as tall as a man.*

This magnificent temple was at length, through the righteous judgment of God on that wicked and abandoned nation, who had literally turned it into a den of thieves, utterly destroyed by the Romans, on the same month, and on the same day of the month, on which Solomon's temple was destroyed by the Babylonians.+

Joseph. de Bell. Judaic. lib. v. cap. v. sect. iv. p. 333, edit. Haverc. + On this subject may be consulted Lightfoot's Description of the Temple, and Capel's Templi Hierosolymitani triplex delineatio ex Villalpando, Josepho, Maimonide et Talmude, prefixed to Walton's Polyglot.

CHAPTER II.

THE SYNAGOGUES, SCHOOLS, AND HOUSES OF

PRAYER.

THE term synagogue, primarily signifying an assembly, came, like the word church, to be applied to places in which any assemblies, especially those for the worship of God, met, or were convened. The Jews use it in the primary sense, when they speak of the great synagogue; meaning the court of seventy elders, which they pretend to have been instituted originally by Moses, and the members of which they afterward increased to one hundred and twenty.

We are now to treat of synagogues, chiefly in the latter sense; namely, as denoting places of worship. And thus they were a kind of chapels of ease to the temple, and originally intended for the convenience of such as lived too remote statedly to attend the public worship there. But in the latter ages of the Jewish state, synagogues were multiplied far beyond what such convenience required. If we may believe the rabbies, there were no less than four hundred and eighty, or, according to others, four hundred and sixty,* of them in Jerusalem, where the temple stood. So great a number indeed exceeds all reasonable belief. Nevertheless, it is easy to imagine, that as the erecting synagogues came to be considered as a very meritorious work of piety (see Luke vii. 4, 5), the number might soon be increased, by the superstition of religious zealots, beyond all necessity or convenience.

The almost profound silence of the Old Testament concerning synagogues hath induced several learned men to con

Gemar. Hierosol. tit. Megill. cap. iii. fol. 73, col. 4, and tit. Cethuboth, cap. xiii. fol. 35, col. 3. Vid. Selden. Prolegom. in librum de Successionibus in Bona Defunctorum, p. 15, 16, apud Opera, vol. ii. tom. i. Or Lightfoot, Centur. Chorograph. Matt. xxvi.