The city of Jerusalem

by C. R. Conder

FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER V

[174] The Keft people, represented in an Egyptian tomb, were Phœnicians, according to the bilingual “Decree of Canopus,” and not Cretans. Their art is identical with that of Phœnicians, clearly of Semitic race in another painting. They were connected with islanders who were probably the inhabitants of Cyprus. The Pûrstau of a picture of the time of Rameses III. (about 1200 B. C.) have no connection with the Philistines, who came from Cappadocia, according to the LXX. The frescoes and tablets of the palace of Knossos in Crete are probably not older than about 500 (not 1500) B. C., and the “geometrical” pottery appears to be Phœnician. The evidence of the Amarna tablets, and of the Bible alike, shows that the Philistines were a Semitic race akin to the Babylonians. It is to be preferred to the fancies of Tacitus, who thought that the Jews must have come from Crete (“Hist.,” v. ii.), because the words Idæi (people of Mount Ida) and Ioudaioi (Jews) were similar. The Ionians are not noticed in any of the Amarna tablets.

[175] See Josephus (“Ant.,” XI. viii. 5). The high-priest’s name in 332 B. C. was Jaddua (Neh. xii. 22; “Ant.,” XI. vii. 2). The later rabbis incorrectly suppose him to have been Simon the Just (Tal. Bab., Yoma, 69, a; Megillah Taanith, ch. ix.).

[176] Josephus, “Ant.,” XII. i. 1. Ptolemy I. reigned from 323 to 285 B. C.

[177] “Ant.,” XII. ii. 1–15. Ptolemy II., 285–47 B. C.

[178] “Ant.,” XII. iii. 3, 4.

[179] Ibid., XII. iv. 1.

[180] 1 Macc. i. 14.

[181] “Ant.,” XII. iv. 6, 11. Seleucus IV., 187–75 B. C.

[182] For full details and photographic views, with one of the Aramaic inscription, see my report in “Mem. East Pal. Survey,” 1889, pp. 65–87.

[183] “Ant.,” XII. v. 3, 4.

[184] Herodotus, ii. 47, 48.

[185] See “Ant.,” XII. v. 4, ix. 3, xi. 1, 2, XIII. v. 11, vi. 7, XV. xi. 4; “Wars,” I. ii. 2, iii. 2; 1 Macc. i. 33, x. 9, xi. 41, 51, xii. 36, xiii. 52, xiv. 36, 37.

[186] For instance, Dr. G. A. Smith, “Jerusalem,” 1908, i. p. 155, ii. p. 448, though he only follows earlier writers, with no more than an occasional passing allusion to the facts due to exploration.

[187] Rev. Selah Merrill follows his distinguished countryman Dr. E. Robinson; see “Later Bib. Researches,” 1852, p. 216.

[188] i. 33.

[189] ii. 31.

[190] vi. 26.

[191] xii. 36.

[192] xiii. 49.

[193] See the passages already cited, [p. 92].

[194] “Ant.,” XIII. v. 11.

[195] Ibid., XIII. vi. 7; “Wars,” I. ii. 2, V. iv. 1.

[196] “Ant.,” XV. xi. 5.

[197] The name Makkabi (“hammerer”), applied to the third brother Judas. His ancestor Ḥasmon (“Ant.,” XII. vi. 1) was of the priestly family of Johoiarib, the first of the twenty-four courses (1 Chron. xxiv. 7).

[198] 1 Macc. iv. 38.

[199] Mishnah, Middoth, i. 6.

[200] 1 Macc. vi. 48, 49, 53, 62.

[201] 1 Macc. vii. 1–47.

[202] Alcimus, however, is said (1 Macc. ix. 54) to have pulled down the inner wall of the sanctuary, and the “works of the prophets”—probably the walls of the courts erected by Zerubbabel in the days of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah.

[203] 1 Macc. ix. 15; “Ant.,” XII. x. 2, xi. 1.

[204] 1 Macc. ix. 52.

[205] 1 Macc. ix. 64, x. 1, 21; “Ant.,” XIII. i. 4–6, ii. 1.

[206] 1 Macc. x. 67; “Ant.,” XIII. iv. 9.

[207] “Ant.,” XIII. v. 11.; 1 Macc. xii. 36–7. The Akra garrison had given hostages in 152 B. C. (1 Mace. x. 9), and made peace in 147 B. C. (xi. 51.)

[208] 1 Macc. xiii. 24; “Ant.,” XIII. vi. 4, 5, 6.

[209] 1 Macc. xiii. 42. Simon’s son, John Hyrcanus, is called “High-priest and Uniter [ḥabbar] of the Jews” on his coins.

[210] 1 Macc. xiv. 28.

[211] 1 Macc. xv. 6.

[212] A copper coin reads “Simon, Prince of Israel,” with “First year of redemption of Israel.”

[213] 1 Macc. xiv. 36, 37.

[214] “Ant.,” XIII. viii. 2–4.

[215] Ibid., XIII. xi. 1.

[216] See De Saulcy, “Numismatique Judaïque,” 1854, pp. 64–74; Madden, “Jewish Coinage,” 1864, pp. 61–70.

[217] Josephus, “Ant.,” XIII. xiii. 5, xiv. 2. In Mishnah, Sukkah, iv. 9, the same story is told of a priest who was pelted to death.

[218] “Wars,” V. vii 3.

[219] “Mem. West Pal. Survey,” Jerusalem vol., pp. 413–16.

[220] See 1 Chron. xxiv. 15.

[221] Tal. Bab., Sanhed., 21 b, 22 a.

[222] Sir C. Wilson, “Ord. Survey Notes,” 1865, p. 64, plate xxiv. fig. 4.

[223] Josephus, “Ant.,” XIII. v. 9, xvi. 1.

[224] Ibid., XIV. i. 3, ii. 1, 2.

[225] Ibid., XIV. iv. 1–2.

CHAPTER VI
HEROD THE GREAT

The headless corpse of Pompey was tossing in the waves, off the coast of Egypt, fifteen years after his bloody conquest of Jerusalem, “and there was none to bury him because he had scorned Him with dishonour: he remembered not that he was man, and considered not what was to come. He said, I will be lord of land and sea, and he knew not that God is great, mighty in His great power.”[226] It is thus that a Jewish psalmist of Herod’s time draws the moral of vengeance on the desecrator of the Holy of Holies.

Antipater, the friend of Hyrcanus, helped Julius Cæsar in his advance on Egypt in the same year, 48 B. C., and was left in charge of Jewish affairs.[227] His son Herod, who dared the Sanhedrin, and who distinguished himself by subduing brigands near Tiberias, was set to govern Galilee. The growing power of this Idumæan family was hateful to the Hasmonæan party, and when Cæsar was murdered in 44 B. C., Antipater was poisoned by the butler of Hyrcanus.[228] But they had still to reckon with Herod, who revenged his father’s death on Malichus, the Jewish general who had incited the deed. The Idumæans—both father and son—were singularly astute in taking the right side during all the troubles that preceded and followed Cæsar’s death. Herod knew how greedy of money the Romans were, and he bribed in turn Cassius and Antony, yet succeeded later in holding power under Augustus. For peace, and strong government in Palestine, were needful to the Roman policy which made the Mediterranean an Italian lake, and the time was not yet ripe for direct rule.

THE PARTHIANS

The republicans sent Cassius to Syria and Labienus to Parthia before they met with disaster at Philippi in 42 B. C. The former became the patron of Antigonus—nephew of Hyrcanus—who thus took the losing side, while Herod found a friend in Mark Antony. Two years later Labienus stirred up the Parthians to attack the new triumvir, and they marched on Palestine under Pacorus, the son of the Parthian king Orodes I. Herod had expelled Antigonus from Judea, but the latter joined the invaders and the Idumæan cause seemed hopeless. Herod sent his family for safety to the great fortress of Masada on the shores of the Dead Sea, and escaped to Egypt and to Rome, seeking aid from Antony. The Parthians gave over Hyrcanus to Antigonus as a prisoner, and the nephew cut off his uncle’s ears, to prevent his ever again officiating as high-priest, for, when so mutilated, he could not fulfil priestly offices without breaking the law. Thus for three years Antigonus reigned in Jerusalem.[229]

Herod in Rome was recognised as king in 40 B. C. by Antony and Augustus; and Ventidius was sent to drive back the Parthians. These were the events which led, three years later, to the siege of Jerusalem by Sosius and Herod, when the hated Idumæan, who was “only a private man” and only “half a Jew,” was re-established by Roman power.[230] It would seem clear that Josephus dates the thirty-seven years of Herod’s reign from the time of his capture of the city in the summer of 37 B. C., his death thus occurring in 1 A. D. For he says that the battle of Actium—which was fought on September 2, 31 B. C.—took place in Herod’s seventh year,[231] and that he reigned thirty-four years after Antony had put Antigonus to death at Antioch.[232] The siege began in a sabbatic year[233]—consequently in 37 B. C.—and from this year the reign of Herod should be reckoned. Whiston has been followed by most modern writers in dating the reign from 40 B. C.; yet, not only does this conflict with the date of the battle of Actium, but it also supposes that Antony was in Syria, and about to celebrate his triumph in Egypt, in 37 B. C., whereas he was then engaged in naval war off the Italian coast; and, on the other hand, he was in Syria in 34 B. C., and held a triumph at Alexandria immediately after. The point is of great importance because it affects the date of the Nativity, of which recent writers have treated without any regard to the Gospel statement that Jesus was about to enter His thirtieth year in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, or 29 A. D.[234] Matthew and Luke both make the Nativity precede the death of Herod; and on the “fifteenth of Tiberius” the Christian era was based by the Roman abbot, Dionysius Exiguus, in 532 A. D. He seems to have considered the evidence more carefully than Whiston did. An eclipse of the moon happened during the last illness of Herod, which Whiston identified with a small partial eclipse of March 13, 4 B. C. More probably it was the total eclipse of January 9, 1 B. C., that occurred before Herod’s distemper became serious.[235]

The great army of Sosius and Herod attacked Jerusalem in 37 B. C., and as usual from the north. Three banks were erected, and engines were used by the besiegers and also by the besieged, who fought bravely in spite of famine and of the sabbatic year, mines and countermines being driven to meet. The north wall fell after forty days, and the wall of the upper city fifteen days later; but the Temple still held out till some of the cloisters were set on fire, and the lower city and outer courts of the sanctuary taken. Antigonus then came down from the citadel (Antonia), and the siege ended on the same day on which Pompey had stormed the Temple twenty-six years earlier—that is, on Sivan 27, which would be early in June.

HEROD’S BUILDINGS

Herod’s reign was stained by many cruel crimes, but it cannot be denied that he was a strong and successful ruler, during whose time Jerusalem enjoyed prosperity and peace, and was adorned by many new buildings of great magnificence. His principal works included the new Temple, and the royal palace in the upper city, defended by the three “royal towers,” Hippicus, Phasaelus, and Mariamne. Antonia also was rebuilt, and a theatre was erected in the city. In describing these buildings we are able to check the accounts given in the works of Josephus and in the Mishnah by actually existing remains, visible on the surface or unearthed by explorers. The account of Herod’s Temple in the Mishnah is so fully detailed as to allow of a plan being made. The statements were written down at Tiberias in our second century, and in this form are later than the “Wars of the Jews” composed about 75 A. D., and than the “Antiquities of the Jews,” written about 93 A. D., both at Rome; but the Mishnah quotes the words of rabbis who were youths when the Temple was destroyed in 70 A. D.[236]

As regards Josephus, it is best to found a critical estimate of his writings on actual facts. Not only have I compared his statements about Jerusalem with extant remains of the city, but I have measured and planned other cities and buildings which he describes—at Samaria and Cæsarea, at the fortress of Masada, and the round castle of Herodium, and at Jotapata, which he defended. I have carefully studied his Galilean topography, and his accounts of the palace of Tyrus in Gilead, and of the spring of Callirrhoe, both of which I visited in 1881. The impression made by such studies is that the Jewish historian was honest and well informed; that he had seen the places which he describes, and gives a generally reliable account. Our present text is often corrupt in numerals referring to dates and measurements, and Josephus (writing from memory in Rome, many years after the events described) is not always accurate in his estimate of dimensions, heights, and distances. The accounts of the Temple, by rabbis at Jamnia who were able to visit the ruins left by Titus, are to be preferred as more exact, but they do not conflict with the general account given by Josephus, and he could have had no object in misrepresenting the facts, though—like other historians—he sometimes exaggerates the size of buildings, the numbers of enemies, and the value of treasures. These are small and natural blemishes in narratives which must always remain our chief source for this history. That he wilfully misrepresented facts to please the Romans, or to excuse his own nation, there is no reason at all to suppose. His knowledge of Jerusalem topography was personal and contemporary, and he is more likely to have known the facts than any scholar writing in the west of Europe or in America to-day.

THE HERODIAN CITY

We may consider, therefore, by the light of exact surveys of the city and exact plans of its remains, and under the guidance of the rabbis and of Josephus, first the city in general, then the Temple and the fortress of Antonia, and finally the palaces and other buildings, and the alterations made in the water-supply in Herod’s time. Our task has already been lightened by detailed consideration of the earlier topography.

“The city stood on two opposite ridges, divided from each other by a central valley where the respective houses ended: of these ridges that which had the upper city on it was much the highest and widest. So it was called the citadel by King David, ... but we call it the Upper Market-place. But the other, called Akra, and defending the lower city, was gibbous; and opposite this was a third ridge, naturally lower than the Akra, and at first divided from it by a flat valley.... But the valley called Turopoiôn was that we have mentioned, separating the upper city and the lower ridge; it reached to Siloam.... Outside, the two ridges of the city were girt with deep valleys, and—on account of the precipices on both sides—access was impossible.”[237]

It is difficult to see how this description can be understood in any other way than that described in the preceding chapter. The upper city was David’s citadel, and that to the north was the citadel of the Macedonian garrison. The account goes on[238] to tell us that: “The old wall was hard to be taken, both on account of the valleys, and of the hill above them on which it was built. But besides the great advantage of situation, it was also very strongly built, because David and Solomon and the succeeding kings were very zealous about this work. Now this wall began at the tower called Hippikos, and reached as far as a place called Xustos, and adjoining the Council-house ended at the west cloister of the Temple. But if we go the other way, on the west side, it extended through a place called Bethso to the Gate of the Essenes, and then on the south side, it bent above the fountain of Siloam, and there again bent, facing east over the Pool of Solomon, and reached as far as a certain place which they called Ophla, where it was joined to the east cloister of the Temple. But the second [wall] had its beginning from a gate which they called Gennath, being of the first wall, and encircling the north quarter only, it went on as far as Antonia.”

THE TWO WALLS

Very few words are necessary to explain this account, which agrees with that of the city walls as rebuilt by Nehemiah. Hippicus was the most western of the three “royal towers,” and stood at the north-west angle of the upper city. It defended the narrow neck which separated the broad Tyropœon from the head of the Gai, or Hinnom gorge. The Hasmonæan Valley joined the Tyropœon from the north, on the west of the Temple, and the two together descended rapidly to Siloam, separating the upper city from the Ophel. The north face of the old wall ran on a precipitous rock, and the Xystos lay north of the great Tyropœon bridge. The name of the place on the south-west side of the upper city “called Bethso” is generally supposed to mean “House of Dung,” being near the old Dung Gate, which seems here to be called the Gate of the Essenes. The wall ran “above” Siloam; and “Solomon’s Pool” was the Kidron spring—the Gihon where he was anointed. Ophla is the Aramaic form of the Hebrew Ophel, and the course of the wall here coincides with the line of fortification discovered by Sir Charles Warren. As to the second wall, the description is brief because the wall was short in extent. The junction with Antonia must have been at the north-west angle of that fortress, for the great counterscarp of the fosse which defended it on the north is known to continue some way west of the fortress, thus forming the counterscarp of the north wall as well. No bends or angles are noticed, but, on the contrary, it is said to “encircle” the north ridge. The name of the Gate Gennath is usually thought to mean “the Garden Gate,” but not impossibly it may stand for the “Gehenna Gate,” and it answers to the old “Valley Gate.” The second wall—as already urged—must have crossed the saddle near Hippicus, but the junction was not exactly at that tower, where was a smaller postern.[239] As the Gennath Gate was in the first wall, there was evidently a re-entering angle, and in later times the third wall started from Hippicus, but was “not joined on” to the second wall.

It is very doubtful whether any remains of the masonry of the two walls have as yet been found. The precipices on which the north wall of the upper city stood are traceable, in places, as far as that from which the Tyropœon bridge started. The scarps on the south-west of the upper city, and on the south, and at Siloam, have already been described as they existed in the time of Nehemiah, and earlier. The Ophel wall discovered by Sir Charles Warren is, in his opinion, later than the (Herodian) wall of the east cloister of the Temple, near which it was also found to be based not on rock but on red earth. The stones, as he states, appear to have belonged to a former wall, and the first 20 feet from the foundation are of “rough rubble of moderate dimensions.” Similar rough rubble was found by Mr. Bliss at the base of the south wall of the upper city.[240] This might represent early work, on which the later Byzantine wall was built; but the drafted masonry shown to me by Dr. Guthe, in 1881, on Ophel and at Siloam, was certainly not older than the fourth century A. D., yet appears to be similar in all respects to that found by Warren and Bliss. It seems to be certain that the old wall of Jerusalem has disappeared, and that very little can exist except the wall that Eudocia built about 450 A. D., which did not follow the line described in the Book of Nehemiah, and by Josephus, as crossing the Tyropœon “above” Siloam.

In the same way it is also doubtful if any remains of the “second wall” on the north side of the upper city still exist. The Rev. Selah Merrill[241] gives a drawing of a wall found south of the Holy Sepulchre Church, and about 20 feet below the surface, which he thinks to have been that built by Jonathan (as already noticed) in the middle of the city. He also claims[242] to have been the discoverer of another wall which runs northwards to the west of the “Pool of the Bath,” and which was uncovered in 1885 and reported by Herr Konrad Schick. Both these walls have drafted masonry, but neither has, unfortunately, been described in detail, or photographed, so that it is impossible to say what their age may be. The latter wall runs approximately where we might expect to find the second wall, but drafted masonry of much this kind was used both by Romans and by later Byzantines, and these remains may possibly belong to the city of Hadrian. There is no doubt that—as at Rome also—the old masonry was re-used later in other buildings; and when we consider how entirely the mighty Temple fane has disappeared, not one stone being left on another of the Holy House itself, we must conclude that the destruction of the city in 70 A. D. was singularly complete, and the effacement of its remains afterwards increased by local pillage of the masonry.

THE TEMPLE STONES

There are, however, two buildings in which Herodian masonry still stands in situ—namely, first in the great outer walls of the Ḥaram enclosure, and secondly at the great tower now called “David’s Tower,” which is probably the Phasaelus tower of Josephus. The Ḥaram walls claim our special attention.

This magnificent masonry, with stones 3 feet (and in one course 6 feet) high, and often 20 feet long,[243] beautifully finished with the Greek draft, and a dressing to the stone[244] which is nowhere else found except in the sister sanctuary at Hebron, is familiar to visitors. The joints are exact, and no mortar was used. The wall above the level of the inner area was adorned (just as at Hebron) by buttresses, at intervals of 10 cubits. Two of these I discovered in 1873, at the north-west angle, but elsewhere all the upper rampart was thrown down, though the lower part resisted all attempts at destruction, and the strong south-east corner remained—after 70 A. D.—standing up alone like a “pinnacle.”

There are minor differences in this masonry, according as it was intended to be visible above ground or hidden under the earth. The stones have rough bosses, on the east and west walls, where they were covered over; and spoilt stones were used up in the foundations of the east wall (near the south-east angle), also below the level of the red earth outside the wall. The stones were not only finished in the quarry, but were inspected before they were put in the wall, as Sir Charles Warren proved, by noticing that the trickle of the red paint used in the texts written on the stones runs upwards, and not down, on the stone as it now stands. This masonry is found in situ on three walls, but not on the north side of the Ḥaram, where a wall of rougher Roman work runs west to the rocky scarp of Antonia, which bounds the court on the north-west. Sir Charles Warren also discovered that the east wall does not stop at the present north-east angle, and that there was no corner there till the Roman north wall was built—a point of great importance as regards the study of the Temple area.

HERODIAN GRAFFITI.

From Sir C. Warren’s copies.

THE PAINTED TEXTS

Still more important are the red-paint texts which he found on the spoilt stones. The two longest of these are on the third stone of the second course, and on the tenth stone of the fifth course,[245] respectively, in the east wall, counting from the foundation and from the south-east angle. They are clearly inscriptions in a Semitic script, yet they have never been read, partly because they were supposed to be Phœnician. They, however, present the characters of the Aramean alphabets used at Jerusalem and among Nabatheans. The first of these texts probably reads “carelessly chiselled,” and the stone has no draft at the top but one of double width at the bottom. The second text may be read, “for covering up, removal of it,” and this stone also is imperfect, the bottom draft being too narrow. Not only do these translations agree with the fact that the spoilt stones were covered over in the foundations, but the characters attest the fact that they were hewn in the later age of Herod, and not in the earlier time of Solomon—a conclusion which agrees with the character of the masonry. Had these texts been written in the clearer alphabet of the Siloam Inscription or of the Moabite Stone, they would no doubt have been read long ago; but they are rudely scrawled in the more slovenly script of the Aramean alphabet used in Herod’s time.[246]

The evidence of the masonry and of the inscriptions thus serves to confirm the conclusion of de Vogüé that these walls were built by Herod the Great. The south-west angle of the Ḥaram is identified with that of Herod’s enclosure by the existence of the Tyropœon bridge, which led to the south cloister of the Temple in his time. The south wall is fixed by the existence of the two Ḥuldah (or “Mole”) Gates, and the south-east corner by the recovery of the line of the Ophel wall, which joined the east cloister of the Herodian enclosure. The excavations showed that no ancient city wall existed farther west. The north-west angle is, in like manner, fixed by the recovery of the ancient west wall, with its buttresses built against the Antonia scarp. Only the north wall of the Temple thus remains to be fixed, and Sir Charles Warren discovered the ancient valley which defended Antonia on the east, and which runs to the Kidron across the north-east part of the Ḥaram enclosure. In his recent plan[247] he excludes this part from the old enclosure, and there can be little doubt that some 5 acres were here added later to the original 30 acres of the outer courts. The present north wall is Roman or Byzantine, and the cisterns within it are of modern masonry. Antonia projected as a smaller oblong quadrangle on the north-west, and thus—as Josephus relates[248]—when the Antonia cloisters were destroyed the “temple became quadrangular,” being roughly about 1,000 feet either way. The line of its original north wall[249] may be best drawn along the line of the north side of the platform surrounding the Dome of the Rock, where an ancient scarp with projecting buttresses was found by Sir Charles Warren in 1868; and the rock outside this scarp is at least 20 feet lower, which makes it about 40 feet below the level of the Ṣakhrah crest.

DOME AT THE DOUBLE GATE.

From de Vogüé.

Besides these remains of the walls we have those of the south-west gatehouse, which is now known as the “Double Gate,” and these are of peculiar interest as regards the architectural character of Herod’s Temple; for Fergusson, de Vogüé, and other authorities regard the interior hall at this gateway as being of the Herodian age. The original gate was double, with a central pier supporting two great lintel stones, to which an arched cornice was added above in the Byzantine age, on the outside. The hall floor is on the level of the rock outside, and the gate was underground, a passage leading up north from the back of the gatehouse to the surface of the courts within, under the royal cloister. The present “Triple Gate,” which was altered later, seems originally to have had the same plan, and these two gates were called Ḥuldah (“mole”), because of their subterranean character. The Double Gate hall has a monolithic pillar in its centre, of such girth as to agree with the description by Josephus of columns “such that three men might with their arms extended measure round”[250]—a fact which I verified by experiment. The hall measures 40 feet (30 cubits) east and west, by 54 feet (40 cubits) north and south. Flat arches spring from the central pillar on each side, and four flat domes are thus supported, forming the roof of the hall.[251] The capital of the pillar is remarkable, with acanthus leaves and lotus leaves in low relief. One of the domes has also a very interesting ornamentation with geometrical designs connected by a vine: an outer circle of corn ears and rosettes, with other details, present just that style which we find in the Jerusalem tombs of the Herodian age—half Greek, half Jewish.

THE SI’A TEMPLE

This interesting hall compares also in general style with another temple built in the time of Herod the Great. Jehovah was not to him the One God: at Samaria and Cæsarea he erected shrines to the genius of the “divine Augustus,” and at Si’a in the east of Bashan he was honoured in a temple to the Syrian deity Ba’al-shemîn, which still exists in ruins planned by de Vogüé, with Greek texts and fragments of others in Nabathean characters (like those just considered), which were copied by Waddington. This building is of such importance for comparison that a short description may be given.[252] This temple was 40 cubits (54 feet) square, with steps on the east leading down to a court of the same size, having a single cloister on each side, except where the porch of the building opened to the court. The temple gate (24 cubits wide) was adorned by a vine sculptured above it and on the sides; a dove perches on the vine, and an eagle spreads its wings under the soffit of the cornice. The side pillars have semi-Corinthian capitals with human busts between the volutes, and the design of the bases is very like that of the capital at the “Double Gate.” The steps are guarded by small lions. The head of the heaven god (Ba’al-shemin), surrounded with rays, was over the gate, and flanking pilasters of Ionic order are surmounted by other busts. Gazelles and a saddled horse are elsewhere carved, and the whole is clearly a pagan structure, though in many respects it recalls Herod’s Jerusalem temple. The masonry is well squared and of good size, but not drafted.

There are here seven Greek texts, the first of which was on a statue of Herod which has been entirely destroyed by some one who hated the tyrant. Only a foot remains, whereas other busts at the site have not been injured. The inscription is complete: “I, Malikath, son of Mo’aîru, put up this statue at my own costs to the Lord Herod the King.” No other Herod save the son of Antipater reigned in this part of Bashan, and the text must (from the word Kurios) have been written during his reign. The second inscription is later, but hardly less interesting, referring to Agrippa II. (48–100 A. D.). “To the great king Agrippa, friend of Cæsar, the pious, the friend of Rome, born of the great king Agrippa, the friend of Cæsar, the pious, the friend of Rome, Aphareus a freedman and Agrippa a son placed this.” The third text runs: “The people of the Obaisenes [dwellers in the dry region] in honour of Malikath, son of Mo’aîru, on account of justice and piety, placed this on the temple.” The fourth says: “The people of Si’a in common put this up to Malikath, son of Ausu, son of Mo’aîru, because he made the temple and what surrounds it.” The name of the founder occurs in two other short texts, on a cornice and above the temple gate.

GREEK TEXT OF HEROD’S TEMPLE.

From the Palestine Exploration Fund Photograph.

THE GREEK TEXT

The extent, the masonry, the inscriptions, and the architecture of Herod’s Temple at Jerusalem have thus been considered without reference to literary statements, on the evidence of existing remains, and by comparison with the style, the arrangement, and the Aramaic and Greek texts, of a contemporary building. That Greek texts also existed in the Jerusalem Temple is proved by M. Clermont-Ganneau’s discovery of one of the very stones mentioned by Josephus.[253] It reads, in fine Greek lettering and in the Greek language:

“No foreigner is to approach within the balustrade [truphaktos] round the temple and the peribolos. Whosoever is caught will be guilty of his own death which will follow.”

The Jewish historian says that “when you went through these cloisters to the second temple there was a balustrade [druphaktos], made of stone, all round, the height of which was 3 cubits. Upon it stood stelai at equal distances from one another declaring the law of purity, some in Greek and some in Roman letters, that ‘no foreigner may go within the sanctuary.’”[253] This comparison serves to increase our confidence in Josephus. He is also evidently correct in saying that the pillars of the Royal Cloister were of the Corinthian order, and the great shafts (3 feet in diameter) re-used—as will appear later—in the Aḳṣa Mosque, by the Byzantines, may once have belonged to this cloister.

Josephus appears to have supposed that the courts of Solomon’s Temple extended 400 cubits in length. He says that “Herod took away the old foundations and laid others,” and that “the cloisters were rebuilt by Herod from the foundations.” He “encompassed a piece of land about [the Temple] with a wall, which land was twice as large as that before enclosed.” This increase, however, may refer to the flat ground, which was largely increased by banking up earth over vaults within the ramparts; for in these later times “the people added new banks, and the hill became a larger plain.” The compass of Herod’s enclosure Josephus estimates at 4 furlongs (or 600 feet each side), and again, including Antonia, at 6 furlongs. The increase on the north side, where was taken in an area apparently as large as that of the inner courts of the Temple, must have occurred when Baris or Antonia was first built.[254] If Josephus means by the “four furlongs” the space inside the dividing balustrade he is not far out, though the measurement of 500 cubits square, given in the Mishnah,[255] and representing about 666 feet, may be more exact. The Temple itself did not stand—according to the rabbis—exactly in the middle of this space. There was most distance on the south, secondly on the east, thirdly on the north, and least naturally on the west, where the Priests’ Court was narrow behind the Holy House, and where the rock slope was most abrupt. A mediæval Talmudic commentary even gives us the exact measurements, which are quite possibly correct, but the authority is not stated.[256] It is, however, in accordance with the position of the Ṣakhrah that the surrounding balustrade should have been nearest to the Holy House on the west and north, as it is described in the Mishnah to have been.

HEROD’S TEMPLE

The dimensions of the outer enclosure, corresponding to the present Haram, are nowhere given by ancient writers. The part outside the balustrade was the Court of the Gentiles, and the walls enclosed a quadrangle about 1,000 feet side,[257] roughly speaking. Including the inner courts of Antonia, the total area was about 30 acres. The position of the Holy House—already explained—with the Ṣakhrah as the “foundation stone” of the Holy of Holies, agrees exactly with the levels of the Temple courts as represented by those of the rock; for the number of steps to various gates is given in the Mishnah, and these steps were all half a cubit high,[258] or about 8 inches each. In addition to this, the subterranean passage from the House Moḳed (on the north) comes exactly in the right place, as does the tank on the south of the Priests’ Court. These details require special notice, as confirming the view here advocated as to the exact site of the Temple.

The measurements given in the tract Middoth (“measures”) are systematic, and leave no doubt as to the relative size, position, or levels of the Holy House and its courts. A cubit of 16 inches not only accords with rabbinical statements, but seems also (from the dimensions of the stones, and the space between buttresses, the size of the “Double Gate” hall, and the levels of the rock) to have been very clearly the unit used in the Temple, as well as in the Siloam aqueduct. The Holy House stood in the Priests’ Court, with the Altar before it on the east. Its floor was 8 feet above that of this court, and the level of the latter was thus 2,432 feet above sea-level, or 8 feet below that of the crest of the Ṣakhrah. This is the actual level of the rock east of the Ṣakhrah where known, and is just under the platform pavement. The Priests’ Court measured 187 cubits east and west, and 135 north and south; ten steps led up to the southern gates, which shows that the surface outside was here nearly 7 feet lower than the court. The rock is known to have this level in the mouth of the tank just outside the court on the south side. East of the Priests’ Court was a narrow walk at a lower level which was called the Court of Israel, but which was only intended for the representative men of Israel, whose duty it was to attend the daily services. Beyond this was the Court of the Women (135 cubits square), where the Jews with their wives assembled, especially at festivals. It had cloisters on the north, south, and east, and a gallery for women over that on the east. The great Gate Nicanor led to this court from the level of the Priests’ Court. It had 15 steps, so that the Court of the Women was 10 feet lower than that of the Priests. The level of the rock is known—east of the modern platform—to be about 2,420 feet above the sea, or 12 feet below the Priests’ Court. Thus not more than 2 feet of foundation and pavement are needed. Beyond this court the rock is somewhat lower, and the natural surface was no doubt allowed to remain outside the court for some distance, and was banked up near the outer walls, to the present levels of the enclosure outside the platform.

It appears, however, that on the north-west side of the Priests’ Court the rock had been cut down to form the inner court of Antonia. It is everywhere visible on the surface in this direction, at the level 2,432 feet above the sea, which we have seen to have been that of the Priests’ Court. The House Moḳed, therefore, required no outer steps. Josephus seems to allude to this when he speaks of there being no steps towards the west, and in his account of the final siege of the Temple[259]; for the Romans battered the wall of the inner court at this point. Moḳed (“hearth”) was the great north-west gatehouse, projecting from the wall of the Priests’ Court. From its north-west chamber a winding staircase (perhaps wooden) led down to a gallery, which extended to the Gate Ṭadi (or Ṭari) in the outer wall of the Temple enclosure, and which communicated with the “bath-house.” It is described as being under the bîrah, or “fortress,” and under the ḥíl, or “rampart,” outside the Priests’ Court.[260] If the Temple stood over the Ṣakhrah, this gallery exactly coincides with an existing rock passage 24 feet wide (18 cubits), and now 130 feet long, the bottom being 30 feet beneath the surface of the present platform. Descending into this gallery—now converted into a tank—I found that the south wall, as well as those at the sides, was of rock, but that the north end was blocked by a rough masonry wall, so that the passage does not extend farther south, but may run north to the line of the old north wall of the outer rampart. To the west of this gallery is another curious excavation which probably was the “bath-house.” Producing the directions of these two galleries, they meet just where the old north wall ran, and this must be the position of the Gate Ṭadi.

THE TEMPLE GATES

The Priests’ Court had three gates on the north and three on the south,[261] and near the “Water Gate,” on the south, was the “Chamber of the Draw-well,” where apparently a wheel and rope were used to draw water. There is a great rock-cut tank still in use just outside the line of the south wall of the Priests’ Court. Taking these two indications of position with the levels, it appears to me evident that the exact position of the Temple is fixed by the existing remains of its subterranean excavations, as I first suggested in 1878.

The general appearance of the Temple and its courts is best understood by means of the excellent model made by Miss M. A. Duthoit.[262] The most striking feature is the manner in which the courts are dwarfed by the huge square pylon of the Holy House, the flat roof being 150 feet above the level of the Priests’ Court. The roof was finished by a simple cornice, but the effect of the great mass was unbroken by any other adornment, save the golden vine running above and at the sides of the high eastern portal with its heavy veil.

HEROD’S TEMPLE.

Block plan with rock levels.

All the gates were gilded except that of Nicanor, which stood above the round flight of fifteen steps on which the “songs of degrees” are said to have been chanted. This gate was plated with electrum—a mixture of gold and silver. It was presented by Nicanor, a Jew, and the ossuary containing the bones of his family was found, a few years since, by Miss Gladys Dixon in a tomb on the Mount of Olives.[263] It bears a text in Greek: “Bones of those of the Nicanor Alexandreôs who made the gates,” with the words “Niḳanor Aleksa” beneath, in Hebrew. This great gate-house faced the Women’s Court on the west. The court had four roofless enclosures 40 cubits square, divided off by pillars, one at each corner. In that to the south-east the Nazirites assembled, and wood for the altar was stacked in that opposite on the north-east. In the south-west enclosure the oil for the Temple lamps was stored, and into that to the north-west lepers were brought from outside, in order that they might show themselves to the priests at the Gate Nicanor.

THE OUTER GATES

The “Mountain of the House,” as the outer rampart is called in the Mishnah, had five gates—or eight, according to Josephus. On the south were the two Ḥuldah Gates already described. On the east was the Gate Shushan opposite the Temple; it is said to have been adorned by a representation of “Shushan the palace.” On the west was Ḳîpunos, which bore a Greek name signifying “adornment.” This may have been the “Beautiful Gate,”[264] and was the main entrance—probably at the end of the bridge leading to the Royal Cloister. Josephus says that besides this gate two others led to the “suburbs,” and a fourth to the “other city” (near the Akra) “where the road descended down the valley by a great number of steps.”[265] These gates are still to be seen, one near the Tyropœon bridge, now called the “Prophet’s Gate,” with a subterranean passage like those of the Ḥuldah Gates; the next to the north at the present “Gate of the Chain,” where an ancient causeway on arches was discovered by Sir Charles Warren. The fourth gate—farthest north—has been converted into a tank, but the opening through the Herodian wall still exists. It was immediately west of the Holy House, for it lies between the Ṣakhrah and the “Pool of the Bath,” where there is now an accumulation of 90 feet of rubbish over the rock. The street must have here descended rapidly southwards, to pass under the arches of the causeway and of the Tyropœon bridge—which accounts for the notice of steps in the roadway.

The gate on the north is called Ṭadi in some texts of the Mishnah, and Tari in others. The first word means “secret,” and the other “new.” The secret passage from Antonia to the East Gate of the Temple[266] no doubt started at this gate, and was identical with that already described as leading to Ṭadi, and to the bath-house, from Moḳed. The passage between that gate-house and Nicanor, which would enable Herod to reach the Court of the Women, is unknown, and perhaps only led along the north cloister of the Priests’ Court, or outside it. There was also a secret passage from Herod’s palace in the upper city which has been traced. This led to the gate at the causeway on the west.[267]

The dread of divine displeasure rendered the service of the Temple one of fear and trembling.[268] In the darkness, before dawn, the “man of the mountain of the house” went his rounds to visit the priests and Levites who guarded the sanctuary by night. At cock-crow the huge altar was first cleansed, by the priest to whom the lot fell. From the Gate-house Moḳed he went in the dim light of the three great fires of fig-tree wood, nut, and pine, which glowed under the ashes. His brethren listened to hear the creaking of the wheel of the draw-well, as he sanctified his hands and feet. Then they came running to aid him, taking away the unburnt fragments of sacrifices, heaping up the ashes, and feeding the undying flame. As the red light spread behind the dark mountains of Moab, southwards “towards Hebron,” they brought out and slew the lamb of the “perpetual” sacrifice each morning, and prepared the incense and the shew-bread.

TEMPLE SERVICES

On the dread Day of Atonement[269] the high-priest was supported to the Holy House by two priests, while a third laid hold of one of the jewels on his shoulder. The sound of the golden bells was heard as he went alone within the inner veil, but priests and people waited in awe-stricken silence, till he came out to bless them by the very name of Iahu, and to send forth the goat bearing the sins of the nation to the grim precipice of Ṣûḳ—a mountain visible from Olivet—which rises over the Desert of Judah. Yet more rarely—perhaps only seven times in the period between Ezra and Herod—he left the Temple by the Shushan Gate, and passing over a high wooden causeway, ascended Olivet to burn the red heifer. Its ashes were mingled with water from Siloam, brought to the Temple, it is said, by innocent boys mounted on oxen, with much fear lest these should tread on some “grave of the depth,” or hidden tomb, and so defile the children who rode them, and who had been born in the outer court of the sanctuary. Without these ashes there was no purification for Israel from defilement by the dead. They were stored partly on Olivet and partly in the Temple.

The Feast of Booths was a time of rejoicing rather than of fear. It was then that the king, once a year, read the law to the people from a pulpit in the Court of the Women, and it is said that Agrippa I. wept at the words “Thou mayest not set a stranger over thee which is not of thy brethren,” touching the hearts of the people, who shouted, “Thou art our brother—thou art our brother.”[270] For did he not yearly bear the basket of first fruits, when the bull with gilded horns was brought to the Temple, and “the pipe played before them till they came to the mountain of the house”? At “Tabernacles” also the pipes played at the feast of the “water-drawing,” when four golden lamps lighted up the Court of the Women, and Levites stood on the fifteen steps of Nicanor chanting the fifteen “songs of degrees,” while “pious and prudent men danced with torches in their hands, singing psalms and hymns before the people.” Two priests blew the rams’ horns in the court, and when they reached the Nicanor Gate they sang:

“Our fathers who were in this place

Turned their backs on the House,

And their faces were towards the east,

And they worshipped the rising sun.[271]

But we turn to Adonai,

On Adonai are our eyes.”

The paganism of Rome penetrated, however, even into the temple of Jehovah. The golden eagle—emblem of the empire—“erected over the great gate of the Temple,” was not cut down till rumour arose that Herod was dying.[272] It perhaps spread its wings on the soffit of the lintel, as at Ba’albek and Si’a. The money-changers who—for a small charge—changed old half-shekels for the new ones, which alone could be given for the Temple tax,[273] and the sellers of doves, were established in “shops” in the outer cloisters, and made the Holy House a “den of thieves.” The great fortress, built to defend the Temple on the north, and to guard the sacred robes of the high-priest, was held under Idumæans and Romans by a foreign garrison overawing the people. This fortress of Antonia requires a special description.

ANTONIA

The former citadel, Baris, was rebuilt by Herod, and renamed Antonia after Mark Antony. The ridge rose naturally about 30 feet higher than the level of the Priests’ Court, stretching on the north to the hill of Bezetha, or the new north-east quarter of the city, not as yet walled in. The citadel was divided off from this hill by a trench with vertical scarps cut in the rock: it was 60 feet deep and 165 feet wide. A great block of rock was left standing within this fosse; it measures 140 feet north and south, and 352 feet east and west, thus covering more than a third of the width of the outer Temple court, and rising at its highest 30 feet above the Priests’ Court. The block was scarped on all sides, and thus a flat rock surface exists south of it, extending on the level of the court as far as the north wall and cloister of the outer Temple. Steps led up—as they still do—from this flat courtyard to the block above it.

This castle is very clearly described by Josephus.[274] He applies to it the terms “Acropolis,” “stronghold” (phrourion), and “fortress” (purgos); but he never calls it Akra. There were four towers on the rocky block, one at each corner, that to the south-east being the highest. The flat space below on the south was paved, and in it were rooms, courts, bathing-places, and “broad spaces for parades.” Passages led below the Temple court—as already described in speaking of the Gate Ṭadi—but this area was on the level of the inner Temple court, as we learn from the exploit of the rash centurion Julian, during the siege by Titus; for, leaping down from the scarp, he charged the defenders of the Temple up to the gates, where his nailed shoes slipped on the Temple pavement, and he fell with a great clang of armour. Thus, the whole area of Antonia formed an oblong quadrangle, projecting on the north, and adjoining the north and west cloisters of the outer Temple enclosure. It was a citadel overlooking the whole of the sanctuary, and to the present day it is a barrack for Turkish troops.

The other Herodian citadel, which is also still a barrack, was at the north-west side of the upper city, by the upper market.[275] It defended the neck of land where the upper city was always attacked from the north, and it adjoined Herod’s palace. The three “royal towers” here strengthened the old wall.[276] Hippicus was farthest west and was only 25 cubits square. The present north-west tower of the citadel may be built on its site. Phasaelus was 40 cubits square, according to Josephus, with a solid base and a stoa round the tower itself. There can be little doubt that this refers to the present “Tower of David,” called the “Castle of the Pisans” in the Middle Ages. Its masonry is still untouched, being Herodian in style, with stones about 4 feet high and often 8 or 9 feet long.[277] It measures 56 feet (about 41 cubits) north and south, but is 70 feet long east and west. It has a narrow walk or “berm” outside, on the solid base. A sloping revetment was added later by the Crusaders, and the upper part of the tower is modern. The site of the third tower, Mariamne, is as yet unknown, but its solid base, 20 cubits high, may exist under the pavement of the present market-place. It was the smallest of the three, being 20 cubits square. The bases of these towers are probably of rock, now covered with masonry. The reason why the original masonry of Phasaelus remains standing is that Titus left these towers, and a bit of the west wall, standing to show the strength of the fortress he had taken, and to form a citadel for the legion he left at Jerusalem. The palace, adjoining the towers inwardly, appears to have been large and magnificent, but its extent is not described. It had walls which made it a citadel, large bed-chambers, and wooden roofs. It was adorned with cloisters and carvings, and had gardens full of trees, canals, cisterns, and fountains where the water ran from bronze statues, while the doves fluttered round its pools as they now flutter in the Ḥaram courts. The pagan character of its adornment must have been sorely repugnant to Israel in the holy city. Two of its chambers were named after Cæsar and Marcus Agrippa, the pagan patrons of Herod.[278]

THE PALACES

Other palaces were built later in Jerusalem, and Agrippa II. rebuilt the palace of the Hasmonæans,[279] which was in the north-east part of the upper city, near the great Tyropœon bridge and the Xystos. The latter Greek word signifies a covered gymnasium, and there is no reason to doubt that this building was the same as the gymnasium built by the high-priest Jason before 170 B. C., which is described as being “under the Acropolis” or upper city. It lay north of the bridge,[280] but its remains, and those of the neighbouring council-house, have not been identified with certainty. There were gates in the west wall of the Temple above it; and as these seem clearly to be the two central gates on that side, it must have been south of the ancient causeway, and down in the Tyropœon Valley. An “ancient hall” discovered by Sir Charles Warren, which he considers to be “one of the oldest buildings in Jerusalem,” may have some connection with either the Xystos or the council-house. It lies partly under the street leading to the Gate of the Chain, and measured about 23 feet by 20 feet; its floor is about on the level of the Herodian street pavement; its roof is less ancient than its walls; at each corner inside there are rude pilaster capitals of semi-Ionic character. The outer masonry is drafted and resembles that of Herod’s age. Herod assembled wrestlers and other athletes at his games every five years, but it is doubtful if his “theatre” was the same as the gymnasium; a “hippodrome” which lay towards the south of the Temple may, however, have been connected with the Xystos. It has been sought farther south by Mr. Bliss, but no remains of such a building were there found.[281]

Some alterations seem to have occurred in the water-supply in consequence of the building of the west outer wall of Herod’s Temple, and these indicate that the wall is later than two rock-cut aqueducts which it cuts across. The southern one of these ran from the Pool of the Bath to Siloam, and has been traced in parts by Sir Charles Warren and Mr. Bliss. The second led from north-west to the Antonia fosse, where possibly the “Pool Strouthios”[282] was made by Herod when he rebuilt Antonia. This aqueduct merely served to collect the rain-water north of the city, and carried it originally to a rock tank which is included within Herod’s west sanctuary wall. The supply being thus cut off, the water of the aqueduct would serve to fill the Antonia fosse, or the Pool Strouthios in that fosse—known later as the “Twin Pools”—supposing that these were cut as early as Herod’s time. The great tunnel of this aqueduct under the Antonia rock stops dead at the Temple wall, and the only use that could afterwards be made of it would be as a secret exit, through the window which I discovered in this wall just south of the Antonia scarp.

THE TEMPLE BRIDGE

The description of Herod’s Jerusalem may be concluded by notice of the Tyropœon bridge. The spring of the arch from the west wall of the outer Temple is still visible. The voussoirs are dressed with the peculiar criss-cross dressing already described as distinguishing Herodian masonry. The position and the breadth of the bridge closely agree with the dimensions given by Josephus (in Greek feet) for the three walks of the “Royal Cloister,” which ran east and west inside the south wall of the Temple enclosure[283]: since the south wall is about 9 feet thick, and the side aisles of the cloister were 30 feet wide, the central one 45 feet wide, and the pillars about 6 feet in diameter. This bridge replaced the older one, which was broken down at the time of Pompey’s siege in 63 B. C. The older voussoirs are under the Herodian pavement. The fallen voussoirs of Herod’s bridge lie on that pavement. The bridge, as explored by Sir Charles Warren, consisted of two great arches (about 42-feet span), with a pier 12 feet thick rising from a rock foundation in the Tyropœon Valley. The roadway was 95 feet above the valley bed, or 75 feet above the pavement. This is now buried to a depth of no less than 40 feet. The cloister within was the finest of those surrounding the Temple, and its pillars were of the Corinthian order. All other cloisters of the outer Temple were double, but this was triple. Those of the inner Temple were single.

Such generally was Jerusalem as Herod built its Temple and palaces, shortly before the birth of our Lord. The Temple was probably begun in 22 B. C. and finished eight years later. The fifteenth of Herod is preferable to the eighteenth,[284] because Herod’s meeting with Marcus Agrippa appears to have occurred after the completion of the Holy House, and Agrippa died at Rome in 12 B. C. But additions continued to be made to the Temple down to 64 A. D.[285] Thus, as we read in the fourth Gospel, the building had been continued for “forty-and-six years” before the time when the Jews were speaking to our Lord.