It was a great quadrangle, paved with sun-colored marbles, open to the sky and having about it the characteristic exhilarating airs which inhabit the heights. Herod the Great spent princely sums upon this portion allotted to the Gentiles, for the simple purpose of flattering the pagan. Perhaps for no other reason than an expression of their displeasure did the Jews commit the sacrilege of commercialism in this spot. Here the money-changer, vender of sacrificial beasts, birds and wines made a busy market daily, for the indignation of the Nazarene Rabbi had driven them away for only so long as He watched. They returned when He had vanished, like flies to a honey-pot.
Here also awaited the Temple servitors to receive the unblemished offerings, the Shoterim to preserve order, the Levites of the gates and perchance the priests of the killing-pens and of the wood-chambers. Through the throng of attendants or venders, the worshipers continued, an uninterrupted stream of pilgrims, souls in distress, Pharisees and souls under vows, and all the class and kind that would be diligent for the Lord in the restful hours before daybreak. And the number was not large, in comparison to the host of Israel, for the Temple was builded to contain the voice of two hundred and ten thousand.
North of the center of the Court of Gentiles, the Temple stood. A rail set it off austerely from contact with the uncircumcised. Its relentless command of exclusion and its threat were set forth on stone, forbidding the admission of a Gentile on pain of death. But beyond, in mockery, rose the black bulk of Roman Antonia, the majesty of masonry upreared and prostituted to eavesdropping and espionage. Yet none who visited the Temple was instantly to be led away from its glory to meditate on its humiliation.
The worshipers passed around the angle of the structure to the east where the Gate Beautiful was hung.
There was a momentary slackening in the movement, for the gate was yet to be opened. But, preceding the foremost, twenty Levites passed up the flight of steps, and under the direction of a captain, laid shoulder to the valves and threw all their strength against them. There was a flash as the light of the coming dawn, concentrated and intensified, shifted across the Corinthian brass, and the Gate Beautiful swung inward.
At the head of the column a young man, in ample robes, with his kerchief skirts hanging close about his face, stepped aside from the line of advance. The crowd took up motion and went on.
Marsyas had washed himself in obedience to the Law; he had brought in his hand his trespass offering, and in his soul he was a Jew. But he stood now, and watched the fours of people climb the steps abreast, with no mood in his heart that a man should carry into a sanctuary.
Series after series passed under his sharp scrutiny—extremes of rank, of reputation, of calling and of kind. Minute after minute the long, silent procession tramped by him and was swallowed up in the gigantic gloom within. Ever the alert gaze, bright even under the obscuring shadow of the kerchief, slipped from rank to rank, and never once lingered in doubt. No one looked at him; every eye was down, for though, since the eighth day after his birth, no man in the long stream of worshipers had been ignorant of the Temple, it never failed to be a place of awe, half-love, half-terror.
The hindmost appeared at the angle of the Temple, moved in turn after their fellows, climbed the steps and disappeared.
Stragglers followed, in groups and singly, and finally Marsyas turned up the steps and followed the last within.