In AV the word appears only once (Mk 15") ; but in the Gr. of NT it is used in Mt 27=" (AV ' the common hall ' ; marg. ' governor's house ' , RV 'the palace'), Mk 15" (AV 'the hall, called Pr£etorium'; RV 'within the court which is Prajtorium ' ; marg. 'palace'), Jn 18^ (AV 'the hall of judgment ' ; marg. ' Pilate's house ' ; RV ' palace '^l, island 19» (AV 'judgment hall'; RV 'palace'), Ac 23^ (AV 'Herod's judgment hall'; RV 'Herod's palace'), Ph 1" (AV 'in all the palace ' ; marg. ' Caesar's court ' ; RV ' throughout the whole prsetorian guard').
In the Gospels the term denotes the official residence in Jems, of the Roman governor, and the various tr" of it in our versions arose from a desire either to indicate the special purpose for which that residence was used on the occasion in question, or to explain what particular building was intended. But whatever building the governor occupied was the Pra'torium. It is most probalile that in Jerus. he resided in the well-known palace of Herod, since Philo (ad Gaium, 31) states that Pilate hung there the shields which ottended the Jews (see Pilate), and Josephus (BJ li. xiv. 8, ll. XV. 5) speaks of Gessius Florus as living in ' the king's palace,' and since in Cfesarea (see Ac xxiii. 35) Herod's palace is known to have been used for the same purpose. Herod's palace in Jerus. was a magnificent structure in the upper or western part of the city, and was connected hy a causeway over the valley of Tyropa>on with the western wall of the temple. It is described by Josephus (BJ V. iv. 4, Ant. XV. ix. 3) in admiring terms. It was surrounded by a wall, rising to the hei"ht of 30 cubits, and adorned with towers at equal distances. The enclosure was large enough to contain a small army. The building had two marble wings, called by Herod the Ca'sareum and the Agrippeum. It contained large rooms within and spacious porticoes without. It was sumptuously furnished, and was surrounded by a beautiful park. Here the governor with his guards lived when in Jerus., wiiile the regular garrison occupied the castle of Antonia; and it was doubtless before this building that tlia Jews presented themselves with the demand foi Jesus' execution. Tradition, indeed, has placed the residence of Pilate in the lower city, a short
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distance north of the temple. Not a few also have identilioil it with the castle of Antonia (Hosen- miiller, A/lcrl/ti(i>i-/:uni/e, II. ii. 228; Cits|iari, Intiijtl. i>. 225; Wieseler, Clirun. Si/n., Knj;. tr. J). 372; Wei.ss, Life of Christ , iii. 340 n.; Westcott, St. John) — partly hecause tradition has located the house of Pilate near the site of the ca.stle ; partly l«;iause, since the castle \va.s the regular barracks for the jiarrison, and was sulliciently large for the purpose, it is thought prohatile that the governor nl-^o iLscd it ; and also because nianj' identifj' 'the [ilace called the Pavement, but, in the Hebrew, (.Jahbatha,' with the elevated, paved area between the castle and the temple (see G.MiliATHA). But, for the rea.sons given above, the ideiititication with H>-rod's palace is probably to be preferred (so Mej'er, M iiier, Alford, Schiirer, Kdersheim, and others). In like manner, as alreiuiy observed, Herod's palace in Ca-sarea was used as the Pra-torium there. The expression in Ac 23" (' Herod's Prae- torium ') is abbreviated from ' the pra'torium of Herod's palace,' and thus describes both the par- ticular building and the purpose for which it was used.
In Ph 1" ' in the whole Pia-torinm ' has been very variously explained. Many commentators, ancient and modern, have tr^ it 'palace' (so AV), coupling it with 4^, where allusion is made to believers who belonged to 'CV'sar's household.' But no other instance a|>pears of the application of the term to the emperor's residence in Kome. Such an appli- cation would have been intolerable to the Romans, since it would have shocked the republican tradi- tions under which the empire was organized. Hence man}', as Perizonius (l)e orig. sifjnif. ct usit voce, prmtorii et praitorii, 1687, Disquintio de prtetorio, 1G90), Clericus, Michaelis, Hoeleraan, NViesinger, Milman, Weiss, Ellicott, Mejcr, under- stand it of the barracks of the praetorian guard (rristra prieiurianorum). But Lightfout {Cum. on Phil. p. 99) has shown that neither can this use of the word be established. Wieseler {Chron. d. Apost. Zeit. p. 403), followed by Couyheare and Howson, refers it, not to the praetorian camp, but to the barracks of the palace {piard, which Augustus establishe<l (Dio Ca.ss. liii. 16) in the iiupeiial eiK lo^ure on the Palatine hill ; but, after the est.'iblishment of the ca.itni pncloridnorum by Tiberius, the word would nutur.illy refer to it, if to anj' barracks. The following phrase (tois Xoiirots Traatv) al.so more naturally describes ner.sons than places, Xoiriis being never in NT a]iplied to places (Ellicott, in lijc). Presumably, therefore, ' pra;- torium,' too, is de.scriptive of persons. Hence Lightfoot lia-s ably defended the meaning 'pr>T- torian guard.' St. Paul is suppo.sed to have been chained to soldiers of the guard, and thus, through the change of guards, his ine.ssage spread througli- out the whole bodj' of soldiers. This meaning of Pra-torium is frequent, and ha.s been adopted in Ph 1" in KV. Recently, however, Mcmimsen (Sitz- unrjsb. der Knniq. prfius.f. Aaid. d. Wiati-narh. 1895, p. 49.'), etc.), followed by Ramsay (St. Paul the Trav. p. 357), has proposed another view. He considers It improbable that St. Paul was put in charge of the pr.ctorian guard. He believes that Julius, the centurion who brought Paul to Kome, belonged to the corps of niililis fruiiienlarii or pcrcgritti, a corps drafted from legions in the provinces, whose iluly it was to supervise the corn supply, and also (iroliablj' to Perform [lolice .service : and that Julius probably delivered his pri-soners to the commander ot his corps, princeps pcrcqrinonim, whose camp perhaps w.as alremly, a.s it was afterwards, on the Ca;lian hill. But while St. Paul was not in charge of the prretorian guard, his ciuse came before the pnetorian couiuil, consisting of the praferti prtetorio and their as.sistants. This council then, VOL. IV. — 3