The 'house,' as a building, plays no such part in Oriental as in Western life and civilization, riimatic conditions in the East permit people to live much in the open. Accordingly we find artisans and merchants plying their trades in the street, or in open shops looking out on the street. Then the domestic life of the Oriental requires little beyond a sheltered place for sleeping and a quiet place for eating. Tlie ordinary house of the ancient Hebrew, Ave may be sure, was much like that found in Palestine to-day — it could liardly be cruder, or more primitive. As to Hebrew arcl^i-
teeture, of either OT or NT times, the Bible has little to say. Architecture proper can hardly be said to have arisen among the Hebrews before the time of the kings, say, about B.C. 1000. Then, it would seem, it differed little from that of the Phoenicians, Assyrians, and Egyptians. The style of the house would naturally be determined largely by the location, the materials at hand, and the purpose to be served. Palestine, as known to his- tory, has had few great forests, and little timber of any kind suited for building. (Solomon had to import materials for palace and temple, 1 K 5'"'). Houses built in the plains were usually constructed of mud, clay, or sun-dried bricks (cf. Job 4"'-'). ' Houses of clay,' or those buUt of sun-dried bricks, could be easily broken into — a fact that gives point to our Lord's allusion in the Sermon on the Mount, when He would dissuade from laying up treasures ' where thieves break through and steal ' (Mt 6'"), where it is literally Wlig through' (RVm). Great care needed to be taken with the foundations. In a limestone country like Palestine, if one dig deep enough, he finds almost anywhere a stratum of solid rock. It is still true that the wise man builds his house upon the rock (Mt 7^"). It is com- mon there now to dig down to the rock and laj- the foundation of even the ' house of clay ' upon it. Mt 7^ ' It was founded,' might well be ren- dered, ' It was foundationed upon the rock,' if we had such a word in Englisli. St. Luke (6-") says, ' dug, and went deep, and laid a foundation upon the rock.'
In tlie mountainous regions limestone rock was tlie building material chiefly used, a.s it was abundant, easily quarried, and readily worked. The house of stone was, or developed from, the country invited to this. First the natural cave would be used, and, as there was demand, arti- ficially enlarged. Then, occasionally, in some in- viting place, a cave would be hewn out of the rock, d& novo. Finally, a wall would be built in front for protection, or privacy, and so the cave would be converted into a sheltered dwelling. Henceforth it would serve as a model for de- tached stone houses. As a matter of fact, in the ancient village of Siloam are found all these kinds of houses, and they illustrate this process of de- velopment. (See Jewish Encyc. art. 'House'). BricKs were sometimes used even in the mountain regions, though counted inferior to hewn stone (2 S 12^'). Many stone houses were unpretentious and rude, being built of rough, unhewn stones ; l)ut some, then as now, were built of hewn stones, with vaiiUed stone roofs, e.g. the palaces of the rirli. <ii of Hie ruling class (cf. 'the house of the nil-r; Mk .- ". 'tlie high priest's house,' Lk 22"). Soiii.ijiih- -pare for walking was left around tlie ,l.)iiie. l,ut often all the space between the dome and the battlement (Dt 22*) would be filled in, so as to give the much-desired flat roof— tlie favourite resort of the Oriental in the cool of the evening (2 S 11=), and an inviting sleeping-iilace in summer (1 S 9-^). Such a house M-ill often have a hut of branches, or of vine-covered trellLs-work, on the roof (cf. 2 S 16~, Neh 8"), and sometimes a more substantial room, where guests of honour are lodged (1 K 17", 2 K 4'"). For 'summer parlour,' cf. Jg 3-°, RVm has rightly 'upper chamber of cooling.' (See Mk 14'', and cf. 'upper room' else- where). From the roof one could easily see what was going on in the street, or on a neighbouring housetop (cf. 1 S 9=°) ; indeed, could even step from roof to roof, and thus walk the whole length of a street, as the present writer once did in Damascus (cf. Mk 13'=; Jos. Ant. xiii. 140 [ed. Niese]).
The humliler house of the plain was very simple, having usually only one apartment, which some-
HOUSEHOLD
HUMANITY OF CHKIST
753
times sheltered both man and beast. The walls were sometimes smeared with clay (Lv 14^'), some- times plastered (Ezk 13", Dt 27^). The roof was made, no doubt, as that of the common Arab house is made to-day, by laying rough beams about three feet apart, then laying reeds or brush- wood close and thick across, covering it with some- thing like tlie thickly matted thorn - bush called bcllan, and then spreading over tlie whole, lirst a coat of thick mortar, and then one of marl or earth, and rolling it. Such roofs would require frequent repairing and rolling to keep out the rain, and, if neglected, would get so soaked with the tropical rains that they would cave in. In this way whole villages have had to be abandoned, and their houses left ilesolate. It was proliably one of the simplest of smli i.inl's ili.il whs 'lirokenup' (Mk 2^) when tlir |i,ir.ilj ( ir «:i- in <luwn from the housetop at C'iipurii:iniii ml.. I In' i.ifM'rice of Jesus to be healed. Tin' wlmlr MWit \\..uld seem to have been the extemjior.tneous ile\ice of plain peasants, accustomed to open their roofs and let down grain, straw, and other articles, as they still do in that country (Thomson, Land and Book, ii. 6ff.). The furniture of such a house would be very simple, — a few mats, or pallets, spread on the ground floor for sleeping on at night, then rolled up and put aside in the day ; latterly a ' divan ' set against tlie wall on one side, a small table, a few rude chairs, a niche in the wall for the primitive little lamp, unless it was of a sort to hang from a rafter, and a few large jugs for grain, water, wine, or oil.