(a) The Women's Court. — Tiiis was the smaller division ; it occupied tlie eastern part. The court received its name from the fact that it formed the limit to which women might advance towards the sanctuary, not because it was reserved for the use of women. H It was on a lower level than the Men's Court, whicii was entered througli six of the nine gates belonging to the Women's Court. Of these gates, three deserve special mention, viz. that pre- sented by Alexander of Alexandria ; it was one of the largest, and was covered with gold and silver ; secondly, the Eastern gate, which was covered with Corinthian bronze ; and, above all, the gate
* Possibly to be identified with the 'Shushan Gate' men- tioned in Middnth.
t The ' private ' gate, used only by mourners and those who were oereinonially unclean.
} The teniple tribute was half a shekel annually ; as this had to be paid in the form of the ancient coin, the nioney-chanjrers who exchanpred them for current coin had an opportunity, which they did not neglect, of making considerable profits on commission.
§ A cubit = l ft. 5.V in. or 1 ft. 8t in., according to the shorter or longer measurement ; see Hastings' DB aaAEncyc. Bibl. art. ' Weights and Measures.'
II It runs : ' No Gentile may enter within the balustrade and wall encircling the temple. Whosoever is caught (doing so) will have to blame himself for the consequence,— the death penalty' (cf. Ac IVif-n.) : see PEFSt, 1871, p. 132 ; cf. Jos. Ant. XV. xi. .5.
^ In modern .Jewish places of worship a special gallery is reserved for the women.
of Nicanor;* this was called the ' Gi'eat Gate'; it was fifty cubits high and forty broad ; fifteen step.s, semicircular in form, led up to it from the Women's Court. Whether the 'Beautiful Gate ' mentioned in Ac 3^ referred to this or to the Eastern gate of the Outer Court (see above) is quite uncertain.
[b) But the Court of the Israelites proper was the western and larger court, called also the Men's Court, and to this only men had access. It ran round the whole of the Sanctuary itself, in which was included the Priests' Court (see below). In the Men's Court were (according to Josephus) the treasury-chambers, where all the more valuable temple belongings were kept. The ' treasury ' spoken of in Mk 12*'- ^^, Lk 2P was clearly entered by women ; the discrepancy may, however, be ex- plained by supposing that one of the trumpet- shaped receptacles into which ofi'erings were cast, and which usually stood in the Men's Court, was at certain times placed in the eastern portion of the court, so that every one, including the women, might have the opportunity of making the offer- ings ; on such occasions the Women's Court wa.s, for the time being, a treasury. On the other hand, the treasury mentioned in Jn 8-" would appear, from the context, f to refer to that in the Men's Court, the word being used here in the strict sense (see, too, Mt 27=- %
3. The Court of the Priests. — Before entering the most sacred parts of the Sanctuary, the Priests' Court had to be traversed. In this court there stood, in the centre, the great altar for burnt- .sacrifices, and close to it the brazen laver for the priestly ablutions. On the right of these, on enter- ing, was the place for slaughtering the animals bi'ought for sacrifice. On either side of the court were the priests' chambers ; it is probable that one of these was the Lishkath parhcdrin, 'the Hall of the 7rp6e5pot' ('assessors'), in Avhich the members of the Sanhedrin met in a quasi-\)V\v&te character before they met officially in the Lishkath ha-gazith,X 'the Hall of hewn stone.' Where this latter was precisely, it is impossible to say, owing to the con- flicting evidence of the authorities ; the only thing that seems tolerably certain is that, while it was Avithin the enclosure of the temple proper, it was not within the Priests' Court ; this is certain from the fact that none but priests might enter the court called after them ; the only exception to this was that which permitted the entrance of those who brought offerings, for they had to lay their hands upon the sacrifice, in accordance with the prescribed ritual.
i. The Holy Place (7teMf«/).— This was separated from the Priests' Court by a high porch {'tlldni, see above, i. 1), running north and south ; it was a hundred cubits in height (the highest part of the whole temple) and breadth, but only eleven in depth. The Holy Place stood on a higher level than the surrounding court, from which twelve steps led up to it. Its furniture consisted of the altar of incense (see Lk P), tlie table of the shew- bread, and the seven-branched candlestick.
* An interesting reference to the gate of Nicanor is to be found on a recently discovered bilingual inscription, in Greek and Hebrew, in the neighbourhood of .Jerusalem ; it was found inscribed on an ossuary from a sepulchral cave, and runs : '0<rT£ Twv Toy 'SuKocvopo; \\kicecvhptu; rroiViorocvTo: t«? tiupK?. ^{DD7f< 12pJ ('The bones of [the children of ?] Nicanor, the Alexandrian, who made the doors. Nicanor Aleksa.'). Prof. Clermont- Ganneau says that this inscription ' can scarcely refer to any other than the family or descendants of Nicanor,' and that the 'doors' must be understood as referring to ' the famous door of the temple of Herod, known as the Gate of Nicanor, after the rich individual who bad presented it to the Sanctuary ' • see PEFSt, 190;i, jip. 12.5-];}].