f TocvTo. rat pr,uxTot ika:>.viff-su ev tu •ycc'^o^vXatztu hihccffxa/^ iv tu lipu. It was teaching which, according to Jewish ideas, con- cerned men.
t The tribunal was called hSlin p'n n*3 ('The great house of judgment ').
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TEMPLE
TEMPLE
5. The Holy of Holies (debir). — No human foot might enter here, with the one exception of the high priest, who entered once a year, on the Day of Atonement, for tlie purpose of presenting sacri- fice and incense before God. It was properly the place wherein the ark should have rested ; but nothing is heard of the ark after the Captivity, and the Holy of Holies was, therefore, quite empty. The 'foundation stone' (n'm 13?) upon which, in the first temple, the ark had stood, was nearly in the centre of the Holy of Holies ; in the second temple it was exposed to the extent of about six inches ;* there is no mention of this anywhere in reference to Herod's temple, but, as this was built on the site of the earlier temple, it is difficult to believe that it was not there. There was no means whereby any light could enter the Holy of Holies ; it was, therefore, always in total darkness, except- ing when artificially lighted. It was separated from the Holy Place by means of two veils, with the space of a cubit between them ; in Mt 27^', Mk 15^^ Lk 23^5 (cf. He &^ 9^ lO'^o, though it is not Herod's temple that is referred to in these pas- sages) only one veilf is spoken of ; but as the tAvo were so close together, they were probablj' regarded as two parts of one whole.
iii. Christ and the temple. — 1. The earliest mention of the temple in connexion with Christ is on the occasion of His being brought there for ' presentation ' and ' redemption ' thirty -one days after His birth, in accordance with Jewish law (Lk 222-39, cf. Ex 131-16). This ceremony took place in the Court of the Women, as the presence of Mary and Anna shows ; it was a simple one,J con- sisting only of the formal presentation of the child to the priest, who offered up two 'benedictions,' or thanksgiving prayers, one on behalf of the child for the law of redemption, the other on behalf of the mother for the gift of the firstborn son.
From Lk 2^1 it may be assumed that Christ was brought annually to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration in the temple ; there was no need for Him to be left behind, § and the presence of children in the temple was evidently of common occurrence (Mt 21^5) ; the visit, therefore, recorded in Lk 2'*2 was not the first time that Christ was present at the yearly Passover feast in the temple. II
One other reference, prior to the time of Christ's public ministry, but on the tlireshold of it, is con- tained in the parable of His Temptation, whose second scene (in Lk. the third) is represented as having taken place on the pinnacle of the temple.
2. By far the most important part of Christ's connexion with the temple is His teaching given within its precincts. On a number of occasions we read of the representatives of different classes coming to Him in the temple, often, no doubt, with the genuine object of profiting by His teach- ing, but frequently also for a more sinister purpose (e.g. Mt W 2215). The most elaborate account of such teaching is probably that contained in the long passage Mt 2123-23^^ ; the whole of this dis- course, addressed, as opportunity offered, to a variety of hearers, would appear to have been spoken in the large outer court (ii. 1). The many- sided character of Christ's teaching in the temple is well illustrated by this section; the first Avho
* .Jewish. Encye. xii. 92.
t This must not be confounded with the ' Babylonian ' veil, which hung before the Holy Place, and which is not referred to in the Gospels. See Warren and Conder, '.Jerusalem,' pp. 340- 341.
J Probably more simple even than among modern Jews ; see Firstborn.
§ Josephus tells us that the provincial towns of Jud<ea were empty and deserted on the occasions of the annual feasts, — though there is an obvious exaggeration when he says that at the Passover in the year 63 there were no fewer than 2,700,000 Jewish people present in Jerusalem {Ant. xiv. xiii. 4, BJ vu ix. 3).
II Against Edersheim, Life and Ti'ines, ii. 242. See also art Boyhood, vol. i. p. 225''.
are here mentioned as coming to Him were the chief priests and elders of the people, who asked Him by what authority He taught ; the series of parables which constituted His reply to their ques- tion concluded with an appeal to Scripture : ' Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner ? ' (Ps 118-2) . there was peculiar aptitude in the quotation being given in the temple, for ' stone ' was a figurative expression for the leader of the people, which must have been familiar to His hearers (cf. Is 19", Jg 202, j g 1433^ Zg^ jq*) ; a family, and also a nation, were conceived of as a building (cf. 1 P 2^), the head of which was re- garded as the most prominent feature — the part of the spiritual building which stood out most con- spicuously. There is ample evidence to show that the Jews regarded the temple as, in a real sense, a symbol of their nation. When Christ spoke of Himself as the corner-stone,' He was claiming for Himself the leadership of the people, i.e. He was, in ett'ect, declaring Himself to be the Messiah.* Christ's teaching was next addressed in turn to the Pharisees, the Herodians, the Sadducees, the lawyers, and, lastly, to the surrounding people ; the whole section gives a vivid picture of the use He made of the temple for His teaching of all sorts and conditions of men. Other references to His teaching in the temple are Lk 19'*^- ^^, from which it is clear, on the one hand, how exaspei'ated the chief priests and scribes were, and, on the other hand, liow tlie people flocked into the temple to hear Him (Mt 265^ Mk 14^«, Lk 213^-38 22^3, Jn 1820).