12. The north-east corner of the square would thus fall just south of the Golden Gate, considered as repre- senting the tower at that anirle of the enclosure of An- tonia, possibly the old tower of Meah (Neh. iii, 1 ; xii, 39).
13. On the east side there was but one gate, that of Shushan {Middoth, i, 3), so called from a representation of that city on the walls of one of its chambers. It was op- posite the entrance of the porch of the Temple, in order that the priest, when he burned the red heifer on the Mount of Olives, might exactly face the altar; on which account the tower over the gate was lower than those surmounting the other gates, so as not to intercept his view. So infers Lightfoot from the Talmud and Maimon- ides {Works, ix, 218, 219); which location, however, Mr. Williams finds it necessary to dispute {Holy City, ii, .=!55, note 5). This position shows that this gate and the altar were in a range with the other gates between them. By an inspection of tlie sectional view of the Temple on the map, it will appear that at a certain hei!.'ht on the Mount of Olives the fire on the altar might be seen through the inner gates and over this gate. We find no traces of this gate mentioned by travellers.
14. At the south-east corner Josephus says there was a tremendous precipice {Ant. xv, 11, 3, 5), ajiparently "the pinnacle of the Temple" on which the tempter placed Christ (Luke iv, 9), still to be recognised in the steep de- scent at this point, and proved to have been anciently more profound by the vaulted substructions beneath the inside of the Haram, raising this angle of its platform above the old bed of the valley. The^wall is here about 60 feet high, and about so feet deep from the present sur- face of the giound outside. From Josephus's language
TEMPLE
261
TEMPLE
in War, vi, 3, 3, it is evident tliat the precipice at the north- east angle was also very cousiderable.
15. On the south side, aicordiny; to the Talmud, were two gates, both named Huldah (Muklot.li, i, 3), perhaps from the prophetess of that name. These are evidenrlj' the "gates in the middle" of this side mentioned by Jo- sephas (Ant. xv, 11,5). We conclude that they lay very near together, and (with Dr. Uobinson) identify ihem with the double gateway still found in the south Haram wall at the point where the modern city wall. joins It. Its en- tire breadth is 4'2 feet (lioliinson, Dibl. Res. i, 4.50) and it is reached by a sloping p.issage from the platform of the Haram, as the embankment here could never have other- wise admitted an exit, nor even then without exterior steps. Lightfoot, however, makes these gates divide the wall into three equal parts {n'urks, ix, 224), apparently merely arguing from the statement of Josephus. It is worthy of note that in 1 Chroi>. xxvi, 14-18 but one set of guards is constantly assigned to the south side, in like terms as to the single gates on the north and east, where- as four sets are, in both enumerations, assigned to the west side. The other modern vestiges of portals on this side are of inferior size and antiquity.
16. On the several sides of the Court of the Gentiles that lay within tlie outer wall (called also the Outer Court, Lower Court, and by the rabbins usually "Mouu- tain of the Lord's House") there were several objects wor- thy of special note :
(1.) On the north and west sides were double interior porticos or cloisters, each 15 cubits wide, supported by columns and sustaining a roof on cedar beams (Josephus, War, V, 5, 2).
(2.) On the east side was Solomon's Porch (John x, 23 ; Acts iii, 11), of the same size and style with those on the north and west (Josephus, Ant. xv, 11, 3 ; xx, 9, 7).
(3.) On the south side was the Roijal Portico (apparent- ly so called after Herod, who rebuilt it; Josephus, War, i, 21, 1), which differed from the rest in being triple, the two side aisles being 30 feet broad, and the middle one once and a half as broad {Ant. xv, 11, 5). Lightfoot has strangely set these down as being respectively 15 and 42J^ cubits broad (Pitman's edition of his Works, ix, 2.S9, with which his own map agrees; the English folio edition, i, lOGl, has the same numbers ; but the Latin editi(ni in Ugo- lino, Tlic.'i(iurii.% ix, 596, has for the middle aisle fnrtii-one cubils), in which we suspect some oversight (perhaps from thinking of the dimensions of the other cloisters), as all editions of Josephus here read alike, and the Middnth does not particularize on this point. The hvpothesis of Williams {HoUj City, \\, i»l) that would throw tha Royal Portico outside the Temple area is opposed to all ancient authority; so much so that even his coadju- tor Prof. Willis is constrained to dissent from him {ibid. i, 103).
(4.) These cloisters were adorned with Corinthian col- iimns of solid marble, 162 in number (of such size that three men could just span them with their (nitstretched arms, making about a diameter of six feet), which sepa- rated the aisles, besides another row half imbedded in the outer wall (Josephus, Ant. xv, 11, 5). We understand this to be the number of all the columns that stood alone in all the circuit of this court, and not those of the Royal Portico merely; for they would then be unduly crowded, and the average space between them which we have made (about 45 feet) is no greater span for the roof timbers than across the middle aisle of the south cloister. The harmony with which the several gates fall in between thein when thus distributed is no little corroboraticni of the entire scheme. In the substructed vaults the rows of piers are 15 feet apart, and thus certain rows of them would fall exactly under these pillars, these piers also av- eraging about half the distance apart of the columns above. (See Prof. Willis's remarks in Williams's Holy Citi!, appendix, i, 125-128; although we cannot see why he should think that a column stood over each pier one way when they could have been only over every other, or every third one, the other way.) These columns were 25 cubits high on three sides, which determines the height of the roof on those sides (Josephus, War, v, 5, 2) ; but on the south side the (shafts of the) two exterior rows were 2T feet high, the cajiiials and double bases raising the roof to 50 feet, and the middle aisle was twice as high, probably by another seiies of columns of the same size surmountinsj the tirst (Ant. xv, 11, 5). Balustrades doubt- less guarded the edges of the fiat roofs, and the gates were probably capped with turrets, for ornament as well as defence.