of the altar was a structure of masonry on which priests could stand; north of it, the place for the slaughter of the victims. Here the victims to be slain were tied to rings in the pavement. There were

tables of marble on which they could be washed and flayed. Beams supported by pillars also contained hooks on which they could be hung for quartering. Herod, as noted above, probably constructed the Low Level Aqueduct. By means of this he brought a larger supply of water into the temple area, so that there was an abundance of water with which to flush the holy place, and wash away the blood and refuse with which the place must often have reeked, especially on festal days.

A low wall a cubit in height marked off the court of the priests from the court of Israel. Accounts differ as to whether this wall was on the east only or whether it ran around the whole temple. The court of Israel lay to the east of the court of the priests. Again our sources of information differ as to its exact size. Here the "congregation of Israel" could assemble to witness the sacred sacrifices. To the east of the court of Israel lay the court of the women. These were separated by a wall, but, owing to the downward slope of the hill, the court of the women was fifteen steps lower than that of Israel. Indeed, the level of the court of Israel was only maintained by a series of arches which supported a pavement. Perhaps the idea of a court for the women had been a gradual development of the post-exilic time, in which they had been permitted to watch the sacrifices from a definitely defined position in the rear of the men. At all events, this court became a prominent feature in the temple of Herod, and from elevated seats on its eastern side women could still watch the sacred ceremonies of the temple. With the exception of this gallery, the court of the women was open to men. It was 135 cubits square and so was relatively large. Apparently the temple treasury was situated in this court, together with the money boxes, for women had access to these. Here probably Christ was sitting when he saw the poor widow cast into the treasury her two mites (Mark 12 : 41, f.; Luke 21: 1, f). Around these courts ran a wall 43 feet high. This wall was pierced by nine gates, four on the north, four on the south, and one on the east. A gate also separated the court of the women from the court of Israel. Either the gate that opened out of the court of the women to the eastward, or the one between the court of the women and the court of Israel (it

1 See Chapter VI, p. 131.

is uncertain which one) had been given by one Nicanor and was of fine Corinthian bronze. It was sometimes called "the gate beautiful" and sometimes "Nicanor's gate." It was by this gate, and so near the treasury where people were devoting their money to religion, that Peter and John found the lame man begging (Acts 3: 2, f.).

Outside all these courts lay the court of the Gentiles. This was separated from the courts described above by a Soreg or ritual wall, which no Gentile might pass. Herod placed inscriptions in Greek at the various gates in this ritual wall, which warned Gentiles on pain of death not to enter. The court of the Gentiles surrounded the other courts on the north, east, and south; it was, however, most extensive on the east and south; (Fig. 257). To obtain a greater area for this court on the south, Herod extended the level of the hill by erecting great arches which supported a pavement. This structure still remains; it is now called "Solomon's stables"; (Fig. 258). In the Crusading period horses were stabled there. Around the court thus enlarged ran a beautiful colonnade. The pillars for this and for Herod's palace were quarried from the rock around Jerusalem. One pillar which had a defect and was accordingly never moved from the quarry was found a few years since in front of the Russian cathedral north of the city.

Although the temple has passed away and other sacred buildings have since the second century been erected in succession near its site, the expanse of the court of the Gentiles remains, and as the devout Christian visits it he seems almost to hear the footfalls of Christ and of Paul!

18. The Pool of Bethesda.-Another spot connected with the life of Christ lay not far from the temple on the north; it was the Pool of Bethesda. It was situated near the Sheep Gate, which was just northeast of the temple. Since the thirteenth century the Birket Israin' which lies between the temple area and the modern St. Stephen's Gate has been identified by some with Bethesda. Since 1889 it has been thought by many that two pools discovered in that year, now far under ground, in the land of the Church of St. Anne, just north of St. Stephen's Gate, constituted the Pool of Bethesda; (see Fig. 259). It is really impossible to decide between the two possibilities on the evidence we have. Both are in the region where we should look for the Pool of Bethesda.

19. Gethsemane.-Two other spots near Jerusalem are of the

1That is, the "Pool of Israel."

deepest interest to the Christian student-the Garden of Gethsemane and Golgotha. The fact is certain that the Garden of Gethsemane lay on the western slope of the Mount of Olives. (See Luke 22: 39; John 18:1; Mark 14: 26, 32.) Since the sixteenth century the Roman Catholics have shown a little garden, which lies just above the Kidron, as the Garden of Gethsemane. More recently the Russian Church has walled in the space next above it as the real garden. There is no certainty that the garden was on either site. To the Jews of the first century a garden was not a place for flower-beds, but an olive orchard, and such an orchard may have extended widely over the hillside. We cannot now identify the spot made sacred by the Master's agony, but we know as we look at this hillside that it was somewhere on it. 20. Calvary. The site of Calvary or Golgotha is not so easily discerned. Since the year 326 A. D., when Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, visited Jerusalem, there has been a continuous tradition in favor of the site on which the Church of the Holy Sepulcher stands. We know from Hebrews 13: 12 that the crucifixion took place outside the city walls. Unfortunately, we cannot tell whether the second wall of this period ran north or south of the spot on which the Church of the Holy Sepulcher stands, for the whole region lies under the modern city, where excavation has been impossible. If the second wall turned eastward before it had gone as far north as this spot, it may well be that the crucifixion occurred where the church now stands. Pilate condemned Jesus at the palace of Herod near the gate Gennath at the northwest corner of the city of that day. Doubtless the mob swept along with Jesus through the gate Gennath to the spot called Golgotha. If the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was on that spot, the walk was not a long one; (see Fig. 260).

In 1849 Otto Thenius suggested that the hill north of the modern Damascus Gate above "Jeremiah's Grotto" was the real Golgotha; (Figs. 261, 262). This was also suggested by Fisher Howe in 1871, and advocated by Gen. C. E. Gordon in 1881. Near it is a garden in which is a rock-hewn tomb; (Figs. 263, 264). Since the days of Gordon a kind of Protestant tradition and cult has grown up about this spot that in certain quarters evokes some of the devotion called forth among Catholics and Oriental Christians by the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It must be said that the tomb in the garden is, like many similar tombs in the

neighborhood, probably not earlier than the third or fourth century A. D., and there is really no more reason for regarding this spot as Golgotha than any other hill-top near the city. The exact spot where our Lord suffered is not certainly known.

Ecclesiastical tradition has fixed upon many other spots in Jerusalem as the places where certain events in the life of Christ occurred, but none of these has a sufficient degree of probability in its favor to merit a mention in an archæological work.

21. Agrippa I and the Third Wall.-In the reign of Herod Agrippa I (41-44 A. D.), Jerusalem was again enlarged. Agrippa built a third wall on the north. Its course is described by Josephus,1 but as most of the landmarks mentioned by him are unknown, opinions differ as to its course. It is certain that it started at the tower Hippacus and went northward to the tower Psephinus, that it enclosed the hill Bezetha, and that it ran along the edge of the Kidron valley to join the old wall. Some scholars suppose that it ran about on the line of the present northern Turkish wall of the city; others, as Robinson and Merrill, thought it ran much further north so that its northeastern corner was near the "Tombs of the Kings." While there is not decisive evidence in the matter, the first view, that the third wall ran near the line of the modern wall, seems the more probable. This wall was begun by Agrippa, who did not dare to finish it lest Claudius should suspect him of an intention to rebel. It was, however, completed by the Jews before the last tragic struggle of the years 66-70, and formed one of the features of Jerusalem when Paul made his later visits to the city.

We have not space to follow the fortunes of Jerusalem further. The history of the "Virgin Daughter of Zion" since 70 A. D., when the walls were broken down and the temple destroyed never to be rebuilt, has been no less checkered and tragic than in the centuries that preceded, but the hearts of all Christians as well as of Jews and Mohammedans turn to her with sympathy and affection, because of their debt to the holy men who at various times, from David to Paul, lived in her and walked her streets, and because of her tragic associations with the life and death of One who was more than man.

Wars of the Jews, V, iv, 2.

The city, restored under the heathen name of Ælia Capitolina by the Emperor Hadrian in 135 A. D., made Christian by Constantine in 325, sacked by the Persian Chosroes in 614, taken by the Arabs in 636, captured after many vicissitudes in 1072 by the Seljuk Turks, made by the First Crusade the seat of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem from 1099 to 1187, when Saladin took it, was once more after many other vicissitudes captured by the Ottoman Turks in 1517.

CHAPTER XIV

THE DECAPOLIS

ORIGIN. DAMASCUS. SCYTHOPOLIS. CITIES EAST OF THE SEA OF GALILEE. GADARA. PELLA AND DION. GERASA. PHILADELPHIA. JESUS IN THE DECAPOLIS.

1. Origin. Three times in the Gospels the Decapolis is mentioned: Matt. 4 : 25; Mark 5 : 20 and 7:31. Decapolis is a Greek name and means "the ten city" (region). The ancient writers who mention it agree that it originally consisted of ten cities in which Greek population was dominant and which were federated together. Pliny gives the ten cities as Damascus, Philadelphia, Raphana, Scythopolis, Gadara, Hippos, Dion, Pella, Gerasa, and Kanatha. Ptolemy, the astronomer and geographer, in the second century A. D. enumerated eighteen cities as belonging to it. In the time of Christ it probably consisted of but ten. The Decapolis apparently was created by the Roman General Pompey, when he conquered this region for Rome in 65-63 B. C. These cities with Greek populations appear to have appealed to him and he granted them certain privileges, including a degree of autonomy. They were, however, subject to the Legate of Syria. Hippos, Scythopolis, and Pella were released by him at this time from the Jewish yoke.2 Josephus, at the end of the first century A. D., does not reckon Damascus in the Decapolis, but before the time of Paul, Damascus had been captured by the Nabathæans or Arabians, and may not, when retaken by Rome, have been again accorded the privileges of the cities of the Decapolis.

2. Damascus, which is mentioned in the annals of Thothmes III before 1447 B. C., and in the accounts of Abraham (Gen. 14: 15; 15: 2), has been continuously in existence as a city ever since, and is one of the most flourishing cities of Syria at the present time. It was occupied in the thirteenth or fourteenth century B. C. by Aramæans who held it all through the Old Testament period. Kings of Damascus frequently fought with Israel. From the time of Alexander the Great it came under Hellenic influences. After 1 Historia Naturalis, V, xviii, 74. 2 Josephus, Wars of the Jews, I, vii, 7.