or what is their precise notion as to its place in the ancient temple: they apparently regard the Gate of the Chain as an ancient gate of the Temple, identical with the Gate of Cephenus3, which, according to Lightfoot, was the later name of the Gate Shallecheth; and it is curious that a Jewish writer of the 13th century has remarked in the foundation of this Western Wall a kind of large Porch at the base of the Temple3, probably the head of the identical subterranean gateway near the Gate of the Moghrebins, which we noticed from Ali Bey, in the interior survey of the Haram 6. It would be presumptuous to attempt to determine anything with reference to this Gate without more light than can be obtained from the scanty and obscure notices of such an inaccurate writer as Ali Bey: and it is clear that the Gate must closely affect the question 2 Benjamin of Tudela (A.D. 1160) speaks of the "Western Wall” “in (Ibid. p. 439. Hottinger's Cippi Heb. p. 41) it is simply the Western Wall. front of the Templum Domini," as one P. 4 of the walls which formed the Holy of 3 So Esthori Parchi (cited by Dr Zunz, in Asher, Vol. 11. p. 397,) a. D. 1322, writes, "We further recognise the Gate of Chulda South, and the Gate of Kephinus Westwards." 4 See Lightfoot's Prospect of the Temple, Chap. v. sect. i. Vol. IX. p. 226. 5 Samuel Bar Simson (A. D. 1210). He speaks of the Gate of the Chain as the Gate Shacambo, without which is the road that leads to the fountain Etham, the bath of the priests: and after noticing the great porch (Portique), he remarks that it was by a subterranean passage that the priests went to Etham, where was formerly a bath. Carmoly, p. 127. All this is very obscure. 6 See above, p. 308. of the neighbouring wall. I would only suggest, in general, whether this ancient wall may not be the western termination of the Royal Porch of Herod, erected probably without the bounds of the ancient Temple, and so forming in the South an extension of its old limits, as Josephus describes: for the rapid convergence of the Tyropoon and the Valley of Jehoshaphat, would be a sufficient reason for not extending the cloister the full width of the ancient area. Thus will a satisfactory account be given of both the angles that break the continuity of the Western Wall; for that nearest the Causeway will mark the limit of the old area before its extension by Herod the Great; and the angle South of the Wailing Place will determine the line of the South Wall of the Royal Cloister; while all South of this will belong to the Church and Hospitals of Justinian, built in great measure on an artificial foundation, supported on arches, as described by Procopius; the continued convergence of the two valleys having so narrowed the intervening hill as to render such an expedient necessary in order to procure a requisite space for the given dimensions of the buildings. Here, then, it will be well briefly to recapitulate the various points which I have thus far attempted to establish; for it is time to bring this long disquisition to a close. The correspondence between the great drain of the Jewish altar and the present sacred Cave of the Moslems, having fixed with a great degree of certainty the position of the brazen altar, and by consequence of the holy House and the sacred precinct, the agreement that was found between the proportions and measures of that Inner Temple and the present raised platform of the Haram, was a strong argument for their general identity. Next arose the perplexing question concerning the extent of the outer area; in examining which I shewed reason to believe that the North boundary of the Temple is the same with that of the present Haram, arguing chiefly from the scarped rock in the N.W. corner, the angle of massive masonry at the N.E. corner, the deep fosse on the North, and the ancient gateway in the Eastern Wall. I then accounted for the remains at the South of the Haram, independently of the Temple, shewing that the S.E. angular tower must have belonged to the first wall of the city, and that the coincidence between the description given by Procopius of the erections of Justinian and the existing buildings and substructions in this quarter, must lead us to assign these great works to that Emperor's mechanical architect, Theodore; and in further confirmation of this view, I adduced the architecture of the Mosk el-Aksa, and an inscription of Antoninus Pius, on an inverted stone, in the original wall of the subterranean gateway. The ruined arch at the S. W. angle then invited more particular notice, and I endeavoured to prove that it could not have belonged to the bridge mentioned by Josephus, which bridge I have identified with the causeway which still exists, and is traversed by the Street of the Temple. Thus then I have reduced the area of the Temple to the proportions of a square, as the consistent statement of the Jewish authorities demanded, and have brought the southern portico of the outer Court near to the inner platform, as the language of Josephus requires; but I do not and I cannot reduce the outer Court to the dimensions specified by the same authorities, nor does any other hypothesis do so, always VOL. II. 26 excepting one which disregards alike all ancient traditions and all existing remains; which utterly ignores or boldly over-rides all statements that make against it; which contrives, with consummate ingenuity, to place the Temple exactly without the ancient area, in a supposed angle of the Haram that does not exist; and which, lastly, finds the Sacred Rock of the Moslems in a Mosk where no native rock is to be seen, but the half of which is suspended on an artificial substruction'. All modern theories, with this exception, are open to the objection above stated; and that which I have here proposed is equally opposed to another statement of the Mishna2. It is to the effect that the greatest space of the Mountain of the House (i. e. of the outer Temple) was on the South, the next on the East, the next on the North, and the least on the West: a statement which I do not profess to understand; for the remark that follows completely mystifies what would otherwise be a clear, though very inconvenient, particular. "Where was the greatest space, there was the most service," adds the writer; whereas there was no part of the service performed in the outer Temple, as the Hebrew Ritual most clearly demonstrates. But whatever becomes of this difficulty, it is clear that the passage in question militates as strongly against the only other plausible theory that materially differs from my own since any disposition of the area which הר הבית היה .334 .Tom. v. p רוב שם היה רוב תשמישו. would exclude the Golden Gate, must leave the least space on the North of the Rock, where Dr Robinson, no less than myself, is disposed to fix the Temple'; while the other arguments against that disposition remain in full force. The truth is, that all hypotheses have their difficulties; that which solves the most and leaves the fewest is the best and I think it more fair to so difficult a subject, as it is more honest, clearly to state the difficulties which I cannot solve, rather than to suggest a solution not fully satisfactory to myself; and I am not afraid that my credit will suffer by the avowal. It remains now to take some notice of the position of the fortress Antonia, which I have removed from the place assigned it by Dr Robinson. This subject again is obscure, but to collect and arrange the scattered notices of Josephus may serve a good purpose and assist future investigations. This historian does not mention the original builder of this tower, but refers it generally to the Asmonean princess. Its original name was Baris, until Herod, 3 a Neither would this difficulty be removed, as so many others are, by the convenient, but wholly unsupported, assumption that the Antonia is comprehended in the Mountain of the House; for then the greater space would be on the North. It is obvious that the difficulty is not met in Theol. Rev. p. 624. Bib. Res. Vol. 1. p. 444. Theol. Rev. p. 624. Ant. xv. xi. 3. Bell. Jud. 1. iii. 3; v.4; v. v. 8. Prideaux (in ann. 107) after Lightfoot, and both professing to follow Josephus, ascribe it to Hyrcanus, the son of Simon; but I cannot find any warrant for this. Lightfoot's reference, copied by Prideaux, is wrong, as usual. 6 Of this name Prideaux says, "It was called Baris from Birah, which word among the Eastern nations signifies a palace or royal city; and in this sense it is often used in those scriptures of the Old Testament which were written after the Babylonish captivity, as in Daniel, Ezra, Chronicles, Nehemiah, and Esther, which shews it to have been borrowed from the Chaldæans, and from them brought into the Hebrew language." ubi sup. |