much wider space. It lay on the northwestern angle of the Temple, slightly jutting beyond
it in the west, but not covering the whole northern area of the Temple. The rock on which
it stood was higher than the Temple,8 although lower than the hill up which the new
suburb Bezetha crept, which, accordingly, was cut off by a deep ditch, for the safety of
the fortress. Herod greatly enlarged and strengthened it. Within encircling walls the fort
rose to a height of sixty feet, and was flanked by four towers, of which three had a height
of seventy, the fourth (S.E.), which jutted into the Temple area, of 105 feet, so as to
command the sacred enclosure. A subterranean passage led into the Temple itself,9 which
was also connected with it by colonnades and stairs. Herod had adorned as well as
strengthened and enlarged, this fort (now Antonia), and made it a palace, an armed camp,
and almost a city. 10
4. 1 Macc. i. 33, and often; but the precise situation of this 'fort' is in dispute.
5. 1 Macc. xii. 36; Jos. Ant. xiii. 5. 11; comp. with it xiv. 16. 2; War vi. 7. 2; 8. 1.
6. 141 b.c.
7. 135-106 b.c.
8. It is, to say the least, doubtful, whether the numeral 50 cubits (75 feet), which Josephus
assigns to this rock (War v. 5. 8), applies to its height (comp. Speiss, Das Jerus. d. Jos.p.
66).
9. Ant. xv. 11. 7.
10. Jos. War v. 5. 8.
Hitherto we have only spoken of the first, or old wall, which was fortified by sixty
towers. The second wall, which had only fourteen towers, began at some point in the
northern wall at the Gate Gennath, whence it ran north, and then east, so as to enclose
Acra and the Suburb. It terminated at Fort Antonia. Beyond, and all around this second
wall stretched, as already noticed, the new, as yet unenclosed suburb Bezetha, rising
towards the north-east. But these changes were as nothing compared with those within
the city itself. First and foremost was the great transformation in the Temple itself,11
which, from a small building, little larger than an ordinary church, in the time of
Solomon,12 had become that great and glorious House which excited the admiration of
the foreigner, and kindled the enthusiasm of every son of Israel. At the time of Christ it
had been already forty-six years in building, and workmen were still, and for a long time,
engaged on it.13 But what a heterogeneous crowd thronged its porches and courts!
Hellenists; scattered wanderers from the most distant parts of the earth - east, west, north,
and south; Galileans, quick of temper and uncouth of Jewish speech; Judæans and
Jerusalemites; white-robed Priests and Levites; Temple officials; broad-phylacteried,
wide- fringed Pharisees, and courtly, ironical Sadducees; and, in the outer court, curious
Gentiles! Some had come to worship; others to pay vows, or bring offerings, or to seek
purification; some to meet friends, and discourse on religious subjects in those
colonnaded porches, which ran round the Sanctuary; or else to have their questions
answered, or their causes heard and decided, by the smaller Sanhedrin of twenty-three,
that sat in the entering of the gate or by the Great Sanhedrin. The latter no longer
occupied the Hall of Hewn Stones, Gazith, but met in some chamber attached to those