'shops,' or booths, on the Temple Mount, which belonged to the High-Priestly family of
Ananias, and where such profitable trade was driven by those who, in their cupidity and
covetousness, were worthy successors of the sons of Eli. In the Court of the Gentiles (or
in its porches) sat the official money-changers, who for a fixed discount changed all
foreign coins into those of the Sanctuary. Here also was that great mart for sacrificial
animals, and all that was requisite for offerings. How the simple, earnest country people,
who came to pay vows, or bring offerings for purifying, must have wondered, and felt
oppressed in that atmosphere of strangely blended religious rigorism and utter
worldliness; and how they must have been taxed, imposed upon, and treated with utmost
curtness, nay, rudeness, by those who laughed at their boorishness, and despised them as
cursed, ignorant country people, little better than heathens, or, for that matter, than brute
beasts. Here also there lay about a crowd of noisy beggars, unsightly from disease, and
clamorous for help. And close by passed the luxurious scion of the High-Priestly
families; the proud, intensely self-conscious Teacher of the Law, respectfully followed by
his disciples; and the quick-witted, subtle Scribe. These were men who, on Sabbaths and
feast-days, would come out on the Temple-terrace to teach the people, or condescend to
answer their questions; who in the Synagogues would hold their puzzled hearers spell-
bound by their traditional lore and subtle argumentation, or tickle the fancy of the
entranced multitude, that thronged every available space, by their inge nious frivolities,
their marvellous legends, or their clever sayings; but who would, if occasion required,
quell an opponent by well-poised questions, or crush him beneath the sheer weight of
authority. Yet others were there who, despite the utterly lowering influence which the
frivolities of the prevalent religion, and the elaborate trifling of its endless observances,
must have exercised on the moral and religious feelings of all - perhaps, because of them
- turned aside, and looked back with loving gaze to the spiritual promises of the past, and
forward with longing expectancy to the near 'consolation of Israel,' waiting for it in
prayerful fellowship, and with bright, heaven- granted gleams of its dawning light amidst
the encircling gloom.
11. I must t ake leave to refer to the description of Jerusalem, and especially of the
Temple , in the 'Temple and its Services at the Time of Jesus Christ.'
12. Dr. Mühlau, in Riehm's Handwörterb. Part viii. p. 682 b, speaks of the dimensions of
the old Sanctuary as little more than those of a village church.
13. It was only finished in 64 a.d., that is, six years before its destruction.
Descending from the Temple into the city, there was more than enlargement, due to the
increased population. Altogether, Jerusalem covered, at its greatest, about 300 acres.14 As
of old there were still the same narrow streets in the business quarters; but in close
contiguity to bazaars and shops rose stately mansions of wealthy merchants, and palaces
of princes.15 And what a change in the aspect of these streets, in the character of those
shops, and, above all, in the appearance of the restless Eastern crowd that surged to and
fro! Outside their shops in the streets, or at least in sight of the passers, and within reach
of their talk, was the shoemaker hammering his sandals, the tailor plying his needle, the