the sun, are usually narrow, sometimes with a range of shops on each side. If from these we enter into any of the principal houses, we shall first pass through a porch or gateway, with benches on each side, where the master of the family receives visits, and despatches business; few persons, not even the nearest relations, having admission any farther, except upon extraordinary occasions. From hence we are received into the court, which lying open to the weather, is, according to the ability of the owner, paved with marble, or such proper materials as will carry off the water into the common sewers." This court corresponded to the cava adium or impluvium of the Romans; the use of which was to give light to the windows and carry off the rain. "When much people are to be admitted, as upon the celebration of a marriage, the circumcising of a child, or occasions of the like nature, the company is seldom or never admitted into one of the chambers. The court is the usual place of their reception, which is strewed accordingly with mats or carpets, for their more commodious entertainment. The stairs which lead to the roof are never placed on the outside of the house in the street, but usually at the gateway or passage room to the court; sometimes at the entrance within the court. This court is now called in Arabic el woost, or the middle of the house, literally answering to the Top of St. Luke. (v. 19.) In this area our Saviour probably taught. In the summer season, and upon all occasions when a large company is to be received, the court is commonly sheltered from the heat and inclemencies of the weather by a vellum umbrella or veil, which, being expanded upon ropes from one side of the parallel wall to the other, may be folded or unfolded at pleasure. The Psalmist seems to allude either to the tents of the Bedouins, or to some covering of this kind, in that beautiful expression, of spreading out the heavens like a veil or curtain." (Psal. civ. 2. See also Isaiah xl. 22.)2 The arrangement of oriental houses satisfactorily explains the circumstances of the letting down of the paralytic into the presence of Jesus Christ, in order that he might heal him. (Mark ii. 4. Luke v. 19.) The paralytic was carried by some of his neighbours to the top of the house, either by forcing their way through the crowd by the gateway and passages up the staircase, or else by conveying him over some of the neighbouring terraces; and there, after they had drawn away the Tw or awning, they let him down along the side of the roof through the opening or impluvium into the midst of the court before Jesus. Ere, Dr. Shaw remarks, may with propriety denote no less than tatlilo (the corresponding word in the Syriac version), any kind of covering; and, consequently, arcore av may signify, the removal of such a covering. Epure is in the Vulgate Latin version rendered patefacientes, as if further explanatory of arroav. The same in the Persian version is connected with xpaßßarcy, and there implies making holes in it for the cords to pass through. That neither av nor pares imply any force or violence offered to the roof, appears from the parallel passage in St. Luke; where, though de ne у auror, per tegulas demiserunt illum, is rendered by our translators, they let him down through the tiling, as if that had been previously broken up, it should be rendered, they let him down over, along the side, or by the way of the roof, as in Acts ix. 25. and 2 Cor. xi. 33., where the like phraseology is observed as in St. Luke: S is rendered in both places by, that is, along the side, or by the way of the wall. Epuvres may express the plucking away or removing any obstacle, such as awning or part of a parapet, which might be in their way. Kepaμa was first used for a roof of tiles, but afterwards came to signify any kind of roof.3

The following diagram will perhaps give the reader a tolerably accurate idea of the arrangement of an eastern house :

1 In Bengal, servants and others generally sleep in the verandah or porch, in front of their master's house. (Ward's History, &c. of the Hindoos, vol. ii. p. 323.) The Arab servants in Egypt do the same. (Wilson's Travels in Egypt and the Holy Land, p. 55.) In this way Uriah slept at the door of the king's house, with all the servants of his lord. (2 Sam. xi. 9.) 2 Dr. Shaw's Travels, vol. i. pp. 374-376.

Shaw's Travels in Barbary, &c. vol. i. pp. 382-334. 8vo. edition. Valpy's Gr. Test. on Mark ii. 4. If the circumstances related by the evange. list had happened in India, nothing could be easier than the mode of letting down the paralytic. A plank or two might be started from the top balcony or viranda in the back court, where the congregation was probably assembled, and the man [be] let down in his hammock." Callaway's Oriental Observations, p. 71.

Now, let it be supposed, that Jesus was sitting at D in the porch, at the entrance into the main building, and speaking to the people, when the four men carrying the paralytic came to the front gate or porch, B. Finding the porch so crowded that they could not carry him in and lay him before Jesus, they carried him up the stairs at the porch to the top of the gallery, C, C, C, and along the gallery round to the place where Jesus was sitting, and forcing a passage by removing the balustrade, they lowered down the paralytic, with the couch on which he lay, into the court before Jesus. Thus we are enabled to understand the manner in which the paralytic was brought in and laid before the compassionate Redeemer.4

"The court is for the most part surrounded with a cloister, as the cava ædium of the Romans was with a peristylium or colonnade, over which, when the house has one or more stories (and they sometimes have two or three), there is a gallery erected of the same dimensions with the cloister, having a balustrade, or else a piece of carved or latticed work going round about it, to prevent people from falling from it into the court. From the cloisters and galleries we are conducted into large spacious chambers of the same length of the court, but seldom or never communicating with one another. One of them frequently serves a whole family, particularly when a father indulges his married children to live with him; or when several persons join in the rent of the same house. Hence it is that the cities of these countries, which are generally much inferior in size to those of Europe, are so exceedingly populous, that great numbers of the inhabitants are swept away by the plague, or any other contagious distemper. In houses of better fashion, these chambers, from the middle of the wall downwards, are covered and adorned with velvet or damask hangings, of white, blue, red, green, or other colours (Esth. i. 6.), suspended upon hooks, or taken down at pleasure. But the upper part is embellished with more permanent ornaments, being adorned with the most ingenious wreathings and devices in stucco and fret-work. The ceiling is generally of wainscot either very artfully painted, or else thrown into a variety of panels, with gilded mouldings and scrolls of their Korak intermixed. The prophet Jeremiah (xxii. 14.) exclaims

Mr. Hartley has dissented from the interpretation above given by Dr. Shaw. "When I lived in Egina" (he relates), "I used to look up not unfrequently above my head, and contemplate the facility with which the whole transaction might take place. The roof was constructed in this manner :-A layer of reeds, of a large species, was placed upon the rafters. On these a quantity of heather (heath) was strewed; upon the heather earth was deposited, and beat down into a compact mass. Now what diffi culty could there be in removing, first the earth, then the heather, next the reeds? Nor would the difficulty be increased, if the earth had a pavement of tiling (xspawv) laid upon it. No inconvenience could result to the persons in the house from the removal of the tiles and earth; for the heather and reeds would intercept any thing which might otherwise fall down, and would be removed last of all." (Hartley's Researches in Greece, p. 240.)

s Similar costly hangings appear to have decorated the pavilion or state tent of Solomon, alluded to in Cant. i. 5. ; the beauty and elegance of which would form a striking contrast to the black tents of the nomadic Arabs. The state tents of modern oriental sovereigns, it is well known, are very superb: of this gorgeous splendour, Mr. Harmer has given some instances from the travels of Egmont and Hayman. The tent of the Grand Seignior was covered and lined with silk. Nadir Shah had a very superb one, covered on the outside with scarlet broad cloth, and lined within with violet coloured satin, ornamented with a great variety of animals, flowers, &c formed entirely of pearls and precious stones. (Harmer on Sol. Song p. 186.)

L

the sun, are usually narrow, sometimes with a range of shops on each side. If from these we enter into any of the principal houses, we shall first pass through a porch1 or gateway, with benches on each side, where the master of the family receives visits, and despatches business; few persons, not even the nearest relations, having admission any farther, except upon extraordinary occasions. From hence we are received into the court, which lying open to the weather, is, according to the ability of the owner, paved with marble, or such proper materials as will carry off the water into the common sewers." This court corresponded to the cava adium or impluvium of the Romans; the use of which was to give light to the windows and carry off the rain. "When much people are to be admitted, as upon the celebration of a marriage, the circumcising of a child, or occasions of the like nature, the company is seldom or never admitted into one of the chambers. The court is the usual place of their reception, which is strewed accordingly with mats or carpets, for their more commodious entertainment. The stairs which lead to the roof are never placed on the outside of the house in the street, but usually at the gateway or passage room to the court; sometimes at the entrance within the court. This court is now called in Arabic el woost, or the middle of the house, literally answering to the Toy of St. Luke. (v. 19.) In this area our Saviour probably taught. In the summer season, and upon all occasions when a large company is to be received, the court is commonly sheltered from the heat and inclemencies of the weather by a vellum umbrella or veil, which, being expanded upon ropes from one side of the parallel wall to the other, may be folded or unfolded at pleasure. The Psalmist seems to allude either to the tents of the Bedouins, or to some covering of this kind, in that beautiful expression, of spreading out the heavens like a veil or curtain." (Psal. civ. 2. See also Isaiah xl. 22.) The arrangement of oriental houses satisfactorily explains the circumstances of the letting down of the paralytic into the presence of Jesus Christ, in order that he might heal him. (Mark ii. 4. Luke v. 19.) The paralytic was carried by some of his neighbours to the top of the house, either by forcing their way through the crowd by the gateway and passages up the staircase, or else by conveying him over some of the neighbouring terraces; and there, after they had drawn away the T or awning, they let him down along the side of the roof through the opening or impluvium into the midst of the court before Jesus. Eren, Dr. Shaw remarks, may with propriety denote no less than tatlilo (the corresponding word in the Syriac version), any kind of covering; and, consequently, ancora may signify, the removal of such a covering. Epure is in the Vulgate Latin version rendered patefacientes, as if further explanatory of arrearav. The same in the Persian version is connected with xpaßßarcy, and there implies making holes in it for the cords to pass through. That neither array nor are imply any force or violence offered to the roof, appears from the parallel passage in St. Luke; where, though di Tv ev v avrov, per tegulas demiserunt illum, is rendered by our translators, they let him down through the tiling, as if that had been previously broken up, it should be rendered, they let him down over, along the side, or by the way of the roof, as in Acts ix. 25. and 2 Cor. xi. 33., where the like phraseology is observed as in St. Luke: d is rendered in both places by, that is, along the side, or by the way of the wall. Epuvres may express the plucking away or removing any obstacle, such as awning or part of a parapet, which might be in their way. Kua was first used for a roof of tiles, but afterwards came to signify any kind of roof.3

The following diagram will perhaps give the reader a tolerably accurate idea of the arrangement of an eastern house :

1 In Bengal, servants and others generally sleep in the verandah or porch,
in front of their master's house. (Ward's History, &c. of the Hindoos,
vol. ii. p. 323.) The Arab servants in Egypt do the same. (Wilson's Tra-
vels in Egypt and the Holy Land, p. 55.) In this way Uriah slept at the
door of the king's house, with all the servants of his lord. (2 Sam. xi. 9.)
2 Dr. Shaw's Travels, vol. i. pp. 374-376.

Shaw's Travels in Barbary, &c. vol. i. pp. 382-334. 8vo. edition. Val-
py's Gr. Test. on Mark ii. 4. "If the circumstances related by the evange-
list had happened in India, nothing could be easier than the mode of letting
down the paralytic. A plank or two might be started from the top bal-
cony or viranda in the back court, where the congregation was probably
assembled, and the man [be] let down in his hammock." Callaway's
Oriental Observations, p. 71.

Now, let it be supposed, that Jesus was sitting at D in the porch, at the entrance into the main building, and speaking to the people, when the four men carrying the paralytic came to the front gate or porch, B. Finding the porch so crowded that they could not carry him in and Tay him before Jesus, they carried him up the stairs at the porch to the top of the gallery, C, C, C, and along the gallery round to the place where Jesus was sitting, and forcing a passage by removing the balustrade, they lowered down the paralytic, with the couch on which he lay, into the court before Jesus. Thus we are enabled to understand the manner in which the paralytic was brought in and laid before the compassionate Redeemer.4 "The court is for the most part surrounded with a cloister, as the cava ædium of the Romans was with a peristylium or colonnade, over which, when the house has one or more stories (and they sometimes have two or three), there is a gallery erected of the same dimensions with the cloister, having a balustrade, or else a piece of carved or latticed work going round about it, to prevent people from falling from it into the court. From the cloisters and galleries we are conducted into large spacious chambers of the same length of the court, but seldom or never communicating with one another. One of them frequently serves a whole family, particularly when a father indulges his married children to live with him; or when several persons join in the rent of the same house. Hence it is that the cities of these countries, which are generally much inferior in size to those of Europe, are so exceedingly populous, that great numbers of the inhabitants are swept away by the plague, or any other contagious distemper. In houses of better fashion, these chambers, from the middle of the wall downwards, are covered and adorned with velvet or damask hangings, of white, blue, red, green, or other colours (Esth. i. 6.), suspended upon hooks, or taken down at pleasure. But the upper part is embellished with more permanent ornaments, being adorned with the most ingenious wreathings and devices in stucco and fret-work. The ceiling is generally of wainscot either very artfully painted, or else thrown into a variety of panels, with gilded mouldings and scrolls of their Koran intermixed. The prophet Jeremiah (xxii. 14.) exclaims

Mr. Hartley has dissented from the interpretation above given by Dr. frequently above my head, and contemplate the facility with which the Shaw. "When I lived in Ægina" (he relates), "I used to look up not unwhole transaction might take place. The roof was constructed in this manner:-A layer of reeds, of a large species, was placed upon the rafters. earth was deposited, and beat down into a compact mass. Now what diffi On these a quantity of heather (heath) was strewed; upon the heather culty could there be in removing, first the earth, then the heather, next the reeds? Nor would the difficulty be increased, if the earth had a pavement of tiling (xspawwv) laid upon it. No inconvenience could result to heather and reeds would intercept any thing which might otherwise fall the persons in the house from the removal of the tiles and earth; for the down, and would be removed last of all." (Hartley's Researches in Greece, p. 240.)

5 Similar costly hangings appear to have decorated the pavilion or state tent of Solomon, alluded to in Cant. i. 5.; the beauty and elegance of which would form a striking contrast to the black tents of the nomadic Arabs. The state tents of modern oriental sovereigns, it is well known, are very superb: of this gorgeous splendour, Mr. Harmer has given some instances from the travels of Egmont and Hayman. The tent of the Grand Seignior was covered and lined with silk. Nadir Shah had a very superb one, covered on the outside with scarlet broad cloth, and lined within with violet coloured satin, ornamented with a great variety of animals, flowers, &c formed entirely of pearls and precious stones. (Harmer on Sol. Song p. 186.)

Roman magistrates, they were not allowed to enjoy them by | ii. 24.) And in his Epistle to Titus, he informs us that the their chief priests and popular leaders, whom Josephus cha- Jews in speculation, indeed, acknowledged a God, but in racterizes as profligate wretches, who had purchased their practice they were atheists; for in their lives they were aboplaces by bribes or by acts of iniquity, and maintained their minally immoral and abandoned, and the contemptuous ill-acquired authority by the most flagitious and abominable despisers of every thing that was virtuous. They profess crimes. Nor were the religious creeds of these men more that they know God, but in works they deny him, being abomipure having espoused the principles of various sects, they nable and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate. suffered themselves to be led away by all the prejudice and (Titus i. 16.) This testimony to the religious and moral animosity of party (though, as in the case of our Saviour, character of the Jewish people, by Jesus Christ and his they would sometimes abandon them to promote some fa- apostles, is amply corroborated by Josephus, who has given vourite measure); and were commonly more intent on the us a true estimate of their principles and manners, and is gratification of private enmity, than studious of advancing the also confirmed by other contemporary historians. The circause of religion, or promoting the public welfare. The cumstance of their nation having been favoured with an exsubordinate and inferior members were infected with the cor- plicit revelation from the Deity, instead of enlarging their ruption of the head; the priests, and the other ministers of minds, miserably contracted and soured them with all the religion, were become dissolute and abandoned in the highest bitterness and leaven of theological odium. They regarded undegree; while the common people, instigated by examples circumcised heathens with sovereign contempt, and believed so depraved, rushed headlong into every kind of iniquity, them to be hated by God, merely because they were born and by their incessant seditions, robberies, and extortions, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and lived strangers armed against themselves both the justice of God and the to their covenant of promise. They would not eat with vengeance of men. them (Acts xi. 3.), do the least friendly office for them, or maintain any social correspondence and mutual intercourse with them. The apostle comprises their national character in a few words, and it is a just one: They were contrary to all men. (1 Thess. ii. 15.) The supercilious insolence, with which the mean and selfish notion of their being the only favourites of heaven and enlightened by God inflated them as a people, and the haughty and scornful disdain in which they held the heathens, are in a very striking manner characterized in the following spirited address of St. Paul to them :-Behold! thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God: and knowest his will, and ap provest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law, and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law. (Rom. ii. 17-20.) This passage exhibits to us a faithful picture of the national character of this people, and shows us how much they valued themselves upon their wisdom and superior knowledge of religion, arrogating to themselves the character of lights and guides, and instructors of the whole world, and contemptuously regarding all the heathen as blind, as babes, and as fools.

Owing to these various causes, the great mass of the Jewish people were sunk into the most deplorable ignorance of God and of divine things. Hence proceeded that dissoluteness of manners and that profligate wickedness which prevailed among the Jews during Christ's ministry upon earth; in allusion to which the divine Saviour compares the people to a multitude of lost sheep, straying without a shepherd (Matt. x. 6. xv. 24.), and their teachers, or doctors, to blind guides, who professed to instruct others in a way with which they were totally unacquainted themselves. (Matt. xv. 14. John ix. 39, 40.)

More particularly, in the New Testament,2" the Jews are described as a most superstitious and bigoted people, attached to the Mosaic ritual and to the whimsical traditions of their elders, with a zeal and fanaticism approaching to madness. They are represented as a nation of hypocrites, assuming the most sanctimonious appearance before the world, at the corners of crowded streets uttering loud and fervent strains of rapturous devotion, merely to attract the eyes of a weak and credulous multitude, and to be noticed and venerated by them as mirrors of mortification and heavenly-mindedness; devoured with ostentation and spiritual pride; causing a trumpeter to walk before them in the streets, and make proclamation that such a rabbi was going to distribute his alms; publicly displaying all this showy parade of piety and charity, yet privately guilty of the most unfeeling cruelty and oppression; devouring widows' houses, stripping the helpless widow and friendless orphan of their property, and exposing them to all the rigours of hunger and nakedness; clamouring, The temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord! making conscience of paying tithe of mint, anise, and cummin, to the support of its splendour and priesthood, but in practical life violating and trampling upon the first duties of morality, justice, fidelity, and mercy, as being vulgar and heathenish attainments, and infinitely below the regard of exalted saints and spiritual perfectionists. Their great men were to an incredible degree depraved in their morals, many of them Sadducees in principle, and in practice the most profligate sensualists and debauchees their atrocious and abandoned wickedness, as Josephus testifies, transcended all the enormities which the most corrupt age of the world had ever beheld; they compassed sea and land to make proselytes to Judaism from the Pagans, and, when they had gained these converts, soon rendered them, by their immoral lives and scandalous examples, more depraved and profligate than ever they were before their conversion. The apostle tells them, that by reason of their notorious vices their religioh was become the object of calumny and satire among the heathen nations. The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you! (Rom.

Mosheim's Eccl. Hist. book i. part i. chap. ii., and also his Commentaries on the Affairs of Christians before the time of Constantine the Great, vol. i. Introd. ch. ii. Pritii Introductio ad Lectionem Novi Testamenti, c. 35. De summa Populi Judaici corruptione, tempore Christi, pp. 471-473. For the following picture of the melancholy corruption of the Jewish church and people, the author is indebted to Dr. Harwood's Introduction to the New Testament. (vol. ii. pp. 58. 61.) 3 Josephus, Bell. Jud. lib. vii. p. 1314. Hudson. Again, says this historian, "They were universally corrupt, both publicly and privately. They vied which should surpass each other in impiety against God and injustice towards men." Ibid.

The superstitions credulity of a Jew was proverbial among the heathens. Credat Judæus Apella. Horat. Epictetus mentions and exposes their greater attachment to their ceremonies than to the duties of morality. Dissertationes, lib. i. p. 115. edit. Upton. See also Josephus contra Apion. p. 480. lavercamp.

;

Another ever memorable instance of the national pride and arrogance of this vain and ostentatious people is, that when our Lord was discoursing to them concerning their pretensions to moral liberty, and representing the ignoble and despicable bondage in which sin detains its votaries, they imagined this to be an indirect allusion to the present condition of their country: their pride was instantly in flames; and they had the effrontery and impudence openly to assert, that they had always been free, and were never in bondage to any man (John viii. 33.); though every child must know the history of their captivities, must know that Judæa was at that very time a conquered province, had been subdued by Pompey, and from that time had paid an annual tribute to Rome. Another characteristic which distinguishes and marks this people, was that kind of evidence which they expected in order to their reception of truth. Except they saw signs and wonders they would not believe! (John iv. 48.) If a doctrine proposed to their acceptance was not confirmed by some visible displays of preternatural power, some striking phenomena, the clear and indubitable evidences of an immediate divine interposition, they would reject it. In an

s "I cannot forbear," says Josephus, "declaring my opinion, though the declaration fills me with great emotion and regret, that if the Romans had delayed to come against these wretches, the city would either have been ingulfed by an earthquake, overwhelmed by a deluge, or destroyed by fire from heaven, as Sodom was: for that generation was far more enormously wicked than those who suffered these calamities." Bell. Jud. lib. v. c. 13. p. 1256. "These things they suffered," says Origen, "as being the most abandoned of men." Origen contra Celsuin, p. 62. Cantab. 1677.

"The Jews are the only people who refuse all friendly intercourse with every other nation, and esteem all mankind as enemies." Diod. Siculus, tom. ii. p. 524. edit. Wesseling, Amstel. 1746. "Let him be to thee as an heathen man and a publican." (Matt. xviii. 17.) Of the extreme detestation and abhorrence which the Jews had for the Gentiles we have a very striking example in that speech which St. Paul addresses to them, telling them in the course of it, that God had commissioned him to go to the Gentiles. The moment he had pronounced the word, the whole assembly was in confusion, tore off their clothes, rent the air with their cries, threw clouds of dust into it, and were transported into the last excesses of rage and madness. "He said unto me, Depart, for 1 will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles: they gave him audience," says the sacred historian, "until this word, and then lifted up their voice and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth; for it is not fit that he should live." (Acts xxii. 21.) This character of the Jewish nation is confirined by Tacitus, and expressed almost in the very words of the Apostle, "Adversus omnes alios hostile odium." Tacit. Hist. lib. v. § 5. vol. iii. p. 261. edit. Bipont.

cient times, for a series of many years, this people had been favoured with numerous signal manifestations from heaven: a cloud had conducted them by day, and a pillar of fire by night; their law was given them accompanied by a peculiar display of solemn pomp and magnificence; and the glory of God had repeatedly filled their temple. Habituated as their understandings had been, for many ages, to receive as truth only what should be attested and ratified by signs from heaven, and by some grand and striking phenomena in the sky, it was natural for them, long accustomed as they had been to this kind of evidence, to ask our Saviour to give them some sign from heaven (Matt. xvi. 1.), to exhibit before them some amazing and stupendous prodigy in the air to convince them of the dignity and divinity of his character. The Jews, says St. Paul, require a sign (1 Cor. i. 22.); it was that species of evidence to which their nation had been accustomed. Thus we read that the Scribes and Pharisees came to John, desiring him that he would show them a sign from heaven. Again, we read that the Jews came and said to Jesus, What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou dost these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up! (John ii. 18, 19.) What kind of signs these were which they expected, and what sort of preternatural prodigies they wanted him to display in order to authenticate his divine mission to them, appears from the following passages: They said, therefore, unto him, What sign showest thou then, that we may see and believe thee? What dost thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven! (John vi. 30, 31.) This method, therefore, of espousing religious doctrines, only as they should be confirmed by some signal and indubitable interposition of the Deity, and their cherishing the vanity and presumption that heaven would lavish its miraculous signs whenever they called for them, constitute a striking and very distinguishing feature in the national character of this people."

So exceedingly great was the fecundity of the Jewish people, that multitudes of them had occasionally been con

strained to emigrate from their native country; hence, at the time of our Saviour's birth, there was scarcely a province in the Roman empire in which they were not to be found, either serving in the army, engaged in the pursuits of commerce, or exercising some lucrative arts. They were maintained, in foreign countries, against injurious treatment and violence, by various special edicts of the emperors and magistrates in their favour; though from the peculiarities of their religion and manners, they were held in very general contempt, and were not unfrequently exposed to much vexation and annoyance, from the jealousy and indignation of an ignorant and superstitious populace. Many of them, in consequence of their long residence and intercourse with foreign nations, fell into the error of endeavouring to make their religion accommodate itself to the principles and institutions of some of the different systems of heathen discipline; but, on the other hand, it is clear that the Jews brought many of those among whom they resided to perceive the superiority of the Mosaic religion over the Gentile superstitions, and were highly instrumental in causing them to forsake the worship of a plurality of gods. Although the knowledge which the Gentiles thus acquired from the Jews respecting the only true God, the Creator and Governor of the universe, was, doubtless, both partial and limited, yet it inclined many of them the more readily to listen to the subsequent arguments and exhortations of the apostles of our Saviour, for the purpose of exploding the worship of false deities, and recalling men to the knowledge of true religion. All which, Mosheim observes, with equal truth and piety, appears to have been most singularly and wisely directed by the adorable hand of an interposing Providence: to the end that this people, who were the sole depository of the true religion and of the knowledge of the one supreme God, being spread abroad through the whole earth, might be every where, by their example, a reproach to superstition, contribute in some measure to check it, and thus prepare the way for that fuller display of divine truth which was to shine upon the world from the ministry and Gospel of the Son of God.

PART IV.

DOMESTIC ANTIQUITIES OF THE JEWS, AND OF OTHER NATIONS INCIDENTALLY MENTIONED IN THE SCRIPTURES.

CHAPTER I.

ON THE DWELLINGS OF THE JEWS.

I. Caves.-II. Tents.-III. Houses-Their Arrangement-Materials—and Conveniences.-IV. Furniture.-V. Cities, Markets, and Gates.

I. As men, in the primitive condition of society, were unacquainted with the arts, they, of course, were not able to build themselves, houses; they abode, therefore, necessarily under the shade of trees. It is probable that when mankind began to multiply on the earth, they dwelt in CAVES, many of which, in the Holy Land, are both capacious and dry, and still afford occasional shelter to the wandering shepherds and their flocks. Thus, Lot and his daughters abode in a cave, after the destruction of Sodom. (Gen. xix. 30.) Ancient historians contain many notices of troglodytes, or dwellers in caves, and modern travellers have met with them in Bar

1 In proof of this observation, Mosheim refers to Jacobi Gronovii Decreta Romana et Asiatica pro Judæis ad cultum divinum per Asia Minoris urbes secure obeundum. Lugd. Bat. 1712. 8vo. See also Dr. Lardner's Credibility, parti. book i. ch. 8. (Works, vol. i. pp. 164-201.) where numerous valuable testimonies are adduced. 2 Mosheim's Commentaries, vol i. p. 106. Eccl. Hist. vol. i. p. 52. edit. 1806. Besides the authorities cited in the preceding chapter, the Jewish sects, &c. are largely discussed by Prideaux, Connection, book v. vol. ii. pp. 335-368. Relandi Antiq. Sacr. Hebræorum, pp. 276. et seq. Ikenius, Antiq. Hebr. pp. 33-42. Schachtii Dictata in Ikenium, pp. 241. et seq. Dr. Macknight's Harmony, vol. i. disc. 1. Lamy's Apparatus Biblicus, vol. 1. pp. 225-243. Dr. Lardner's Credibility, part i. book i. ch. 4. Leusden's Philologus Hebræo-Mixtus, pp. 138-170. Buddei Hist. Philosophiæ Hebræ orum, pp. 86. et seq.

allerodotus, lib. iii. c. 74. Diod. Sic. lib. iii. c. 31. Quintus Curtius, lib. v. c. 6. Josephus, Ant. Jud. lib. xv. c. 4. § 1.

bary and Egypt, as well as in various other parts of the East. The Horites, who dwelt on Mount Seir, the Zamzummim, and the Emims or Anakim, are supposed to have resided in caves.

II. In succeeding ages, they abode generally in TENTS, as the Arabs of the Desert do to this day. The invention of these is ascribed to Jabal the son of Lamech, who is, therefore, termed the father of such as dwell in tents. (Gen. iv. 20.) The patriarchs pitched their tents where they pleased, and, it should seem, under the shade of trees whenever this was practicable. Thus, Abraham's tent was pitched under a tree in the plains of Mamre (Gen. xviii. 4.), and Deborah the prophetess dwelt under a palm tree between Ramah and Bethel, in Mount Ephraim. (Judg. iv. 5.) In the East, to this day, it is the custom in many places to plant about and broad, and afford a cooling and refreshing shade. It appears among their buildings trees, which grow both high and from 1 Kings iv. 25. that this practice anciently obtained in Judæa, and that vines and fig trees were commonly used for this purpose. These trees furnished two great articles of food for their consumption, and the cuttings of their vines

The inhabitants of Anab, a town on the east of the river Jordan (lat. 32. long. 35. E.), all live in grottoes or caves excavated in the rock. Bucking. hain's Travels among the Arab Tribes, p. 61.