CHRIST PURIFYING THE TEMPLE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—In spite of Archdeacon Cheetham's letter, I still ven- ture to think (1), that the profaners of the Temple were sitting in the Inner Court ; (2), that they were Gentiles. The Arch- deacon says that "TO 14-01, is a term including the whole of the sacred precinct." He gives no authority. But Josephus says expressly that TO iEos did not include the Court of the Gentiles, from which it was divided by the partition wall, " and was ascended by fourteen steps from the First Court." It is cer- tain, therefore, that it was from the Inner Court that our Lord expelled the intruders. It is true that " the place where the requisites for sacrifice, &c., were offered for sale was in the Court of the Gentiles." But, for that very reason, there was no profanation and no offence. The truth seems to be that the priests, greedy of filthy lucre, connived at the profane traffic within the Israelites' Court. Hence the reason why " the scribes and chief priests sought how they might destroy him" for interfering with their unholy gains. Moreover, it is on record that the sons of the High Priest established in the Inner Court a bazaar, from which the family derived a large income. This exposed the family of Annas to much public odium, and the bazaar was destroyed a few years later, in the popular rising in which the family of Annas perished. It is not likely that Israelites would have dared to outrage public feeling by engaging in the unholy trafic, and the probability is that the traffickers were Gentiles, who thus incurred the penalty of death by law, and therefore departed quietly.—I am, Sir, &c., M.
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