THE EXPULSION OF MONEY-CHANGERS.
[To THE EDITOR O1 THE " SPECTATOR."] Sin,—The writer of " A Diary in Palestine," in the Spectator of August 26th, makes a doable assumption in his explanation of " the meekness with which the profaners of the Temple departed" at the Lord's bidding. He assumes (1), that they were sitting in the Inner Court ; (2), that they were Gentiles.
As to (1), De Wette (on Matt. xxi., 12) says that the place where the requisites for sacrifice, Sm., were offered for sale was in the Court of the Gentiles. The Gospel narrative simply
says that they were is to/O, a term including the whole of the sacred precinct. As to (2), it is surely in the highest degree improbable that the Jews, who were excited to fury by the rumour that Trophimus the Ephesian has been introduced into the Inner Court, would have permitted Gentile traffickers to sit there habitually. I may mention that the tablet to which your correspondent refers, warning Gentiles that the penalty for their entering the Inner Court was death, is en- graved in Riehm's excellent " Handworterbuch des Biblischen Alterthum," p. 1,640. The same authority gives the number of gates leading from the Outer to the Inner Court as nine, not thirteen, the number given by " M."—I am, Sir, &c.,
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