tion wall and tablet is in the Antiquities of the Jews, Book XV, chap. xi, 5.

"Thus was the first enclosure. In the midst of which, and not far from it, was the second enclosure, to be gone up to by a few steps: this was encompassed by a stone wall for a partition, with an inscription which forbade any foreigner to go in under pain of death."

The second allusion to the partition is in Josephus' description of the Temple, given in his Wars of the Jews, Book V, chap. v. 2.

"When you went through these first cloisters into the second court of the Temple, there was a partition made of stone, all round, whose height was three cubits: its construction was very elegant; upon it stood pillars at equal distances from one another, declaring the law of purity, some in Greek and some in Latin letters, that 'no foreigner should go within that sanctuary,' for that second court of the Temple was called the sanctuary, and was ascended to by fourteen steps from the first court."

The third reference is in the Wars of the Jews, Book VI, chap. ii, 4, where Titus, expostulating with the Jewish rebels, says :

"Have not you, vile wretches that you are, by our permission put up this partition wall before your sanctuary? Have not you been allowed to put up the pillars thereto belonging at due distances, and on it to engrave in Greek, and in your own letters, this prohibition, that no foreigner should go beyond that wall?

Have not we given you leave to kill such as go beyond it, though he were a Roman ? And what do ye now do, you pernicious villains? Why do you trample upon dead bodies in this Temple? and why do you pollute this holy house with the blood both of foreigners and Jews themselves?"

Doubts have been cast on the truth of Josephus' statements, because it seemed improbable that a tolerant people, such as the Romans, would empower the Jewish high-priests to put men to death simply for trespassing in the inner courts of the Temple. These doubts, however, are dispelled by Ganneau's discovery, and the statements of the Jewish historian are confirmed. There can be no doubt that the inscribed tablet recently found is one of the identical tablets described in Josephus ; and, strange though it seem, this Greek inscription has been brought to light after being buried in oblivion for nineteen centuries.

Not only is this inscription a test of other writings of this period, and a proof of the accuracy of Josephus, but it throws much light upon many passages in the Bible. In the account of our Saviour's purging of the Temple, it appears strange that Christ-under the eye of hostile priests and Levites, and immediately under the shadow of the Tower of Antonia, with its Roman governor and Roman garrison-should have sufficient authority to drive out the buyers and sellers and money-changers from the precincts of the Temple.

"He drove them all out of the Temple." The word

Temple here is, To iepov, the identical word used in Ganneau's tablet, and the word translated Sanctuary in Josephus-who explains as already quoted-that To iepov was applied in a specific sense to the inner court, that is, the Court of the Israelites.

The whole difficulty vanishes when we realise that the trading strangers had extended their operations beyond the balustrade, and, although their transgression might be connived at, yet any zealous Israelite had the power, and was justified in ordering them back beyond the wall into the outer court of the Gentiles. Being trespassers, and knowing that the law-abiding Romans were at hand to carry out the legal enactment, on the question being raised, the money-changers had no appeal, and, lest they should incur further punishment, they quietly, at Christ's command, retired from the Temple, that is, the To iepov, or inner court, and took up their position in the Court of the Gentiles.

The tablet also helps us to understand more clearly a dramatic incident in the life of St. Paul. On one occasion he took with him to Jerusalem one of his converts named Trophimus, not a Jew, but an a Jew, but an Ephesian. Whether the apostle took Trophimus past the partition wall into the Israelites' Court or not is uncertain; but the Jews evidently thought he had done so, for, seeing St. Paul in the Temple, they stirred up all the people and laid hands on him, crying out: "Men of Israel, help! This is the man that teacheth all men everywhere against the people and the law and this place, and

further, brought Greeks also into the Temple (To iepov), and hath polluted this holy place. For they had seen before with him in the city Trophimus, an Ephesian, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the Temple (TO iepov)." Then followed a great uproar, and the apostle was roughly assaulted by the mob, who, for the supposed crime, demanded his life, as forfeited to the law. If Paul had taken Trophimus, a foreigner, into the .Israelites' Court, the Jews were technically right—his life was forfeit to the law. The chief captain of the Roman guard, seeing the tumult, rushed down from the Tower of Antonia with a band of soldiers, and with considerable difficulty rescued St. Paul from the violence and murderous assault of the infuriated Jews.

The tablet also throws light upon an important passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians. It will be remembered that St. Paul, as the great apostle of the Gentiles, founded all his teaching upon this fundamental principle, that while the Old Dispensation was primarily designed for the Jews, the gospel of Christ was designed for Jews and Gentiles alike. According to St. Paul, God was no longer the Father of a section only of mankind, but the Great Universal Father of the whole human race. Christ shed His blood not for the "chosen people" only, but for the healing of the nations: Christianity, in fact, had established a great universal brotherhood, and offered its blessings alike to Jews and Gentiles, to bond and free. This doctrine he inculcated in various modes, but per1 Acts xxi. 28, 29.

haps in no way more effectively than when he declares, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, chap. ii., that the Gentiles, though in time past aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, are brought into covenant by Christ. "For He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us." What wall of division did St. Paul allude to when he makes mention of the middle wall of partition, “το μεσοτοιχον тоû oрayμov"? The apostle in his frequent visits to the Temple had doubtless often noticed the partition wall, with the inscribed tablets threatening death to strangers, that separated the Court of the Gentiles from that of the Israelites, and regarded it as a standing monument of that exclusive spirit of Judaism opposed to the universality of Christianity. He had been suspected of taking Trophimus, an Ephesian, beyond the partition wall, and on that account narrowly escaped with his life from a Jewish mob. Already had this dramatic incident, together with the character of the balustrade, been made known to the Ephesians by Trophimus, their fellow-townsman; and this being so, we may be morally certain that "the middle wall of partition" is the balustrade upon which Ganneau's inscribed tablet formerly stood. This opinion receives confirmation from the fact that St. Paul concludes the argument by imagery drawn from the chief corner stone and the walls of the Temple. "Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, and are built upon the founda