to death as an impostor." He then went on to charge them boldly with the guilt of this murder, and summing up the evidences and consequences of their crime, he called on them to repent, and yield to this slain and risen Jesus the honors due to the Messiah. It was his name which, through faith in his name, had made this lame man strong, and restored him to all his bodily energies, in the presence of them all. That name, too, would be equally powerful to save them through faith, if they would turn to him, the prophet foretold by Moses, by Samuel, and all the prophets that followed them, as the restorer and leader of Israel, and through whom, as was promised to Abraham, all the families of the earth, should be blest. But first of all to them, the favored children of Abraham, did God send his prophet-son, to bless them in turning away every one of them from their iniquities.
The beautiful gate.—The learned Lightfoot has brought much deep research to
bear on this point, as to the position of this gate and the true meaning of its name;
yet he is obliged to announce the dubious result in the expressive words, "In bivio hic stamus," ("we here stand at a fork of the road.") The main difficulty consists in the
ambiguous character of the word translated "beautiful," in Greek, (
Greek characters)(Transliteration from Greek: Ôraian), (horaian,)
which may have the sense of "splendid," "beautiful," or, in better keeping with its
root, (Greek characters)(Transliteration from Greek: Hôra), (hora,) "time," it may be made to mean the "gate of time." Now, what
favors the latter derivation and translation, is the fact that there actually was, as appears
from the Rabbinical writings, a gate called Hhuldah, (חולדה) probably derived
from חלד (hheledh) "age," "time," "life,"—from the Arabic root خلد (khaladh)
"endure," "last," so that it may mean "lasting or permanent." There were two gates
of this name distinguished by the terms greater and smaller, both opening into the
court of the Gentiles from the great southern porch or colonnade, called the Royal
colonnade. Through these, the common way from Jerusalem and from Zion led into
the temple, and through these would be the natural entrance of the apostles into it.
This great royal porch, also, where such vast numbers were passing, and which
afforded a convenient shelter from the weather, would be a convenient place for a
cripple to post himself in.
There was, however, another gate, to which the epithet "beautiful" might with
eminent justice be applied. This is thus described by Josephus. (Jew. War. book
V. chap. 5, sec. 3.) "Of the gates, nine were overlaid with gold and silver,—* * *
but there was one on the outside of the temple, made of Corinthian brass, which far
outshone the plated and gilded ones." This is the gate to which the passage is commonly
supposed to refer, and which I have mentioned as the true one in the text,
without feeling at all decided on the subject, however; for I certainly do think the testimony
favors the gate Huldah, and the primary sense of the word (Greek characters)(Transliteration from Greek: Ôraia) seems to
be best consulted by such a construction.
The porch of Solomon.—(Greek characters)(Transliteration from Greek: Stoa Solomônos), (stoa Solomonos.) This was the name
commonly applied to the great eastern colonnade of the temple, which ran along on
the top of the vast terrace which made the gigantic rampart of Mount Moriah, rising
from the depth of six hundred feet out of the valley of the Kedron. (See note
on page 94.) The Greek word, (Greek characters)(Transliteration from Greek: stoa), (stoa,) com. trans. "porch," does not necessarily
imply an entrance to a building, as is generally true of our modern porches, but
was a general name for a "colonnade," which is a much better expression for its
meaning, and would always convey a correct notion of it; for its primary and universal
idea is that of a row of columns running along the side of a building, and
leaving a broad open space between them and the wall, often so wide as to make
room for a vast assemblage of people beneath the ceiling of the architrave. That
this was the case in this STOA, appears from Josephus' description given in my note
on page 95, sec. 1. The stoa might be so placed as to be perfectly inaccessible from
