without, and thus lose all claim to the name of porch, with the idea of an entrance-*way. This was exactly the situation and construction of Solomon's stoa, which answers much better to our idea of a gallery, than of a porch. (See Donnegan, sub voc.)
It took the name of Solomon, from the fact that when the great temple of that magnificent king was burned and torn down by the Chaldeans, this eastern terrace, as originally constructed by him, was too vast, and too deeply based, to be easily made the subject of such a destroying visitation, and consequently was by necessity left a lasting monument of the strength and grandeur of the temple which had stood upon it. When the second temple was rebuilt, this vast terrace of course became again the great eastern foundation of the sacred pile, but received important additions to itself, being strengthened by higher and broader walls, and new accessions of mounded earth; while over its long trampled and profaned pavement, now beautified and renewed with splendid Mosaic, rose the mighty range of gigantic snow-white marble columns, which gave it the name and character of a STOA or colonnade, and filled the country for a vast distance with the glory of its pure brightness. (See note on page 95. See also Lightfoot, Disquisit. Chor. cap. vi. § 2.) Josephus further describes it, explaining the very name which Luke uses. "And this was a colonnade of the outer temple, standing over the verge of a deep valley, on walls four hundred cubits in highth, built of hewn stones perfectly white,—the length of each stone being twenty cubits, and the highth six. It was the work of Solomon, who first built the whole temple." (Jos. Ant. XX. viii. 7.)
THE FIRST SEIZURE OF THE APOSTLES.
While the apostles were thus occupied in speaking words of wisdom to the attentive people, they were suddenly interrupted by the entrance of the guards of the temple, who, under the command of their captain, came up to the apostles, and seizing them in the midst of their discourse, dragged them away to prison, where they were shut up, for examination on the next day, before the civil and ecclesiastical court of the Jews. This act of violence was committed by order of the priests who had the care of the temple, more immediately instigated by the Sadducees, who were present with the priests and guards when the arrest was made. The reason why this sect, in general not active in persecuting Jesus and his followers, were now provoked to this act of unusual hostility, was, that the apostles were now preaching a doctrine directly opposed to the main principles of Sadducism. The assertion that Jesus had actually risen from the dead, so boldly made by the apostles, must, if the people believed it, entirely overthrow their confidence in the Sadducees, who absolutely denied the existence of a spirit, and the possibility of a resurrection of the dead. It was now evening, and the apostles being thus dragged away abruptly, in the midst of their discourse, the people were obliged to disperse for the night, without hearing all that the speakers had intended to say; yet even the fragment of discourse which they had heard, was not without a mighty effect. So convincing and moving were these few words of Peter, and so satisfactory was the evidence of the miracle, that
