In the course of these regular religious observances, about the same
time or soon after the events just recorded, Peter and John went up to
the temple to pray, at three o’clock in the afternoon, the usual hour
for the second public prayers. As they went in at the outer gate of
the temple, which being made of polished Corinthian brass, was for its
splendor called the BEAUTIFUL, their attention was called to one of the
objects of pity which were so common on those great days of assembly,
about the common places of resort. A man, who, by universal testimony,
had been a cripple from his birth, was lying in a helpless attitude at
this public entrance, in order to excite the compassion of the crowds
who were constantly passing into the temple, and were in that place
so much under the influence of religious feeling as to be easily moved
by pity to exercise so prominent a religious duty as charity to the
distressed. This man seeing Peter and John passing in, asked aims of
them in his usual way. They both instantly turned their eyes towards
him, and looking earnestly on him, Peter said, “Look on us.” The
cripple, supposing from their manner that they were about to give
something to him, accordingly yielded them his interested attention.
Peter then said to him, “Silver and gold have I none, but I give thee
what I have; in the name of Jesus Christ, the Nazarene, rise up and
walk.” As he said this, he took hold of the lame man and raised him;
and he at once was able to support himself erect. Leaping up in the
consciousness of strength, he stood and walked with them into the
temple, expressing thankfulness and joy as he went, both by motions
and words. The attention of the worshiping assembly in the great courts
of the temple was at once directed to this strange circumstance; for
all who had passed in at the gate, recognized this vivacious companion
of the two apostles, as the man who had all his life been a cripple,
without the power of voluntary locomotion, and they were utterly amazed
at his present altered condition and actions. As the recovered cripple,
leaning on Peter and John, still half doubting his new strength,
accompanied them on to the porch of Solomon, the whole multitude ran
after them thither, still in the greatest astonishment. All eyes were
at once turned to the two wonderful men who had caused this miraculous
change, and the astonishment which this deed had inspired must have
been mingled with awe and reverence. Here surely was an occasion to
test the honesty and sincerity of these followers of Christ, when they
saw the whole people thus unhesitatingly giving to them the divine
honor of this miraculous cure. What an opportunity for a calculating
ambition to secure power, favor, and renown! Yet, with all these
golden chances placed temptingly within their reach, they, so lately
longing for the honors of an earthly dominion, but now changed by the
inworkings of a purer spirit and a holier zeal, turned calmly and
firmly to the people, utterly disclaiming the honor and glory of the
deed, but rendering all the praise to their crucified Lord. Peter, ever
ready with eloquent words, immediately addressed the awe-struck throngs
who listened in silence to his inspired language, and distinctly
declared the merit of this action to belong not to him and his
companion, but to “that same Jesus, whom they, but a short time before,
had rejected and put 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, Ὡραιαν, (_horaian_,) which may
have the sense of “splendid,” “beautiful,” or, in better keeping
with its root, Ὡρα, (_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. (Jewish War. book V. chapter 5,
section 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 Ὡραια seems to be best
consulted by such a construction.
_The porch of Solomon._――Στοα Σολομωνος, (_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, στοα, (_stoa_,)
commonly translated “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, section 1. The _stoa_ might be so placed as to be
perfectly inaccessible from 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.” (Josephus,
Antiquities, XX. viii. 7.)