another, and offer up their devotions. At the feast of tabernacles, booths were erected upon them. (Nehem. viii. 6.) As these terraces are thus frequently used and trampled upon, not to mention the solidity of the materials with which they are made, they will not easily permit any vegetable substances to take root or thrive upon them which perhaps may illustrate the comparison (Isaiah xxxvii. 27.) of the Assyrians, and (Psalm cxxix. 6.) of the wicked, to the grass upon the house-tops, which withereth before it is grown up. "When any of these cities are built upon level ground, one may pass along the tops of houses from one end of them to the other, without coming down into the street. Such in general is the manner and contrivance of these houses. If then it may be presumed that our Saviour at the healing of the paralytic was preaching in a house of this fashion, we may, by attending only to the structure of it, give no small light to one circumstance of that history, which has lately given great offence to some unbelievers. For among other pretended difficulties and absurdities, relating to this fact, it has been urged. that as the uncovering or breaking up of the roof (Mark ii. 4.), or the letting a person down through it (Luke v. 19.), supposes the breaking up of tiles, spars, rafters, &c. so it was well if Jesus and his disciples escaped with only a broken pate, by the falling of tiles, and if the rest were not smothered with dust.2 But that nothing of this nature happened will appear probable, from a different construction that may be put upon the words in the original. For it may be observed with relation to the words of St. Mark, απεστέγασαν την στεγην ómov ny, xai sžogužğavres, &c. that as dryn, no less perhaps than tatilo, the correspondent word in the Syriac version, will denote with propriety enough any kind of covering, the veil which I have mentioned, as well as a roof or ceiling properly so called; so for the same reason amooreys may signify the undoing, or removal only of such a covering. Egogugavres, which we render breaking up, is omitted in the Cambridge MS. and not regarded in the Syriac and some other versions: the translators perhaps either not rightly comprehending the meaning of it, or finding the context clear without it. In St. Jerome's translation the correspondent word is patefacientes, as if sogužavreS was farther explanatory of areareyadav. The same in the Persian version is expressed by quatuor angulis lectuli totidem fanibus annexis; as if gogugavres related either to the letting down of the bed, or, preparatory thereto, to the making holes in it for the cords to pass through. According to this explication therefore, the context may run thus: When they could not come at Jesus for the press, they got upon the roof of the house, and drew back the veil where he was: or they laid open and uncovered that part of it especially which was spread over the place, orou nv, where he was sitting: and having removed and plucked away, according to St. Jerome, whatever might

1 Thus we read that Samuel communed with Saul upon the house-top (1 Sam. ix. 25.); David walked upon the roof of the king's house (2 Sam. xi. 2.); and Peter went up upon the house-top to pray. (Acts x. 9.)

2 Woolston, p. 38.

incommode them in their intended good office: or having tied, according to the Persian version, the four corners of the bed, or bedstead, with cords, where the sick of the palsy lay, they let it down before Jesus.

"For that there was not the least force or violence offered to the roof, and consequently that εξορύξαντες, no less than απεστέγασαν, will admit of some other interpretation than what has been given them in our version, appears from the parallel place in Luke, where dia xsgaμ xαпxαν αurov, per tegulas demiserunt illum, which we translate, they let him down through the tiling, as if that had been actually broken up already, should be rendered, they let him down over, along the side, or by the way of the roof. For as xegauo, or tegulæ, which originally denoted a roof of tiles, like those of the northern nations, were afterwards applied to the tectum or dwua in general, of what nature or structure soever they were; so the meaning of letting down a person into the house per tegulas, or δια των κεραμων, can depend only on the use of the preposition dia. Now both in Acts ix. 25., xaŋxav δια του τείχους, and 2 Cor. xi. 33. εχαλασθην δια του τείχους, where the like phraseology is observed as in St. Luke, dia is rendered in both places by, that is, along the side, or by the way of the wall. By interpreting therefore δια in this sense, δια των κεραμων καθηκαν αυτόν, will be rendered as above, they let him down over, or by the way of the wall, just as we may suppose Mark Antony to have been, agreeably to a noted passage in Tully. An action of the same nature seems to be implied in what is related of Jupiter, where it is said, se in hominem convertisse, atque per alienas tegulas venisse clanculum per impluvium. And of the snake, which we learn2 per impluvium decidisse de tegulis. What Dr. Lightfoot also observes out of the Talmud upon Mark ii. 4. will, by an alteration only of the preposition which answers to dia, farther vouch for this interpretation. For as it is there cited, when Rabbi Honna was dead, and his bier could not be carried out through the door, which was too strait and narrow, therefore they thought good to let it down (not through the way of the roof, as the Doctor renders it, but as in dia xegauwv, or Sia Exous) by the way, or over the roof, viz. by taking it upon the terrace, and letting it down by the wall, that way into the street. We have a passage in Aulus Gellius exactly of the same purport; where it is said, that if any person in chains should make his escape into the house of the Flamen Dialis, he should be forthwith loosed; and that his fetters should be drawn up through the impluvium upon the roof or terrace, and from thence be let down into the highway, or

the street.

"When the use then of these phrases, and the fashion of these houses, are rightly considered, there will be no reason to suppose that any breach was actually made in the tegulæ, or xɛgapos; since all that was to be done in the case of a paralytic was to carry him

1 Ter. Eunuch. iii. 5. 37.

3 Noctes Attica, lib. x. c. 15.

2 Ter. Phorm. iv. 4. 47

to the top of the house, either by forcing their way through the crowd up the staircase, or else by conveying him over some of the neighbouring terraces, and there, after they had drawn away the dry, or veil, to let him down along the side of the roof through the opening or impluvium into the midst of the court before Jesus."1

The following diagram will perhaps give the reader a tolerably accurate idea of the arrangement of an eastern house.

Now, let it be supposed, that Jesus was sitting at D in the porch, at the entrance into the main building, and speaking to the people, when the four men carrying the paralytic came to the front gate or porch, B. Finding the court so crowded that they could not carry him in and lay him before Jesus, they carried him up the stairs at the porch to the top of the gallery, C, C, C, and along the gallery round to the place where Jesus was sitting, and forcing a passage by removing the balustrade, they lowered down the paralytic, with the couch on which he lay, into the court before Jesus. Thus we are enabled to understand the manner in which the paralytic was brought in and laid before the compassionate Redeemer.

During the Rev. Mr. Jowett's residence at Haivali, in May 1818, he relates that the house, in which he abode, gave him a correct idea of the scene of Eutychus's falling from the upper loft, while Paul was preaching at Troas. (Acts xx. 6-12.) "According to our idea of houses," he remarks, "the scene of Eutychus's falling from the upper loft, is very far from intelligible; and, besides this, the circumstance of preaching generally leaves on the mind of cursory readers the notion of a church. To describe this house, which is not many miles distant from the Troad, and perhaps, from the unchanging character of oriental customs, nearly resembles the houses then built, will fully illustrate the narrative.

"On entering my host's door, we find the first floor entirely used as a store it is filled with large barrels of oil, the produce of

1 Shaw's Travels, p. 273. et. seq. 4to.; or vol. i. p. 227. et seq. 8vo. edit.

the rich country for many miles round: this space, so far from being habitable, is sometimes so dirty with the dripping of the oil, that it is difficult to pick out a clean footing from the door to the first step of the staircase. On ascending, we find the first floor, consisting of an humble suite of rooms, not very high: these are occupied by the family, for their daily use. It is on the next story that all their expense is lavished: here, my courteous host has appointed my lodging: beautiful curtains, and mats, and cushions to the divan, display the respect with which they mean to receive their guest: here, likewise, their splendour, being at the top of the house, is enjoyed by the poor Greeks, with more retirement and less chance of molestation from the intrusion of Turks: here, when the Professors of the College waited upon me to pay their respects, they were received in ceremony and sat at the window. The room is both higher and also larger than those below: it has two projecting windows; and the whole floor is so much extended in front beyond the lower part of the building, that the projecting windows considerably overhang the street. In such an upper room-secluded, spacious, and commodious-St. Paul was invited to preach his parting discourse. The divan, or raised seat, with mats or cushions, encircles the interior of each projecting window and I have remarked, that when company is numerous, they sometimes place large cushions behind the company seated on the divan; so that a second tier of company, with their feet upon the seat of the divan, are sitting behind, higher than the front row. Eutychus, thus sitting, would be on a level with the open window; and, being overcome with sleep, he would easily fall out, from the third loft of the house, into the street, and be almost certain, from such a height, to lose his life. Thither St. Paul went down; and comforted the alarmed company, by bringing up Eutychus alive. It is noted, that there were many lights in the Upper Chamber. The very great plenty of oil in this neighbourhood would enable them to afford many lamps: the heat of these and so much company would cause the drowsiness of Eutychus at that late hour, and be the occasion likewise of the windows being open."1

The tops of the houses in Judæa being flat, and covered with a plaster of terrace, afford a scanty soil to grass: but it is small, and weak, and being exposed to the scorching rays of the sun, it soon withers. (Psal. cxxix. 6.) In erecting their houses, whatever may be the material employed, they furnish the interior of the more common and useful apartments with sets of large nails with square heads (like dice), and bent at the head so as to make them crampirons. To this custom there is an allusion in Ezra ix. 8. and Isa. xxii. 23. On these nails were hung their kitchen utensils or other articles. The floors of the houses of the opulent were frequently marble of various colours, or painted tiles or plaster, in all probability similar to those which are yet visible in that superb specimen

1 Jowett's Christian Researches in the Mediterranean, pp. 66, 67.

of Moslem architecture the Moorish palace of Alhamra at Granada, and which have been so exquisitely drawn and engraved in Mr. Murphy's "Arabian Antiquities of Spain." Their ceilings were of wood, and pannelled; and the sides of the walls were wainscotted, and sometimes covered with costly hangings. (Jer. xxii. 14. Hagg. i. 4.) In Barbary, the hills and vallies in the vicinity of Algiers are beautified with numerous country-seats and gardens, whither the opulent resort during the intense heats of summer. In all probability, the summer-houses of the Jews, mentioned by the prophets Jeremiah (xxxvii. 22.) and Amos (iii. 15.), were of this description; though these have been supposed to mean different apartments of the same house, the one exposed to a northern and the other to a southern aspect.

It was common, when any person had finished a house, and entered into it, to celebrate the event with great rejoicing, and to perform some religious ceremonies, to obtain the divine blessing and protection. The dedication of a newly-built house was a ground of exemption from military service. The xxxth Psalm, as appears from the title, was composed on occasion of the dedication of the house of David; and this devout practice obtained also among the

antient Romans.

III. The furniture of the oriental dwellings, at least in the earliest ages, was very simple: that of the poorer classes consisted of but few articles, and those such as are absolutely necessary. Instead of chairs, they sat on mats or skins; and the same articles, on which they laid a mattress, served them instead of bedsteads, while their upper garment served them for a covering. (Exod. xxii. 25, 26. Deut. xxiv. 12.) This circumstance accounts for our Lord's commanding the paralytic to take up his bed and go unto his house. (Matt. ix. 6.) The more opulent had (as those in the East still have) fine carpets, couches, or divans, and sofas, on which they sat, lay, and slept. (2. Kings iv. 10. 2 Sam. xvii. 28.) In later times their couches were splendid, and the frames inlaid with ivory (Amos vi. 14.), and the coverlids rich and perfumed. (Prov. vii. 16, 17.) On these sofas, in the latter ages of the Jewish state, (for before the time of Moses, it appears to have been the custom to sit at table, Gen. xliii. 33.) they universally reclined, when taking their meals (Amos vi. 4. Luke vii. 36-38.): resting on their side with their heads towards the table, so that their feet were accessible to one who came behind the couch, as in the annexed diagram :

1 A passage in Jeremiah xiii. 22. may in some degree be explained by the oriental mode of sitting-For the greatness of thine iniquity, are thy skirts discovered, and thy heels made bare. "I have often been struck," says Mr. Jowett, "with the manner in which a great man sits: for example, when I visited the Bashaw, I never saw his feet: they were entirely drawn up under him, and covered by his dress. This was dignified. To see his feet, his skirts must have been discovered: still more so, in order to see the heels, which often serve as the actual seat of an oriental."-Jowett's Christian Researches, p. 169.