hould hold
their peace, the stones would immediately cry out," replied Jesus, and
he entered into the city. The Hierosolymites, who scarcely knew him,
asked who he was. "It is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth, in Galilee,"
was the reply. Jerusalem was a city of about 50,000 souls.[6] A
trifling event, such as the entrance of a stranger, however little
celebrated, or the arrival of a band of provincials, or a movement of
people to the avenues of the city, could not fail, under ordinary
circumstances, to be quickly noised about. But at the time of the
feast, the confusion was extreme.[7] Jerusalem at these times was
taken possession of by strangers. It was amongst the latter that the
excitement appears to have been most lively. Some proselytes, speaking
Greek, who had come to the feast, had their curiosity piqued, and
wished to see Jesus. They addressed themselves to his disciples;[8]
but we do not know the result of the interview. Jesus, according to
his custom, went to pass the night at his beloved village of
Bethany.[9] The three following days (Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday)
he descended regularly to Jerusalem; and, after the setting of the
sun, he returned either to Bethany, or to the farms on the western
side of the Mount of Olives, where he had many friends.[10]

[Footnote 1: John xii. 12.]

[Footnote 2: Luke xix. 41, and following.]

[Footnote 3: Mishnah, _Menachoth_, xi. 2; Talm. of Bab., _Sanhedrim_,
14 _b_; _Pesachim_, 63 _b_, 91 _a_; _Sota_, 45 _a_; _Baba metsia_, 85
_a_. It follows from these passages that Bethphage was a kind of
_pomaerium_, which extended to the foot of the eastern basement of the
temple, and which had itself its wall of inclosure. The passages Matt.
xxi. 1, Mark xi. 1, Luke xix. 29, do not plainly imply that Bethphage
was a village, as Eusebius and St. Jerome have supposed.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. xxi. 1, and following; Mark xi. 1, and following;
Luke xix. 29, and following; John xii. 12, and following.]

[Footnote 5: Luke xix. 38; John xii. 13.]

[Footnote 6: The number of 120,000, given by Hecataeus (in Josephus,
_Contra Apion_, I. xxii.), appears exaggerated. Cicero speaks of
Jerusalem as of a paltry little town (_Ad Atticum_, II. ix.) The
ancient boundaries, whichever calculation we adopt, do not allow of a
population quadruple of that of the present time, which does not reach
15,000. See Robinson, _Bibl. Res._, i. 421, 422 (2d edition);
Fergusson, _Topogr. of Jerus._, p. 51; Forste