ations of the temple or holy house sunk down into the rocky
mountain on which it stood no less than twenty cubits, whereas he is
clear that they were the foundations of the additional twenty cubits
only above the hundred [made perhaps weak on purpose, and only for show
and grandeur] that sunk or fell down, as Dr. Hudson rightly understands
him; nor is the thing itself possible in the other sense. Agrippa's
preparation for building the inner parts of the temple twenty
cubits higher [History of the War, B. V. ch. 1. sect. 5] must in all
probability refer to this matter, since Josephus says here, that this
which had fallen down was designed to be raised up again under Nero,
under whom Agrippa made that preparation. But what Josephus says
presently, that Solomon was the first king of the Jews, appears by the
parallel place, Antiq. B. XX. ch. 9. sect. 7, and other places, to be
meant only the first of David's posterity, and the first builder of the
temple.

[24] "Into none Of these three did king Herod enter," i.e. 1. Not into
the court of the priests; 2. Nor into the holy house itself; 3. Nor into
the separate place belonging to the altar, as the words following imply;
for none but priests, or their attendants the Levites, might come into
any of them. See Antiq. B. XVI. ch. 4. sect. 6, when Herod goes into the
temple, and makes a speech in it to the people, but that could only be
into the court of Israel, whither the people could come to hear him.

[25] This tradition which Josephus here mentions, as delivered down from
fathers to their children, of this particular remarkable circumstance
relating to the building of Herod's temple, is a demonstration that such
its building was a known thing in Judea at this time. He was born about
forty-six years after it is related to have been finished, and might
himself have seen and spoken with some of the builders themselves,
and with a great number of those that had seen it building. The doubt
therefore about the truth of this history of the pulling down and
rebuilding this temple by Herod, which some weak people have indulged,
was not then much greater than it soon may be, whether or not our St.
Paul's church in London was burnt down in the fire of London, A.D. 1666,
and rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren a little afterward.

BOOK 16 FOOTNOTES

[1] We may here observe the ancient practice of the Jews, of dedicating
the sabbath day, not to idleness, but to the learning their s