_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.) THE FIRST SEIZURE OF THE APOSTLES.