This scene in the Temple court is one of the very few as to which we can have no doubt, though the steps of Nicanor are hidden from us, under the platform, to-day. Speaking generally, it is notable that the Gospels do not define the exact position of places, in and near Jerusalem, to which they refer in passing. The first Christians turned their eyes up to heaven, not down to earth. They thought of the return of their Master, not of the Way of Sorrow, the Place of the Skull, or the empty tomb. They knew, and their first readers knew, where these were, but to us they have left no indication. We do not know where was the “upper chamber” in which our Lord ate His last supper of the Passover. We do not know where was the little “farm” Gethsemane--the “oil-press”--except that it was a “garden” beyond the valley of the Kidron. We can only conjecture the sites of the Prætorium, or of the palaces where Annas and Caiaphas lived, and where Herod Antipas lodged as a Galilean visitor at the time of the Passover. We are uncertain as to where the Pool of Bethesda may have been, and we dispute as to the Way of Sorrow, the Mount of Calvary, and the Sepulchre. It is well that we should not know; and that we should not localise at any footprint, or on any rock, that which was meant to be for all the world. Yet we cannot help guessing and searching, if by any means we may really find the places where the feet of Jesus must have trodden the hard, rough rocks, or the smooth pavement of Antonia. We experience the same doubts and difficulties which early pilgrims felt, and we must not forget that they had no more to guide them than we have when we study the Gospels. They had indeed less knowledge, because they did not see, as we do, that the valleys had been filled by the ruins of the ancient city long before their day. Some thought that the Prætorium was Antonia, others thought later that it was on Zion. They changed the site of Bethesda more than once. They always thought it necessary to suppose that the city must have been much increased in size by Hadrian, because their bishops showed them the holy tomb and Calvary within the Jerusalem of their own time. [Sidenote: KNOWN SITES]