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; Forster, _Syria and Palestine_, p. 82.] [Footnote 7: Jos., _B.J._, II. xiv. 3, VI. ix. 3.] [Footnote 8: John xii. 20, and following.] [Footnote 9: Matt. xxi. 17; Mark xi. 11.] [Footnote 10: Matt. xxi. 17, 18; Mark xi. 11, 12, 19; Luke xxi. 37, 38.]