emple and of the
ark of the covenant, fruit, pottery, phylacteries, incense, silken
garments, and jewels. Money-changers vaunted their high rate of
exchange, the advantage of Roman money, broke open their rolls of gold
and let the pieces fall slowly into the scales in order to delight the
eyes of the pilgrims. Buyers made their way through, looked scornfully
at the goods, haggled, laughed, and bought. Rabbis glided round in
long caftans and soft shoes so that they were not heard. They wore
velvet caps on their heads below which hung their curly black or grey
hair. They carried large parchment scrolls under their arms--for the
Sabbath was about to begin--slipped around with a dignified yet cunning
manner, bargained here and there with shopkeepers or their wives,
vanished behind the curtains and then reappeared.

When Jesus had for some time observed all this confusion from the
threshold, anger overcame Him. Pushing the traders aside with His
arms, He cut Himself a way through. At the nearest booth He snatched
up a bundle of phylacteries, swung them over the heads of the crowd,
and exclaimed so loudly that His voice was heard above everything: "Ye
learned teachers and ye Temple guards, see how admirably you understand
the letter of the Word! It is written in the Scriptures: My house is
for prayer! And you have turned Solomon's Temple into a bazaar!"
Hardly had He so spoken when He overturned a table with His hand, and
upset several benches with His foot so that the goods fell in confusion
to the ground under the feet of the crowd which began to give way.
They stared at one another speechless, and He continued to thunder
forth: "My house shall be a holy refuge for the downcast and the
suffering, said the Lord. And you make it a den of assassins, and,
with your passion for lucre, leave no place for men's souls. Out with
you, ye cheats and thieves, whether you higgle over your goods or with
the Scriptures!" He swung the phylacteries high over the Rabbis and
teachers so that they bent their heads and fled through the curtained
entrances. But the Rabbis, the Pharisees, and the Temple guards
assembled in the side courts, and quickly took counsel how they were to
seize this madman and render Him harmless. For see, ever more people
streamed through the gates into the forecourt, surrounded the angry
Prophet, and shouted: "Praised be Thou, O Nazarene, who art come to
cleanse the Temple! Praise and all hail to Thee, l