κέραμος, κεράμου, ὁ (κεράννυμι);

1. clay, potter’s earth.

2. anything made of clay, earthen ware.

3. specifically, a (roofing) tile (Thucydides, Athen., Hdian, others); the roof itself (Aristophanes from 129 d.): so διά τῶν κεράμων, through the roof, i. e. through the door in the roof to which a ladder or stairway led up from the street (accordingly the rabbis distinguish two ways of entering a house, ’the way through the door’ and ’the way through the roof’ (Lightfoot Horae Hebrew, p. 601); cf. Winers RWB, under the word Dach; Keim, ii., p. 176f (English translation 3:215; Edersheim, Jesus the Messiah, i., 501f; Jewish Social Life, p. 93ff)), Luk 5:19. Mark (ii. 4) describes the occurrence differently (see ἀποστεγάζω), evidently led into error by misapprehending the words of Luke. (But, to say nothing of the improbability of assuming Mark’s narrative to be dependent on Luke’s, the alleged discrepance disappears if Luke’s language is taken literally, through the tiles (see διά, A. I. 1); he says nothing of the door in the roof. On the various views that have been taken of the details of the occurrence, see B. D. (especially American edition) under the word ; Dr. James Morison, Commentary on Mark, at the passage cited.)