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conspicuous to the whole city." This ingenious rendering meets the topographical description of Josephus better than the grammatical structure of his text. Josephus describes the city proper as built upon two distinct hills. If the temple, the most conspicuous building of Jerusalem, the dearest object to the Jew, the pride and glory of his city and his faith, and the most obstinately-contested point in the very siege which Josephus describes, had stood upon either of these hills, it is incredible that he should have omitted to speak of it. The immediate mention of a third hill over against Acra, and the statement that the Asmoneans filled the ravine between these two hills in order "to connect the city with the temple," proves that the temple could not have already stood within the Lower city. Mr. Thrupp's theory places the temple in the Lower city, and then unites it with an insignificant section, to the north, in order "to connect it with the city!" Clearly Josephus means, that, as the temple-hill was connected with Zion by a bridge, so it was connected with Acra by a causeway. Besides, the surface of the temple-hill, as described by Josephus, would not admit of a surrounding city. He expressly states that "originally the level space on its summit scarcely sufficed for the sanctuary and the altar, the ground about being abrupt and steep." His whole description warrants the inference that the temple-hill was the "third" hill, and distinct from Acra. Ritter, while he leaves the position and boundaries of Acra somewhat unsettled (zweifelhafte), has no hesitation in locating the temple-hill opposite to Acra, upon the east.2 Tobler, though he locates Acra differently, makes the site of the mosque Moriah on the temple-hill.

Rejecting Thrupp's theory as untenable, we must fall back upon Dr. Robinson's view, unless we carry the boundaries of Zion much further to the north. This is the view of Rabbi Schwartz, who transfers Hippicus from the Jaffa gate to a point near Jeremiah's grotto. The resident antiquarians and savans of Jerusalem are generally agreed in extending the area of Zi

Ancient Jerusalem, p. 37, Note.

2 Erdkunde, Von Asien, B. VIII. 8. 4. § 9.

on so as to include Dr. Robinson's Acra, making the valley running southward from the Damascus gate the Tyropœon, and Acra the ridge sweeping round from that point to the Haram. This view is far more consistent with Josephus than that of Williams; inasmuch as it brings Zion and Acra face to face on opposite sides of a once steep ravine, while it also presents Acra as originally divided from the templehill by a broad valley, traceable from about the line of Stephen's gate. It has the further advantage of extending the area of the city so that it comports better with the measurements of the walls, given by Josephus, and with his statement of the population. This theory is fatal to the traditionists with respect to the site of the holy sepulchre, which could not have been within the wall of Zion. We are disposed to wait the result of further investigations in this direction. But at present we do not see how the advocates of this enlargement of Zion can dispose of the mass of evidence in favor of the common Zion of topographers, and of the identity of the Jaffa-gate castle with the Hippicus of Josephus.1

Von Raumer, in his third revised edition of his Palestina, after a candid and thorough review of all the evidence on these points, declares his entire agreement with Dr. Robinson in the location of Zion, Acra, the Tyropœon, and their mutual relations. So far at least as the theories of traditionists concerning the holy sepulchre are concerned, may we not assume that the position of Acra is determined upon topographical grounds which no ecclesiastical tradition can disturb? True, the location here assigned to Acra does not of necessity overthrow the site which tradition has assigned to the place of the Saviour's crucifixion and burial; for the course of the second wall, over the ridge of Acra, remains to be determined. But the more violent traditionists seem tacitly to admit that to identify Acra with the summit due north from Zion is fatal to their theory. To build a wall

1 For the evidence on this latter point, see Ritter, Von Raumer, Tobler, Robinson, Williams, Traill's Josephus, and Barclay.

2 Palestina, Leipzig, 1850, p. 312.

northward from the wall of Zion, KUKλоúμevov, as Josephus describes it, to the tower of Antonia, and yet to exclude from its "encircling" sweep the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, would require such crooks and angles, such a contraction of the city area, and withal such exposure of the Lower city to an enemy commanding the slope of the hill above the wall, as must forbid the admiration which both Josephus and Tacitus bestow upon the fortifications. Dr. Barclay justly remarks that "the physical features of the everlasting hills are more permanent and reliable than the oracles of Protean tradition; and it must needs be confessed by the most devoted traditionist, that that which is topographically impossible, cannot be traditionally true.” 1

This citation brings us back from our long dissertation, to the analysis of Dr. Barclay's contributions to the topog. raphy of the Holy City. In the main points thus far considered the course of the Tyropoon and the relative positions of Zion, Acra, and the temple-hill-Dr. Barclay agrees with Dr. Robinson. His theory of the valley and the pools of Gihon, is in some points novel, and is hardly favored by the few indistinct allusions of the Old Testament. Dr. Barclay maintains that the valley of Gihon began a little northwest of the Damascus gate and extended southward to a line with the Jaffa gate, where it joined the Tyropœon, i. e. his Gihon is the Tyropæon of Williams.

"Few localities have been so much the sport of topographical speculation and tradition as this place, which has been located almost everywhere about Jerusalem, except the right place. The present locality assigned it, is the valley south-west of Jerusalem, called in the Scriptures Ben Hinnom. But the utter incompatibility of that site with the declaration (2 Chr. 33: 14) that Manasseh built a wall without the city of David, on the west side of Gihon, in the valley, even to the entering in at the Fish gate,' is evidence enough of its mislocation; for, a wall built in this valley on its west side, would everywhere be located to great disadvantage, and in many places be no defence whatever, owing to the cliffs of Hinnom overtopping it. But besides this negative proof of its mislocation, the well-ascertained position of the Fish gate clearly shows that the valley of Gihon could be no other than that heading north-west of Damascus gate and gently descend

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ing southward, uniting with the Tyropcon at the north-east corner of Mount Zion, where the latter turns at right angles and runs towards Siloam. The wall, thus built by Manasseh on the west side of the valley of Gihon, would extend from the vicinity of the north-east corner of the wall of Zion in a northerly direction, until it crossed over the valley to form a junction with the outer wall at the trench of Antonia-precisely in the quarter where the Temple would be most easily assailed.

"Although this location of Gihon may be rather startling to those who are wedded to the school of oral tradition, yet it is unquestionably the only view of the matter by which Manasseh's construction of the wall can be reconciled with the "stubborn facts" of the case; most evident is it that it is perfectly consistent with everything mentioned in connection with it, either in the Scriptures or Josephus. The correctness of this location is also confirmed by the etymological import of the term. For it is certainly a most graceful and well favored valley."1

Dr. Barclay gives the following comment on 2 Chr. 32:

2-4.

"We here learn that when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was come (to Lachish), and that he was purposed to fight against Jerusalem, he took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains which were without the city; and they did help him. So there were gathered much people together, who stopped all the fountains, and the brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying, "Why should the king of Assyria come, and find much water?' Where these various fountains were, we have now no positive means of ascertaining; though Enrogel and the spring now called the Virgin's Fount may well be numbered amongst them. Josephus mentions the existence of various fountains without the city, but does not locate or even name any of them in this connection but Siloam. (W. v. ix: 4.) The brook,' however, is located with sufficient precision to enable us to trace it very definitely. We are told that it ' ran through the midst of the land.' Now a stream running through either the Kedron or Hinnom valley could in no proper sense be said to run through the midst of the land; but one flowing through the true Gihon valley, and separating Akra and Zion from Bezetha, Moriah, and Ophel, as a stream once doubtless did, could with peculiar propriety be said to run through the midst of the (holy) land" on which the (holy) city was built." And that this is the correct meaning of the phrase is not only apparent from the force of circumstances, but is positively so declared in the Septuagint, where, moreover, it is also called a river; which at least implies a much larger stream than the Kedron, and comports well with the marginal reading, where it is said to overflow through the midst of the land.' Previous to the interference of man, there was, no doubt, a very

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copious stream that gushed forth somewhere in the upper portion of that shallow, basin-like concavity north of Damascus gate-which is unquestionably the upper extremity of the Gihon valley - and pursuing its meandering course through this valley, entered the Tyropoon at its great southern curve, down which it flowed into the valley of Kedron.

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"If we are to understand that the flow of these fountains was entirely arrested, they were doubtless reopened on the retreat of the invading army. But we learn from the 30th verse that one of these fountains never visibly flowed again on the exterior of the city, having been permanently conducted into the city through a secret subterranean channel; for, 'This same Hezekiah also stopped the upper watercourse of Gihon, and brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David.'

"Now, had the so-called 'Upper pool of Gihon' been the 'upper watercourse or out-flow of Gihon' (of Scripture), as is generally alleged (though there is not the slightest intimation of such a thing, either in the Bible, the Works of Josephus, or any other reliable authority), there would be no propriety in mentioning that its waters were brought down to the west side of the city of David;' for they were already on that side. But if the fountain thus sealed was situated on the north side, then it would have been a fact sufficiently notable to deserve a special notice. But that the waters stored up in that pool were designed for quite another purpose, is most obvious; for to this day they are conducted-not through a deep rock-cut channel, as Hezekiah's no doubt was- but most of the way by a trifling foot-wide ditch on the surface of the ground, to a reservoir on Akra near the Jaffa gate, traditionally called Hezekiah's pool, but which most certainly is the Amygdalon pool of Josephus. If by the city of David' is here meant the whole city of Jerusalem, and the water was conducted literally to the west side of Jerusalem, the enterprise was very difficult of execution, and by no means as useful as it would have been if located more centrally. It is observable, too, that in this immediate connection this term is restricted to the lower portion of Zion.”1

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Ritter, after citing the various references to the pool of Gihon in the Old Testament, remarks that these make it highly probable that the fountain Gihon and the "old pool" lay on the north side of the city (in the neighborhood of the present Damascus gate), and not on the western side, although later traditions locate it in the upper valley of Hinnom, westward of the Kasr Dschalûd.2 Thrupp identifies the so-called Pool of Bethesda, near St. Stephen's gate, "the fosse of the fortress Antonia, according to Robinson, 3 as the upper pool of Gihon, which he thinks was fed by a subterranean waterPages 307, 308. 2 Erdkunde, VIII. p. 370.

3 Bib. Res. I. 331.

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