eight and nine feet of water, which completely filled a cavity in the rock, and came up into its mouth, which was also bored through the rock. The water was almost within arm's reach of the opening, and remarkably clear. The cavity I learnt extends some distance East and West; but as I was disappointed in seeing the man who had been employed to cleanse it, I could not ascertain its nature so exactly as I wished. the water-it was the water of Siloam. I tasted Thus then we have at these three different points three fountains, without any apparent connexion one with another, all supplied with this peculiar water, utterly unlike any I remember to have tasted in that neighbourhood or elsewhere. I am strongly disposed to conclude, from this fact, that there must be a communication, but how it is very difficult to determine. The existence of immense reservoirs under the temple-area, is a theory which still requires ocular proof, but is so supported by ancient tradition, that I think it cannot reasonably be doubted. Among the other works of Simon the Just, the son of Onias, about the Temple at Jerusalem, in the reign of Ptolemy Soter of Egypt, we read, "In his days the cistern to receive water, being in compass as the sea, was covered with plates of brass1." During the reign of Soter's successor, Philadelphus, Jerusalem was visited by Aristeas, who has left us a full account of this cistern, or rather series of cisterns, beneath the sacred precincts; and although the account may appear to border somewhat on the fabulous, yet, making considerable allowance for 1 Ecclus. L. 3. ηλαττώθη ἀποδο- τὸ περίμετρον• the sense of which is χεῖον ὑδάτων, χαλκὸς ὡσεὶ θαλάσσης very obscure. hyperbole both in this and the former passage, it may be admitted as evidence to the existence of large reservoirs in the neighbourhood of the Temple; and there is one very singular coincidence, manifestly undesigned, between this and the fore-cited passage, which is worthy of remark. He states that "a powerful natural spring gushes out copiously and unceasingly from within, and is received into subterranean reservoirs, the extent of which is surprizing and beyond description, to the circumference of five stadia about the Temple. They are connected by numberless pipes, through which the waters flow from one to another. There are above frequent hidden apertures to these depths, known only to those employed at the sacrifices, through which the water, gushing out with force, washes off all the blood of the numerous victims. The reservoirs have their floors and sides cased with lead, and are covered over with a quantity of earth." It is highly probable that by the lead of Aristeas is intended the brass, with which, according to the Son of Sirach, Onias had cased the "cistern, which was in compass as the sea;" a work which would be fresh in the memory of the Jews at the period of his visit. And there is an incidental remark in this 2 Ὕδατος δὲ ἀνέκλειπτός ἐστι σύστασις, ὡς ἂν καὶ πηγῆς ἔσωθεν που λυῤῥύτου φυσικῶς ἐπιῤῥεούσης· ἔτι δὲ θαυμασίων καὶ ἀδιηγήτων υποδοχείων ¦ ὑπαρχόντων ὑπὸ γῆν, καθὼς ἀπέφαι νον, πέντε σταδίων κυκλόθεν τῆς κατὰ τὸ ἱερὸν καταβολῆς, καὶ ἐκ τούτων σύριγγας ἀναρίθμους, καθ ̓ ἕκαστον μέσ ρος ἑαυταῖς συναπτόντων τῶν ρευμάτ των. Καὶ πάντα ταῦτα μεμολυβδῶσθαι κατ ̓ ἐδάφους καὶ τῶν τοίχων ἐπὶ δὲ τούτων κεχύσθαι πολύ τι πλῆθος και νίας, ἕως ἐνεργῶς γεγενημένων ἁπάν των· εἶναι δὲ πυκνὰ τὰ στόματα προς τὴν βάσιν, ἀοράτως ἔχοντα τοῖς πᾶσι, πλὴν αὐτοῖς οἷς ἐστι λειτουργία. Aristeas de Leg. Diy. Translat. p. 112. Havercamp's Joseph. cited by Eusebius, loc. inf. cit. For the Jewish traditions see Lightfoot, Prospect of the Temple, xxiii. and elsewhere; of which more will be said below. curious passage that may serve to explain the silence of Josephus, which is certainly a perplexing difficulty. The secret of these extraordinary water-works, it appears, was known only to the officiating priests. It may have been a point of religion with the Jews to maintain reserve on this subject, especially in the circumstances under which Josephus was writing. The descriptions of Timochares, of the Surveyor of Syria, and of Philo, all cited by Eusebius', speaking of copious streams watering the city and gardens, and of enormous cisterns and canals, strikingly confirm the account of Aristeas, though they do not connect the fountain immediately with the Temple. The traditional notices of the Waters of the Temple preserved in the Mishna are very numerous, but not so clear as could be desired. We collect from them that there were baths for the purifications of the priests, both within and without the holy place, constantly supplied with running streams of water from the fountain of Etam, of which we shall hear more presently. The High-priest's bath within the sacred precinct was situated on the roof of the house of Happarvah2, 1 Præp. Evang. Lib. 1x. capp. xxxv-xxxvii. Timochares is cited below, p. 478 note 2. The Surveyor witnesses, ὑπάρχειν πηγὴν ἐν τῷ χωρίῳ, ὕδωρ δαψιλὲς ἀναβλύζουσαν. Philo adds a peculiarity, ταύτην τὴν κρή νην ἐν μὲν τῷ χειμῶνι ξηραίνεσθαι, ἐν δὲ τῷ θέρει πληροῦσθαι. The verses are taken from a lost work of his on Jerusalem. The text is, I fear, hopelessly corrupt. Νηχόμενος δ' ἐφύπερθε το θαμβηέστατον ἄλλο 'Ρεῦμα γὰρ ὑψιφάεννον, ἐν ὑετίοις νιφετοῖσιν Then of the High Priest's fountain Ed Gaisford, Tom. 11. p. 434. 2 Yoma (in Mishna) cap. iii. sect. 3, Tum. 11. p. 218. en n'a by. It was here that the High-priest performed his five ablutions on the day of Expiation. where the skins of the victims were salted. It was on the North of the Temple, and adjoining to it was the bath-house where the entrails of the victims were washed3. But the common bath for the priests1, in ordinary use, was on the South of the Temple, between the wood-house and the Chamber Gazith, where the great Sanhedrim sat, and hard by the Gate which was called the Water Gate5. In this Chamber was a drawwell by which water was supplied to the whole area from a large reservoir. This reservoir was fed by an aqueduct from the fountain of Etam, which skirted the South side of the Temple, where was the place of the Coming down of the Waters." Besides these, there seems to have been another bath on the North, near the Gate Tedi, connected with the Warm Chamber, by a narrow subterranean passage which passed under the Palace, through which the priests who had contracted any defilement might pass out unobserved: and lamps on either side illuminated the darkness 10. 66 among the Romans, is evident from the language of Tacitus in his account of the siege by Titus'. His description proves that they were aware that the city was not entirely dependent on the heavens, but was furnished with a large natural spring and artificial reservoirs for retaining its water. In conformity with this, we learn from Josephus, that the Temple was so abundantly supplied, that notwithstanding the multitudes that had been shut up within its precincts, first during the civil commotions, and afterwards during the siege, yet the Romans, on their occupation thereof, still found it unexhausted, and would not grudge a draught to the Jews who had escaped. Now we have a testimony of like import from the Bourdeaux Pilgrim3, and another which serves to connect the tradition of the Jewish Temple with that of the Mosk of Omar. It belongs to the period of the desolation of the former; indeed, to the attempt of Julian the Apostate to rebuild it'. The story may have been embellished, but the outline is probably correct. It runs thus. In preparing the foundations for the building, a stone of the lowest course was displaced, which discovered the entrance to a cavern hollowed in the rock; a labourer was lowered into it by a cord, and found water half way up his thigh; on feeling about with his hands, he discovered on a |