Soon after Jerome, Antoninus of Placentia, in his Pil- grimar/e (A.D. 570), gives a similar description, and mentions especially that at certain hours only did the fountain pour forth much water. He also distinguishes between the fountain and the pool where the people washed themselves for a blessing. In the 7th century Antoninus Martyr mentions Siloam as both fountain and pool. Bernhard the monk speaks of it in the 9th century, and the annalists of the Crusades mention its site, in the fork of two valleys, as we find it. Benjamin of Tudela (A.D. 1173) speaks of "the great spring of Shiloach which runs into the brook Kedron" (Asher's ed. i, 71), and he mentions "a large building upon it" (3"), which he says was erected in the days of his fa- thers. Is it of this building that the present ruined pil- lars are the relics? Caumont (A.D. 1418) speaks of the Valley of Siloah, "ou est le fonteyne ou le {sic) vierge Marie lavoit les drapellez de son enfant," and of the fountain of Siloam as close at hand ( Voyage d'O^dtremer en Jherusalem, etc. [ Paris ed.], p. (W). Felix Fabri (A.D. 1484) describes Siloam at some length, and seems to have attempted to enter the subterraneous passage, but failed, and retreated in dismay after filling his flasks with its eye-healing water. Arnold von Harflf (A.D. 1496) also identifies the spot {Die I'ilgerfahrt [Col. ed.], p. 186). After this the references to Siloam are innu- merable; nor do they, with one or two exceptions, vary in their location of it. We hardly needed these testi- monies to enable us to fix the site, though some topogra- pliers have rested on these entirely.
Scripture, if it does not actually set it down in the mouth of the Tyropccon as Josephus does, brings us very near it, both in Nehemiah and John. The reader who compares Neh. iii, 15 with xii,37 will find that the pool of Siloah, the fountain-gate, the stairs of the city of Da- vid, the wall above the house of David, the water-gate, and the king's garden were all near each other. The evangelist's narrative regarding the l>lind man, whose eyes the Lord miraculously opened, when carefnll}' ex- amined leads us to the conclusion that Siloam was some- where in tlie neighborhood of the Temjile. The Kab- binical traditions, or histories, as they doubtless are in many cases, frequently refer to Siloam in connection with the Tenipli^ service. It was to Siloam that the Levite was sent with the golden ])itchcr on the "last and great da}' of the feast" of Tabernacles ; it was from Siloam that he brought the water which was then poured over the sacrifice, in memory of the water from the rock of Kephidim; and it was to this Siloam water that the Lord iiointed when he stood in the Temple on that day and cried, "If any man thirst, let him come unto ine and drink." Tiie Lord sent the blind man to wash, not in, as our version has it, but at (ti'f) the pool of Siloam (see Wolfii Curw, etc. Or ttQ gets its force from i'TTayt, vixpai coming between the verb and its
SILOAH
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SILOAH
preposition, parenthetically, " Go to the pool and wash thine eyes there"), for it was the clay from his eyes that ■was to be washed off; and the evangelist is careful to throw in a remark, not for the purpose of telling us that Siloam meant an " aqueduct," as some think, but to give higher significance to the miracle. "Go wash in the pool of Siloam" was the command ; the evangelist adds, "which is by interpretation, sent." Ou the inner mean- ing here, the parallelism between " the sent one" (Luke, iv, 18; .John x, 36) and " the sent water," the missioned one and the missioned pool, we say nothing further than what St. Basil said well, iq his exposition of the 8th of Isaiah : tic; ovv o (nrtaraXfiivog Kcti dipocprjTi pswv ; /) 7r£|0( 01/ t'if>i]Tai, Ki'ipuif; awiaToKKt (.ie ' Kai TraXic, ovk ipKTti ovSi KpavycKTEi. That "sent" is tlie natural in- terpretation is evident, not simply from the word itself, but from other passages where PlPd is used in connec- tion with water, as Job iii, 10, " he seiulttk waters ujaon the fields;" and Ezek. xxxi, 4, "she sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field." The Talmudists coincide with the evangelist, and say that Shiloach was so called because it sent forth its waters to water the gar- dens (Levi, Linyua Sacra). We may add Homer's line —
ti/i/ri/jup 5' « TeTxof i'ei poov {11. xii, 25).
III. Modern Locality. — 1. General Description. — A little way below the Jewish burying-ground, but on the opposite side of the valley, where the Kedron turns slightly westward, and widens itself considerably, is the Fountain of the Virgin, or Um ed-Deraj, near the be- ginning of that saddle-shaped projection of the Temple hill supposed to be the Ophel of the Bible and the Ophlas of Josephns. See En-Rogel. At the back part of this fountain a subterraneous passage begins, through which the water flows, and through which a man may make his way, as did Robinson, Barclav, and Warren, sometimes walking erect, sometimes stooping, sometimes kneeling, and sometimes crawling, to Silo- am. This rocky conduit, which twists considerably, but keeps, in general, a south-westerly direction, is, accord- ing to Robinson, 1750 feet long, while the direct dis- tance between Silwan and Um ed-Deraj is only a little above 1200 feet. In former days this passage was evi- dently deeper, as its bed is sand of snnn' ili'|iM). which has been accumulating for ages. This conduit has had tributaries, which have formerly sent th(ir waters down from the city po( 1 or Temple wells to swell Siloam Barclay writes, "In exploring tl .subterraneous channel conveying the water from the Virgin's Fount to Siloam, I discovered a similar F channel entering from the north, a few yards from its commence- ment; and on tracing it up near the Mugrabin gate, where it be- came so choked with rubbish that it could be traversed no farther, I there found it turn to the v/est, in the direction of the south end of the cleft or saddle of Zion ; and if this channel was not construct- ed for the purpose of conveying to Siloam the surplus waters of Hezekiah's aqueduct, I am unable to suggest any purpose to which it could have been applied" {City of the Great Kinr/, p. 309). In an- other place he tells ussomethin more: " Having loitered in ili pool [Virgin's Fount] till the com- ing-down of the waters, I soon found several widely separated places where it gained admit- tance, besides the opening under the steps, where alone it had for- The Pi eseut " X'oul of bjluam." (From a photo^Maph taken bj the Ediioi m lbT4 )