adjacent to which was a temple in a grove, became with the Greeks, Anaia, Anaitis, Anaitidos, Anea, Nanea, Diana, the goddess of fountains (4). From a Syrian ain near Antioch came Daphne, the daughter of a river, and the parent of evergreen fhrubs, as the laurel and the bay (5). Hence came Ain-tab, Ain-zarba, or Ana-zarba, Ain-ob, Inopus, the Pythian fpring, or the fountain of Diana and Apollo at Delos (6). Antiquaries obferve, that Bath in England was once called Tr-ennaint twymin (7); that Scotland hath its Annan, a place of two medical fprings feparated by a small rock; that Waterford in Ireland was once called Man-apia; and that Ancaster in Lincolnshire hath a spring at each end of the town, and, as there is no more water from thence to Lincoln, the name tells its own Saxon and British history (8).

Such eyes of water were of infinite value in the Eaft. When Mofes was in the plains of Moab, he afcended mount Nebo to furvey the promifed land. Wide spread before him, at the foot of Nebo, lay the great plain, floping from him down to Jordan, then, rifing again from the river, it joined the high grounds, fwelling into prominences; behind which protuberated hills, beyond which huge mountains heaved their gigantick heads, fome bare, others rugged, and others covered with timber, verdure, and fruits, wheat, barley, vines, figs, pomegranates, and olives. The man of God took particular notice of what he calls the eyes, that is the live waters fpringing into natural bafons, and running in brooks among valleys and hills, and for their fakes he pronounced it an excellent country (9). Miners obferve the tinct of fpring waters, and the incruftations of the beds, in which their rivulets run. The Eafterns did fo. Jacob remarked the red eyes of the land of Judah, and it was an obfervation of mineral colours that made Mofes add, when he was praifing the land of eyes, a land whofe flones are iron, and out of whose bills thou mayeft dig brass (1). It was natural to affimilate different fprings to the eyes of different animals to defcribe the qualities of the waters. A fpring bursting violently from a fteep rock was called An-zabba, the eye of a bear, there was a kind of fury in it;

(1) BOCHARTI Phaleg. Lib. iv. cap. xix. Affur. Ex. STRABONE.... PLUTARCHO.... ACATHIA....PAUSA N... SCALIGERO..2 MACH. chap. i. 13, 14, 15. Temple of Nanea........ Prifts of Nanea, &c.

(5) Ckanaan. lib. i. cap. xvi. Phænices in Bastia.

(6) GREG. ABUL. PHARAGII. Hift. Dynaft....BOCHARTI Chanaan, lib. i. cap. xiv. Ain-ob fons Pythonis, dictus rivulus in eadem infula per occultos terræ meatus a Nilo derivari creditas.

(7) CAMDEN's Britannia.

(3) DR. CAMPBELL's Political Survey of Great-Britain, vol. i. chap. v. On waters.. STUKELEY'S Itin. Ancafter....Ank-bam....Wintringkam, &c.

(9) DEUT. xxvii. 49...........viii. 7.

11) Verf 9.

and

and a sparkling human eye in which the graces played was likened to waters enlivened by the activity of little fpangling fifh, thine eyes are like the fifb-pools of Hefbbon (2). The fpring where John baptized was called the dove's eye. The prophet Nahum defcribes waters running off in ftreams gurgling among ftones, as doves that wander cooing, or, as the English verfion hath it, tabouring through the folitary grove (3). According to this, Enon was a cavernous fpring, and fuch were of great account in Judea, especially in fome feafons. There was in the time of Ahab a famine, occafioned by a drought of three years. The king in extremity commanded Obadiah to go through one part of the land, while he furveyed another to fearch for grafs to fave the cattle alive, and he particularly charged him to go to all eyes of water. Near fuch eyes there were caverns, and in one of them Obadiah had hid and fed an hundred prophets of the Lord in time of perfecution (4). If Enon were an excavation of this kind, John baptized in a natural baptiftery, the walls and arches, the dome and windows of which, were fculptured without hands. Here he was covered from the heat, fheltered from wind and rain, free from noife and interruption, and plentifully fupplied with water in the natural ftone bafons of the rock. Were it neceffary, perfons now alive might be named, who were baptized by immerfion in fimilar places in Great-Britain. The natural caverns and artificial quarries of fome rocks in Judea were very capacious, and in that at Adullam David concealed four hundred fighting men, befide old people, women, and children (5). Ancient Greek miffals, and rude fculptures in fubterranean caverns near Rome, describe John preaching and baptizing by immerfion in cavernous places (6), but whether the Chriftian artifts intended to defcribe the hiftory of John, or their own practice, or both, is a question. Certain it is fuch places were in Judea, and it is not improbable Enon near Salim was

one.

Springs iffuing from the fiffures of a rock, gurgling through the chinks as waters out of bottles, falling from crag to crag, murmuring from bed to bason, and from bafon to bed, fretting along the ragged fides of a rocky channel, and echoing through rude and fpacious caverns would form what the Jews called a Dove-water, or, if it flowed from a natural spring, in their figurative style, a Dove's-eye. It is credible, fuch a clean and plentiful baptifmal ftream was much to the purpose, and much in the

(2) CANT. vii. 4.

(3) NAHUM . 6, &c... DIOD. SIC. Lib. ii. The river Tigris fwelling with inceffant tains broke down the wall for twenty furlongs.

(4) 1 KINGS xviii.

(5) 1 SAM. xxii.

(6) PAULI ARINGII. Roma fubterranea.

PACIAUDI Antiq. Chriftian.

D

tafle

taste of fuch a man as John. The inhabitants accounted fuch waters the greatcft of bleffings; but as they might by accident become injurious, by affording a supply to foreign invaders of the land, they took care, in fuch cafes, to conceal both the water and the found from their enemies, and to convey the ftream by fubterranean pipes into their cities to fupply the inhabitants, and it is not improbable, that the firft founders of towns confulted this advantage in determining where to place them. In the reign of Hezekiah the Affyrians invaded Judah (7). The king took counfel 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 was gathered much people together, who stopt all the fountains, and the brook that ran through the midst of the land, faying, Why should the kings of Assyria come, and find much water? This cuftom prevailed in all ages, and William, Archbishop of Tyre, who in the eleventh century was in a crufading army, mentions the fame thing (8). This Enon therefore might fupply Salim with water, and as it was a time of peace, near the city, and plentiful enough to fupply the inhabitants, it must have been highly convenient for the baptifm of immerfion.

Adjacent to fome of the fountains of Judea were buildings, refervoirs, and large receptacles of water, cifterns of great fize, and baths both fimple and medicinal. Of the latter were the hot wells of Tiberias, Gadara, Callirhoe, and other places. Near Ramah there yet remains, of very ancient work, a refervoir a hundred and fixty feet long, and a hundred and forty broad (9). Such alfo of different fizes, and for different purposes, were thofe at Tabor, Jerufalem, Etham, and the gardens of Solomon. One of the fountains of Judah was called Ainrogel, the Fuller's-eye, because there Fullers cleansed stuffs (1). Who, among this variety and uncertainty, can at this diftance exactly determine what kind of water this at Enon was? One thing only is certain, that there was much or many waters. It was not uncommon, after great downfalls of rain, for fmall streams to fwell into rivers. Thus by land

(7) 2 KINGS . 19.....2 CHRON. xxxii. 3.

(8) WILLEM. TYREN. Archiep. Hift. Lib. viii. p. 749. Cives [Hierofol.] præcognito noftrorum adventu, ora fontium et cifternarum quæ in circuitu urbis erant, ufque ad quinque vel fex millaria, ut populus fiti fatigatus, ab urbis obfidione defifteret, obftruxerant: unde poftmodum in ejus obfidione infinitas moleftias nofter paffus eft exercitus....Qui autem intus erant præter aquarum pluvialium, quam habebant ubertatem maximam, fontes etiam a partibus deductos exterioribus, et aquæductis invectos, in pifcinas duas maximæ quantitatis, quæ circa templi ambitum, exterius tamen, fed infra urbem continentur, recipiebant : quarum altera ufque hodie probatica pifcina reputatur....An. 1099.

(9) RELAND. De Fontibus Palæftinæ. De Thermis Palæft.

(1) Ain aim, Gen. xxxviii. 21.. ..Ain-am, Josh. xv. 34....Ain-chadda, Josh. xix. 21. Ain-Chatzor, Joh. xix. 37... Ain-dor, Job. xvii. 11.... Ain-Eglaim, Ezek. xlvii. 10.... AinGannim, Joh. xv. 34.... Ain-Gedi, Cant. i. 14.....Ain-Mishpat, Gen. xix. 7.....Ain-Rimmon, Neb. xi. 29...Ain-Shemesh, Fofb. xv. 7...Ain-Tappuch. Joh. xvii. 7, &c.

2

floods

floods the ford Jabbok became a river, and the brook Kifhon became a rapid torrent. Once, when clouds and heavy rains fought against Sifera, the brook Kifhon became a full and rapid river, and trod down ftrength, by violently pouring itself down the fteep falls, by frighting the enemies cavalry, fo that the horses broke their hoofs by prancing to escape up the ragged rocks, whence they tumbled backward, and were fwept away with the flood (1). This happened in the time of the judges, near the eyes of the waters of Megiddo.

The learned Mr. Bryant fuppofes that the word Ænon fignified "the fountain of the fun," and that the ancient Canaanites had given this name to the place, before the Hebrews occupied the land, to fignify, that these celebrated waters were facred to the fun. Of the facts, that gratitude to the Creator produced in the firft men exercifes of fincere piety at fountains all over the Eaft; that the low fuperftition of their defcendants degraded fuch exercifes into idolatry, lofing the Creator among the creatures; that the Canaanites, funk into vice, were of the latter kind, and at waters worshipped the fun, and named the place after the fuppofed deity; that the notion of fanctity in the waters had been obliterated for ages before the time of John, and the people did not resort thither under any fuch impreffions, but merely because there was much water there, there is no doubt (2). It is, however, worthy of obfervation, that the Hebrews changed the names of many places (3). Mofes gave a special charge to the people, not only to deftroy altars, pillars, images, groves, and places, where the former inhabitants had practifed idolatry, but he added; destroy the names of them out of the place. Be circumfpect; make no mention of the names of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth (4). It is, therefore, very credible that the name of this fountain was changed, and that Ain-yon was in the dialect of the country, in the days of John, the fountain of the dove. Doves frequented fuch places to drink and wash, and near them they built their nefts. Hence a prophet says: O ye that dwell in Moab, leave the cities, and dwell in the rock, and be like Yonah, the dove, that maketh her neft in the fides of the hole's mouth (5). It is not improbable, that the first who called fprings fountains of the fun, meant to defcribe bot wells. Bath waters were called aquæ folis (6). From fuch fprings, it fhould feem, the name went forward to defcribe all other beneficial waters, where the fun was worfhipped.

By tracing the fubject in the fcriptures, a very probable conjecture may be formed on the time when the change of worship of the fun, and of the names of the fountains of the fun, was effected. When Mofes led the Hebrews to Canaan, the inhabitants among other deities worfhipped the fun, and, befide idols, they had pictures, which Mofes exprefsly commanded the Hebrews to destroy (7). That of a star was a circle with the pupil of an eye in the middle. Thus as an ifland was eye of land, a fpring an eye of water, fo a ftar was an eye of light, but it was a standing eye, and emitted no ftream. The picture of the fun was a large circle with a curved horizontal ftroke running cross the middle, to fignify that the fun was like a running fpring, and emitted light and heat it was the philofophy of children. To fuch eyes, in procefs of time, nofes, mouths, foreheads, cheeks, hair, and all other parts of the human body were added. It is uncertain what progress this art had made either among the Canaanites or the Egyptians when the Ifraelites quitted Egypt: but certain it is, at that time both Canaanites and Egyptians worshipped idols, and retained their primitive hieroglyphicks, and the Hebrews carried all through the wilderness fome emblems of the fun, and the hoft of heaven, and paid religious adoration to them (8). The prophet Ifaiah in his time complained of idolatrous pictures, and the beauty of them (9). There were then two forts of these pictures in Judea : the one imported from abroad in the fhips of Tarfhifh, of which the prophet Ifaiah speaks; the other portraits in caverns. The trade to Tarfhifh was carried on by the Jews from the reign of David till that of Ahaz when Ifaiah prophefied; then Rezin took away their ports, and they never recovered them. In the time of Jeremiah fome of thefe pictures were put into the temple. The prophet calls them abominations (1). During the captivity the prophet Ezekiel faw in a vifion, that fuch of his countrymen as were left in the land continued to worship the fun in chambers, that is rooms or caverns in rocks near fountains. Here he faw what the house of Ifrael did in the dark. Each prieft in each room was offering incenfe before ugly imagery of reptiles pourtrayed upon walls all round about. The language of the prophet indicates that the pictures were horofcopes, configurations, or imagery of the heavens, traced with a tool on the rock. After Ezekiel had beheld the cavern worship, he faw that of the temple. There at the gate he obferved women weeping for Tammuz. Some understand by this word Adonis, others Ofiris, Ifis, and Horus Apollo; that is pictures

(7) NUMB. xxxiii. 52.....Mem. concernant les Chinois. Pl. Cara&erers T'CHOUEN-TSEE... LI-TSEE....HING-CHOU....TSAO TSEE...KOU-OUEN...Chinois et Egyptiens.

(8) ACTS vii. 42, 43.

(9) ISAI. i. 16.

(1) JER. xxxii. 34...2 Kings xxi. 1, &c....JER. vii. 30, &c.