Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 1.djvu/163

 Topography of Jerusalem. 145 deep well south of the city. Both ravines are at first mere depres- sions of the ground, which here is almost level ; but they rapidly fall in their southern course. A third ravine, the Tyropceon — the valley of the cheesemongers of Roman times, but whose original name is unknown, divides the city into two unequal portions and joins the Kedron at the Pool of Siloam to the south-east. To the north-west, between the Tyropceon and Hinnom valleys, is the steep hill of Zion, whose culminating point supports the so-called Tower of David, which is decidedly Herodian in character. Over against this, but to the south-east, is a longer and narrower hill, popularly known as Moriah, enclosed by the Kedron and Tyropceon ravines. The name of Moriah is only met with twice in the Old Testament ; once in Genesis, when Abraham is com- manded to sacrifice his son in the land of Moriah, 1 without further indication as to where it might lay ; 2 and again in Chronicles, a book of small authority, written little more than three hundred years before our era. 3 The appellative was probably due to the desire of the chronicler to identify Moriah with the spot where Jehovah had made a covenant with the father of his people, an event of the utmost importance to the Israelites, and one which they were fond of recalling to memory. 4 The name, therefore, may have been subsequently taken up by the priests ; for it never seems to have become popular, since we do not find it in the account given in Kings of the building of the temple, 5 nor in the prophets ; whilst its real name " Zion," synonymous with the " City of David," is frequently met with in the writers of the Captivity, 6 as well as in those of the Macedonian period. 7 Even without these formal passages, others in the prophets, too numerous for quotation here, would have revealed the true 1 Gen. xxii. 2. 2 Genesius derives Moriah from " monstratus a Jehovah," or "mount of the apparition." Josephus, as usual, follows the Chronicles, and calls the temple mount, to Mûpiov opoa (Ant. Jud., I. xiii. 1, 2). 3 2 Chron. iii. 1. " Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, in Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David, in the place that David had prepared in the threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite." See Reuss' observations upon this verse. 1 Gen. xxii. 15, 18. 6 Kings vi. 6 2 Sam. v. 7. 7 It should be observed that Josephus, in his topography of Jerusalem, heading his account of the siege, does not once use the word Zion, either here or throughout his work ; but he calls the hill now known as Zion, 17 avm woAiç — the " upper city." Bell. Jud., V. iv. 1. vol. 1. 1,