further supported by the failure of the fathers to preserve a distinction between the words. Our choice must certainly lie between this method and the second, and beset with difficulty as it is, this fourth method appears to the present writer, on the whole, the easier solution. We propose, therefore, the provisional adoption of the reading [Mŋviorás] -enclosed in square brackets—with the reading AAŋvas on the margin, and the understanding that it stands there as a true gloss as well as less well-authenticated various reading. It may not be impossible that some such process may go on in our minds in this case as that which Dr. Vaughan describes in the preface to the third edition of his Commentary on Romans: "It is deeply interesting," he says, "to take note of the process of thought and feeling which attends in one's own mind the presentation of some unfamiliar reading. At first sight the suggestion is repelled as unintelligible, startling, almost shocking. By degrees light dawns upon it; it finds its plea and its palliation. At last, in many instances, it is accepted as adding force and beauty to the context, and a conviction gradually forms itself that thus, and not otherwise, was it written." I The same process may attend the consideration of a new understanding of an old reading. 1 5th ed., London, 1880, p. xxi. Cf. also Authorized or Revised? Sermons, etc., London, 1882, p. xii. Enon near to Salim. BY PROF. WM. ARNOLD STEVENS. HERE is perhaps no lost Biblical site, unless it be "Bethany beyond Jordan," that the student of the Gospel narrative is now so eager to recover, as the Ænon of John iii. 23. Here John the Baptist appears for the last time on the public arena of history. Here he delivers his last recorded testimony to the Messiah, unsurpassed in moral sublimity by any utterance that has since fallen from human lips. Neither non nor Salim occurs elsewhere in the New Testament; whether either is mentioned in the Old Testament remains to be ascertained. Both names have wandered like disembodied spirits in search of their proper habitat. They have traversed Palestine from south to north, on both sides of the Jordan, and sometimes have settled down in very "dry places." That the Greek Alvó represents an Aramaic derivative of 'Ain, "spring," either an intensive or a plural (see Grimm, Clavis N. T.), is scarcely to be questioned. It is therefore a descriptive local name, equivalent to "the Springs." So J. Lightfoot: "I should rather take Enon for the name of some large and spacious compass of ground, full of fresh springs and waters, than for any one particular town, river, or city" (see Harmony of the Four Evangelists, on John iii. 23). Its situation is only defined as that of the well-known, or at least the better known, Salim. The latter name, it is to be noted, is an unexplained exception to current Greek usage as to names of towns; it is not feminine (though so given in Robinson's Lexicon; in Grimm's Clavis the question of gender remains unnoticed), but either masculine or neuter. The writer has been led, while treating of the life of Christ, in the classroom, to a frequent examination of the arguments pro and con for each of the proposed sites. From data supplied by the Gospel narrative itself, he had been inclined to seek the locality in central rather than southern Palestine, and that, either in the valley of the Jordan, south of Beisân, or, following Robinson, in the neighborhood of Sâlim, east of Nâblous. A three or four months' tour in Palestine, Ghôr at Beisân, The result of a early in 1883, afforded an opportunity to visit the as well as the tract lying north and east of Nâblous. personal examination of the ground was to convince him of the general correctness of Robinson's identification (adopted also by Capt. Conder) as against any other of the numerous proposed sites. Capt. Conder attempts no definite localization, but seems inclined to place Enon as near Khûrbet 'Ainûn as the course of the Fâr'ah stream will allow. It is perhaps possible to determine the site still more precisely. The object of this paper is in part to advocate Robinson's view, and also to direct special attention to the western end of the Wâdy Beidân, three or four miles north of Sâlim, as the probable site of the New Testament Ænon. First a glance at Leading Opinions Hitherto. 1. In the Ghôr, South of Beisân. Fourth century tradition placed both Enon and Salim eight Roman miles to the south of Scythopolis, and not far from the Jordan ("juxta Jordanem "). See Jerome (Onomasticon, articles Enon and Salim). The latter was still pointed out, a village called Salumias. Jerome, in opposition to the then prevailing view, also considered this to have been the royal residence of Melchizedek. Epiphanius considered it to have been the Salem near Shechem.1 Drs. Robinson and Smith, who together explored that part of the Ghôr in 1852, found no trace of ruins, or of either name except the Wely of shrine of a Sheikh Sâlim at the foot of Tell Ridghah, less than two miles from the stream of the Jordan. The industrious 1 “Enon juxta Salim, ubi baptizabat Joannes, sicut in Evangelio cata Joannem scriptum est (iii. 23): et ostenditur nunc usque locus in octavo lapide Scythopoleos ad meridiem juxta Salim et Jordanem" (Jerome, Migne Patrol. Lat., vol. 23, tom. iii. 163). "Sichem et Salem, quæ (Latine et Græce) Sicima vocata est, civitas Jacob, nunc deserta. Ostenditur autem locus in suburbanis Neapoleos juxta sepulcrum Joseph," etc. (ibid., 266). "Salem, civitas Sicimorum, quæ est Sichem; sed et alia villa ostenditur usque in præsentem diem (juxta Æliam contra occidentalem plagam hoc nomine; in octavo quoque lapide a Scythopoli in campo vicus Salumias appellatur; Josephus vero Salem esse affirmat in qua regnavit Melchisedec, quæ postea dicta est Solyma, et ad extremum, Hierosolymæ nomen accepit" (ibid., 267). “... Oppidum juxta Scythopolim, quod usque hodie appellatur Salem, et ostenditur ibi palatium Melchisedec, ex magnitudine ruinarum veteris operis ostendens magnificentiam" (ibid., vol. 22, tom. i. 445). (See also Reland, Palæstina, p. 721.) inquiries of Tyrwhitt Drake and Capt. Conder were equally unsatisfactory. See report of Drake (P. E. F. Quarterly, 1875, p. 32): "Enon and Salim have been identified by Van de Velde as Bir Sâlim and Sheikh Sâlim. Inquiries of the Arabs and the Fellahin in the above district resulted in not a man of them ever having heard of either of the places." Among the moderns who more or less confidently adopt this site are Van de Velde, Greswell, Andrews (Life of Our Lord), Edersheim (Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, i. 393), Pressel (in Herzog's Encyclopädie, art. "Salim"; also Güder, art. "Johannes der Taufer"), Caspari (Chronologisch-geog. Einleitung, § 87), Ellicott (Life of Christ, p. 126, note, Amer. ed.), Grove (Smith's Dict. of the Bible, art. "Salim"), Hackett (ibid., Amer. ed., art. "Enon"). Eusebius and Jerome appear simply to have repor'ed current tradition, and, as the citations in the accompanying n te show, unlinked with any confirmatory historical facts. It is a manifest objection to the correctness of the tradition, that it places Enon so near to the Jordan. The site identified by Van de Velde as Salim is but a little over a mile from the river, and the springs of the proposed Ænon not much farther. Now a spot within two or three miles at most from the river Jordan would scarcely call for special description as a place of "much water," this fact being evidently inserted by the evangelist to designate it as an appropriate locality for the administration of baptism. Considering that the Jordan valley had been the scene of the Baptist's public ministry for a year or more, the annexed reason for the choice of Ænon at the time seems plainly to indicate that it was not in the Jordan valley, at least in close proximity to the river itself. To add "for there was much water there" were quite superfluous, if John was still within a few minutes' walk of the river. 2. The majority of modern expositors take us to Southern Judea, chiefly supporting their opinion by the similarity of the two names with the Ain and Shilhim of Josh. xv. 32: one. In Josh. xix. 7 Ain again occurs. The En- of En-Rimmon, in Neh. xi. 29, is supposed to be the same. (See Wieseler Chron. Synopse der vier Evv., p. 247.) It is also urged: "The Evangelist indicates plainly enough that his non is to be looked for in Judea; for, after having said (iii. 22) that Jesus and his disciples had baptized in the land of Judea (ἐν τῇ Ἰουδαίᾳ γῇ), he immediately proceeds ἦν δὲ καὶ Ἰωάνης βαπτίζων ἐν Αἰνὼν ἐγγὺς τοῦ Σαλείμ. Now it is certainly most natural to refer the comparison, here indicated by κa, not merely to the act of baptizing, but of baptizing in the land of Judea; there was no need of this clause to inform us that John baptized." (Ibid., Eng. Tr., p. 245.) So Meyer, briefly, that Enon "in Judæa, nicht in Samarien, gelegen haben muss." But this is to pervert entirely the writer's κaí in iii. 23. It is intended to indicate, not identity of locality, but the simultaneousness of these two ministries at this junction of the Gospel history. John was still engaged in baptizing, this being still further explained in verse 24," for John was not yet cast into prison." The tenor of the passage is rather to distinguish the two locations apart than to identify the latter as belonging to the same region. Among those who adopt. the above identification are Alford, Godet, Pressensé (Jesus Christ, Eng. Tr., p. 227; in his note he favors an etymology which he is scarcely justifiable in attributing to Wieseler, namely, that Enon is a contraction (!) from En-Rimmon), Milligan and Moulton (Popular Commentary on the N. T.; the parenthetical statement that Shilhim of Josh. xv. 32 is "translated Salem in the LXX," gives an incorrect impression of the fact). The resemblance of a (Shilchîm; in codex Alex. of the LXX Zeleeu), with an Ain near it, to the Zaλep of the text, is but a slender support for this view. Against it is the drift of the Evangelist's narrative (according to the interpretation given above), the absence of historical or geographical data to establish it, and, finally, the absence of an abundance of water in any site to which the names given in Joshua can probably be assigned. 3. East of the Jordan. — This embraces a third class of conjectures. Dr. Lightfoot was at first inclined to locate non in Galilee (see Harmony of the Gospels, part iii., published in 1650), but in his Chorographical Inquiry, dated 1671, he withdrew that opinion, and favored the hypothesis of an non in Southern Peræa, believing that "we must look for it either in Galilee or Perea," for the reason that it was about this time that John was seized by Herod, and that he must, accordingly, have been baptizing at some point within Herod's dominions. The erudite Lampe argues at length to the same effect, that the scene of John's closing ministry was, in all probability, not remote from the Peræan capital of Herod Antipas, the city Julias, or from Machærus, the fortress of John's captivity. Among recent writers, Edersheim is disposed to entertain favorably the view "that Enon, near Salim, was actually within the dominions 1 Wieseler considers Airúv in Josh. xv. 61 (according to the codex Vat. μadwr') to be the same place as the Aiv in v. 32 (codex Alex.). It is difficult to see on what ground this assumption rests. |