Gennath

Gennath (Γεννάθ, apparently for the Chald. גַּגִּת or גַּנתָּא, garden, q.d. "garden- gate;" perhaps [as Schwarz suggests, Palest. page 254] from the "rose- garden," גּנִּת ורָרַים, mentioned in the Talmud [Maaser. 2:5] as lying west of the Temple mount), the name, according to Josephus (War, 5:4, 2), of one of the gates of Jerusalem, important as mainly determining the course of the second wall, which has been greatly disputed. SEE CALVARY. His account is as follows: "But the second (wall), while it had its beginning from that gate which they called 'Gennath,' which belonged to the first wall, yet encircling only the northern slope [or quarter], reached as far as Antonia" (Τὸ δὲ δεύτερον τὴν υὲν ἀρχὴν ἀπὸ πύλης εϊvχεν, ἣν Γεννὰθ ἐκάλουν, τοῦ πρώτου τείχους οῦσαν, κυκλούμενον δὲ τὸ προσάρκτιον κλίμα μόνον ἀνῄει μέχρι τῆς Α᾿ντενίας); from which, together with the context, the following conclusions are certain:

(1.) The gate in question formed part of the first wall that skirted the northern brow of Mount Zion, for the second wall must have started from this quarter, since it ran northward, and lay between the first and the third wall on the same side of the city.

(2.) It was situated at some point east of the tower Hippicus, which formed the common starting-point of both the other walls, but not of this; its distance from this tower is the chief matter of disagreement between topographers; the following considerations will serve to show that it was considerable:

[1.] There were two other adjacent towers, not very far from each other, along the same wall, and the gate must have been beyond them all, as they would have been useless for defense if inclosed within the second emall; nor does the precipitous rock here admit egress for some distance.

[2.] Several indications of the Junction of the walls, if not of the, gate in question itself, have been discovered about 1000 feet east of the present Jaffa gate (Williams, Holy City, 1, Append. page 83 sq.); this would make the line of the second wall correspond very nearly to the modern division between the Christian ands Mohammedan quarters. The only objection of any force against this location of the gate, and consequently of the wall in question, is that it brings the latter upon the side of a descent, where no engineer would think of constructing a mural defense, as it would be commanded by the higher ground outside. On the other band, the hill is not so steep as is implied in this argument; there is no evidence that the wall here was erected specially because the nature of the ground afforded a peculiarly favorable situation, but simply to include the existing buildings; nor eould the matter be much improved by carrying the wall a little further up the same general shelving wedge of land, which here extends indefinitely westward. Moreover, the weakness of the second wall at this point may have been the reason for the construsction of the three impregnable towers expressly so as to flank it. SEE JERUSALEM.