to a great extent under ground:
no other date can be assigned to them. The Jews, on their return from
the captivity, were too poor to undertake such works; and, although
Herod, on rebuilding the Temple, made some excavations, (Joseph. Ant.
Jud. xv. 11, vii.,) the haste with which that building was completed
will not allow us to suppose that they belonged to that period. Some
were used for sewers and drains, others served to conceal the immense
treasures of which Crassus, a hundred and twenty years before, plundered
the Jews, and which doubtless had been since replaced. The Temple was
destroyed A. C. 70; the attempt of Julian to rebuild it, and the fact
related by Ammianus, coincide with the year 363. There had then elapsed
between these two epochs an interval of near 300 years, during which the
excavations, choked up with ruins, must have become full of inflammable
air. The workmen employed by Julian as they were digging, arrived at
the excavations of the Temple; they would take torches to explore them;
sudden flames repelled those who approached; explosions were heard, and
these phenomena were renewed every time that they penetrated into new
subterranean passages. This explanation is confirmed by the relation
of an event nearly similar, by Josephus. King Herod having heard that
immense treasures had been concealed in the sepulchre of David, he
descended into it with a few confidential persons; he found in the first
subterranean chamber only jewels and precious stuffs: but having wished
to penetrate into a second chamber, which had been long closed, he
was repelled, when he opened it, by flames which killed those who
accompanied him. (Ant. Jud. xvi. 7, i.) As here there is no room for
miracle, this fact may be considered as a new proof of the veracity of
that related by Ammianus and the contemporary writers.--G. ----To the
illustrations of the extent of the subterranean chambers adduced by
Michaelis, may be added, that when John of Gischala, during the siege,
surprised the Temple, the party of Eleazar took refuge within them.
Bell. Jud. vi. 3, i. The sudden sinking of the hill of Sion when
Jerusalem was occupied by Barchocab, may have been connected with
similar excavations. Hist. of Jews, vol. iii. 122 and 186.--M. ----It is
a fact now popularly known, that when mines which have been long closed
are opened, one of two things takes place; either the torches are
extinguished and the men fall first into a swoor and soon di