This Elijahhib was the high priest at the time. He was the son of Joiakim, who, after his own father, Jeshua the high priest son of Jozadak, himself bore the insignia of the priesthood for a long time. And it was right that the restoration of the city was begun by a high priest and his brothers, in order that those who were highest in rank might themselves in their good works become an example for all. And it is well that, as the priests are building, it adds, And as far as the Tower of One Hundred Cubits they sanctified it, as far as the Tower of Hanenel. For priests build to the number of one hundred cubits when they enflame all those whom they are instructing with love and desire for eternal things. For the number one hundred, which in counting on the fingers moves from the left hand to right, represents celestial rewards, which, in comparison with temporal and base rewards, are as the right hand is to the left. They are also said to have sanctified the gate that they built. For it is the duty of priests to make their own actions more worthy than others through a special sanctification and to do this earnestly so that those who are joined with them might sanctify the Lord’s name in themselves by living well.

He gives the name Fish Gate to the gate that faced Joppa and Diospolis (i.e., Lydda).^[1] It was nearest to the sea of all of Jerusalem’s roads;^[2] today it is said to be called the Gate of David and is the first of the gates to the west of Mount Zion. This view appears to be borne out in Chronicles, in which it is written about Manasseh king of Judah: After this he built a wall outside the City of David,^[3] to the west of Gihon in the valley, from the entrance of the Gate of the Fish in a circuit as far as Ophel, and he erected it much higher.^[4] Typologically, however, just as a flock stands for the Lord’s faithful, so in the same way they are frequently called fish. Thus, just as he says to Peter, Feed my sheep,^[5] so too he promises Peter together with Andrew and the rest of the apostles, Come, follow me, and I will make you become fishers of people.^[6] In a parable he likewise says about these same fishermen, They collected the good fish in baskets but threw the bad away.^[7] Therefore, the Fish Gate is built in Jerusalem when those orders are established in the church through which the elect, separated from the reprobate like good fish from the bad, may be brought into the fellowship of perpetual peace; and the Fish Gate is built when they rescue their neighbors, who observe them, from the waves of worldly agitation and desire and introduce them to the tranquility and peace of the spiritual life.

They say the site of the city of Jerusalem, being laid out on a gentle slope, inclines toward the north and east in such a way that rainfall does not accumulate there at all but rather flows out like rivers through the eastern gates and swells the torrent of Kidron in the valley of Jehoshaphat, taking with it all the waste of the streets. And so it appears likely that the Dung Gate is the one through which refuse and filth were generally to be driven out. It is not in any way of less virtue and usefulness for all impure things to be removed from the city of the Lord than for those things that are pure to be collected into it. They who build the Dung Gate in Jerusalem, therefore, are the ones who ordain to the ministry of the holy church those through whom the filth of the vices is removed from the minds of the elect, but also through whom people of corrupt mind are kept away from the boundaries of the church while a shower of heavenly grace helps them and weakens every impurity, so that, according to the psalmist, all who do evil are eliminated from the city of the Lord.^[1]

The Pool of Siloa^[1] (which means sent), where the man born blind was given light,^[2] stands for the Lord Savior who was sent by God the Father for our illumination. The spring of this pool can be very aptly understood as the same Father from whom he was born, about which the psalmist well says, For with you is the spring of life; in your light we shall see light.^[3] And the Spring Gate is built in Jerusalem when teachers are ordained in the church to preach belief in divine eternity to the nations. The walls of the Pool of Siloa are built too when the very firm and invincible testimonies of the Scriptures, in which the mystery of the Lord’s incarnation is described, are rooted in the mind of the faithful. Moreover these walls of divine utterances reach as far as the King’s Garden when, having recognized the mysteries of the Lord’s dispensation, we begin to bring forth shoots of the virtues with the help of that same king, our Lord God.

Jeremiah mentions this gate and indicates that it is in the eastern part of the city when he writes typologically about the church, And the city shall be rebuilt for the Lord from the Tower of Hananel;^[1] and a little afterwards: up to the torrent of Kidron and as far as the corner of the Gate of the Horse on the east.^[2] Now horses, when they are put to good use, just as donkeys, camels and mules also do, sometimes represent peoples of the Gentiles who have been converted to the Lord, and at other times concerns for temporal matters that have been duly subjugated to the rule of the soul. And the priests built the wall of God’s city up to the gate of the horses when, after the calling of the Jewish people, holy teachers by spreading the word went on to lead the peoples of the Gentiles into the holy church. Similarly, they build up to the gate of the horses when they show satisfactory examples of living to those who enter the doors of the holy church in order to bridle the wanton motions of their flesh or soul, or perhaps when they control their own thoughts with which they consider it necessary to worry about their own and their family’s food and clothing^[3] in such a way that these thoughts in no way impede the freedom of that mind with which they have resolved always to seek heavenly things.