AENNON. – A locality where St John the Baptist exercised his ministry last, before being imprisoned; situated near Salim (ἐγγύς τοῦ Σαλμῆς), it abounded in water, and so people went there to be baptised (Jn 3:23). It was on this side of the Jordan (ibid. 26, where reference is made to Bethania πέραν τοῦ Ἰωδάνου of Jn 1:28); it must have been some distance from the Jordan, otherwise the mention of “many waters” would make no sense. The name Αἰνών (Vulgate Aemnon; cf. “Aen” Jos 15:32, and “Ain” Jos 19:7; 21:16) is a transcription of the Aramaic plural ‘ênān (springs), written ‘ênān in the Targum of Deut 8:7. It is to be identified with the group of five springs (‘Ain el-Fātūr, ‘Ain ed-Deir, ‘Ain Qur’an, ‘Ain es-Semsiyē, ‘Ain el-Beidā) in the Ghor, 12 km south of Beisan; to the north of these rises Tell-Ridgā (beside the ruins of Umm el-Amdān), corresponding to Salim.
This is attested by tradition, quite clear from the beginning of the 4th century: so Eusebius and St Jerome (Onomasticon, under the heading Aenon, ed. E. Klostermann, 1904, p. 41: “A. iuxta Salim, ubi baptizabat Joannes, sicut in Evang. cata Ioannem scriptum est. Et ostenditur nunc usque locus in octavo lapide Scythopolos ad meridiem iuxta Salim et Iordanem” and under the heading Salem, which in the 4th century corresponded to the village of Salumias; cf. Jerome, Ep. 73 ad Evang.: PG 22, 680; so the Peregrinatio of Egeria (who speaks of Sedima) and the Madaba mosaic map. Perhaps the name Salim has been preserved, shifting to Tell Sarem, 5 km further north.
The identification of A. with ‘Ainūn in the Wādy Fār’ah is to be rejected; south of it are many springs, 10–12 km from the present village of Salim, which is about 6 km east of Nāblus-Sichem (1. Conder, On the identification of Aenon, in Pal. Expl. Fund. Q. Stat. 1874, p. 191 sq.; A. Henderson, s.V. in Dict. of the Bible by Hastings, I 1898, p. 45; W. F. Albright, in The Harvard theol. Rev., 17 [1924], p. 193 sq.), nor with ‘Ain (the cod. B and the Sixtine edition of the LXX Jos 15:61 have Avwò) and Selim (Heb. Silhim) of Jos 15:32, in southern Judea (J. N. Sepp; E. Le Camus, La vie de N. S. F. C., I. Paris 1887, p. 296, n. 1; Th. Zahn, Das Evang. des Johannes, Leipzig 1912, at the cited passage).