_CHRIST'S CONTEMPORARIES--CLIMATE AND SCENERY OF PALESTINE._
THE SAGES OF GREECE AND ROME ON CHRISTIAN PRODIGIES.
Gibbon observes that during the age of Christ, of His Apostles and their
first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by
innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were
healed, the dead were raised, demons were expelled, and the laws of Nature
were frequently suspended for the benefit of the Church. But the sages of
Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and, pursuing their
ordinary occupations, were unconscious of anything extraordinary. Under
the reign of Tiberius, the whole earth, or at least a celebrated province
of the Roman Empire, was involved in a preternatural darkness of three
hours. Yet this miraculous event passed without notice in an age of
science and history. It happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the
elder Pliny, who must have experienced the immediate effects or received
the earliest intelligence of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers in a
laborious work has recorded all the great phenomena of
Nature--earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses--which his
indefatigable curiosity could collect. Both the one and the other have
omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which the mortal eye has
been witness since the creation of the globe. A distinct chapter of Pliny
is designed for eclipses of an extraordinary nature and unusual duration,
but he contents himself with describing the singular defect of light which
followed the murder of Cæsar, when during the greatest part of the year
the orb of the sun appeared pale and without splendour. This season of
obscurity, which cannot surely be compared with the preternatural darkness
of the Passion, had been already celebrated by most of the poets and
historians of that memorable age.
DEATH OF ZACHARIAS.
Jeremy Taylor says that Herod slew Zacharias between the Temple and the
altar "because he refused to betray his son to the fury of that rabid
bear,--though some persons, very eminent amongst the stars of the
primitive Church, report a tradition that, a place being separated in the
Temple for virgins, Zacharias suffered the mother of our Lord to abide
there after the birth of her Holy Son, affirming her still to be a virgin;
and that for this reason, not Herod, but the scribes and Pharisees, did
kill Zacharias. Tertullian reports that the blood of Zacharias had so
besmeared the stones of the pavement, which was the altar on which the
good old priest was sacrificed, that no art or industry could wash the
tincture out, the dye and guilt being both indelible; as if, because God
did intend to exact of that nation 'all the blood of righteous persons,
from Abel to Zacharias,' who was the last of the martyrs of the synagogue,
He would leave a character of their guilt in their eyes to upbraid their
irreligion, cruelty, and infidelity. Some there are who affirm these words
of our Saviour not to relate to any Zacharias who had been already slain,
but to be a prophecy of the last of all the martyrs of the Jews who should
be slain immediately before the destruction of the last Temple and the
dissolution of the nation. Certain it is that such a Zacharias, the son of
Baruch (if we may believe Josephus), was slain in the middle of the Temple
a little before it was destroyed; and it is agreeable to the nature of the
prophecy and reproof here made by our Saviour that 'from Abel to
Zacharias' should take in 'all the righteous blood' from first to last
till the iniquity was complete, and it is not imaginable that the blood of
our Lord and of St. James their bishop (for whose death many of themselves
thought God destroyed their city) should be left out of the account, which
certainly would be if any other Zacharias should be meant. In reference to
this, Cyprian de Valera expounds that which we read in the past tense to
signify the future: 'Ye slew'--_i.e._, shall slay."
CHILDHOOD OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.
Elizabeth fled with her son John the Baptist when he was about eighteen
months old into the wilderness, where after forty days she died. His
father Zacharias, at the time of his ministration, which happened about
this time, was killed in the court of the Temple. According to the
tradition of the Greeks, God deputed an angel to be his guardian and
nourisher, as he had formerly done to Ishmael and Elias.
DEATH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.
The Jews ascribed to the murder of John the Baptist the fate that befell
Herod and Salome. Herod, in journeying to Rome four years after Christ's
death, was deprived of his tetrarchate and banished along with Herodias to
Gaul, and they died in great misery at Lyons or in Spain. Salome in
crossing the ice in winter fell into the water; and the ice, after
parting, joined again, and decapitated her. John the Baptist's disciples
honourably buried his body. It was said the Pagans rifled the tomb and
burned the body in the reign of Julian the Apostate; but some of the bones
were sent to St. Athanasius at Alexandria. In 396 Theodosius built a great
church in that city in honour of the Baptist, and there the holy relics
were deposited. The head of the Baptist was discovered in 453, and in 800
it was conveyed to Constantinople; in 1203 the lower jaw was taken to
France, and is preserved to this day. Part of the head is in St.
Sylvester's Church at Rome.
BURIAL OF JOHN THE BAPTIST.
Jeremy Taylor says that John was imprisoned in the castle of Macheruns,
where Herod sent for him and caused him to be beheaded. His head Herodias
buried in her own palace, thinking to secure it against a reunion, lest it
should again disturb her unlawful lusts and disquiet Herod's conscience.
But the body the disciples of John gathered up, and carried it with honour
and sorrow, and buried it in Sebaste, in the confines of Samaria, making
his grave between the bodies of Elizeus and Abdias the prophets. And about
this time was the Passover of the Jews.
CHURCHES DEDICATED TO THE BAPTIST.
Temples were dedicated to John the Baptist in the first ages of
Christianity, the earliest and most celebrated being that known at Rome as
St. John Lateran. The next most celebrated church dedicated to St. John is
the Baptistery at Florence, dedicated by the Princess Theodolunda about
589. In this baptistery every child born in Florence of the Roman Catholic
faith must by law be baptised. This renowned church is decorated both
inside and without with miracles of art.
PONTIUS PILATE.
Pilate, after ten years of service, was disgraced and called to Rome. One
of that cloud of false witnesses who sprang up every year told the people
of Samaria that he knew where the sacred vessels lay hid, and fixed a day
when they should meet him in thousands on Gerizim to dig them up. Hearing
of this movement, Pilate sent troops into the highways and villages round
Shechem; and these soldiers, setting upon the people, slew the innocent
with the guilty, and put the whole body of Samaritans to flight. A great
cry for vengeance arose in Samaria; the Senate sent an embassy to Antioch;
and Vitellius, a man of craft and policy, wishing to stand well with the
Jews, put the government of Samaria and Judæa into fresh hands, and
commanded Pilate to report himself in Rome. Here we lose sight of him.
Legends make him a suicide--some in a Roman prison, others in Gaul, and
others again near the Lake of Lucerne, on the summit of the mountain which
bears the name of Mount Pilatus.
THE DOINGS OF HEROD THE GREAT.
About sixty years B.C., Herod, misnamed the Great, had partly by bribery
prevailed on Antony and Augustus to make him king of the Jews, and
Josephus describes his visit to Rome on that appointment. Herod has always
been a monster of cruelty. He married a beautiful woman named Mariamne,
whom he put to death after being the mother of several of his children.
Then he had a fit of remorse, and frantically called her by name, and
ordered his servants to do so. Then he next slew the grandfather and
brother of Mariamne, the latter being ordered to be suffocated while his
servants were engaged in a bathing frolic. In his old age he was seized
with a sudden suspicion against two sons, whom he accused of a plot
against him, and after some wavering caused them to be strangled, and some
three hundred who sympathised with them to be stoned to death. After these
symptoms of madness, a year before his death, being alarmed by the reports
of the visits of the Magi, and the prophecies of the birth of Christ, he
ordered the massacre of the innocents. He died a year after, at the age of
seventy-one, of a disgusting disease, accompanied with horrible tortures,
having reigned thirty-five years. In order that he should not die without
being lamented, he had ordered a large number of the chief inhabitants of
Jerusalem, as soon as he was dead, to be slain by his soldiers. He died
enormously rich, and even Horace refers to his vast palm groves. There was
a lengthened litigation and appeal to Rome about the division of his
estates and governments. The son who succeeded him so misconducted himself
that after nine years he was banished by Augustus and his wealth
confiscated.
MARY MAGDALENE.
There were three Marys--Mary of Bethania, Mary the sister of Lazarus, and
Mary Magdalene; and some think they were all one person. Most of the early
writers say that she and Lazarus and Martha left Galilee and settled at
Bethany, and there Christ often visited them. The penitent woman and she
are by some treated as the same person; but it is at best only a
conjecture. It is a popular tradition that Mary and Lazarus, and Martha or
Mary their sister, were expelled after the Ascension, and put to sea, and
reached Marseilles, and founded a Church there, of which Lazarus was the
first bishop. The relics of these saints were alleged to be discovered in
Provence in the thirteenth century, and Mary Magdalene's were at St.
Maximius, near Marseilles, where a convent now stands. Her festival is
kept July 22nd, and once was a holiday in England.
MARY MAGDALENE PREACHING.
A Provençal legend states that after the Ascension Lazarus, with his two
sisters Martha and Mary, Maximius and seventy-two disciples, also Cedon
the blind man whom our Saviour restored to sight, and Marcella the
handmaiden were put by the heathen in a vessel and set adrift; but, guided
by Providence, it landed at Marseilles in France. The people were then
Pagans, and refused to give the pilgrims food or shelter, so that they
were fain to take refuge under the porch of a temple. And Mary Magdalene
preached to the people, reproaching them for their senseless worship of
dumb idols. And though at first they refused to listen, yet they were
after a time convinced by her eloquence, and by the miracles she and her
sister performed; and they were all converted and baptised. These things
being accomplished, Mary Magdalene retired to a desert near the city,
where there were only rocks and caves, and she devoted herself to solitary
penance for thirty years, weeping and bewailing for the past. She fasted
rigorously, and must have perished, but the angels came down from heaven
every day and carried her up in their arms into regions where her ears
were ravished with the sounds of heavenly melody, and where she beheld the
glory and the joy prepared for the penitent sinner. One day, a hermit,
having wandered near the spot, beheld this wondrous vision of the angels
carrying the Magdalene up to heaven in their arms, and singing songs of
triumph; and after recovering from his amazement, he returned to the city
of Marseilles and reported what he had seen. Fra Angelico has a most
interesting picture of the Magdalene preaching from the steps of a
building to an audience composed mostly of nuns, who are in rapt
attention.
ACCOUNT OF ST. MARTHA.
St. Martha, the sister of Lazarus and Mary, was a favourite member of that
family whom Christ often visited, staying a night on His visits. On the
first visit, Martha attended to the practical details of hospitality,
while Mary was intensely absorbed in the spiritual charm of the
conversation, and did nothing but listen, and yet was commended for this,
as if each was entitled to follow her own way of displaying her affection.
The message sent at a later date to Christ by the two sisters was simply
this--"He whom Thou lovest is sick": they knew it was enough to say that
one word. On the last visit of Christ, Mary poured costly ointment on
Christ's feet, which Judas Iscariot said was a shocking extravagance. St.
Martha seems to have been present at the Crucifixion. After Christ's
ascension, she, as stated under the head of Mary Magdalene, went to
Marseilles, and her body is deposited in a vault under the church at
Tarascon. King Louis XI. gave a rich bust of gold, in which the saint's
head is kept.
ST. VERONICA AND HER HANDKERCHIEF.
St. Veronica was the woman who was healed by touching the hem of Christ's
garment. She greatly longed for a portrait of Christ, and brought a cloth
to Luke, who was a painter, to make one. But he tried three times to make
a good portrait and failed. And Veronica being distressed, Christ told her
He would help her if she would go home and prepare a meal, which He would
take with her. She prepared the meal, and Christ went at the time
appointed; and on receiving from her a cloth to wipe His face after
washing it, He pressed it to His face, and it received a miraculous
portrait of His features. This He gave to her, and it performed afterwards
many miracles. The Emperor hearing of these miracles, sent for Veronica to
show him the portrait. She went to Rome with it, and was received with
great honour, and showed it to the Emperor, who, on seeing it, was
immediately cured. Others say that Veronica was a compassionate woman,
who, seeing the drops of agony on the brow of Christ, as He was bearing
the cross to Calvary, wiped His face with a napkin, or with her veil, and
then she found His likeness miraculously stamped upon the cloth. She
afterwards came to Europe in the same vessel with Lazarus and Mary
Magdalene, and suffered martyrdom in Provence or Aquitaine.
HILLEL RELATED TO JESUS.
Of the Great College which inspired and guided Jewish thought, the chief
luminary had been Hillel, surnamed the Great. Hillel was a Babylonian Jew
by birth, though in blood (on his mother's side at least) he belonged,
like Joseph of Bethlehem, to the royal line. Hence he was of kin to Mary
and Jesus. Like Joseph, too, he was a craftsman in one of the noble
trades. When he left the Farther East for Syria, he was already forty
years of age; when he came to Jerusalem and entered himself a student in
the school of Menachem the Essene and Shammai the Pharisee, he had to
labour for his college fees and daily bread. He sat under Sammias and
Pollion. Each of these eminent scholars had risen by his virtues and
learning to the high rank of rector of the Great College. Under him the
college made a new start for fame. He invented the seven rules. A thousand
pupils entered his classes: eighty are said to have become famous as men
of letters, doctors, and scribes. He lived to the age of a hundred and
twenty, and died when Jesus was fourteen years of age (in the tenth year
of our era). He may have been one of the doctors with whom Christ talked
in the Temple. Simeon succeeded his father in the rectorship, and was
still alive when Jesus began to preach, and died two years after the
Crucifixion.
THE SANHEDRIM AT JERUSALEM.
The Sanhedrim's strength had been reduced first by Herod the Great,
afterwards by the Roman governors of Judæa. Herod, on capturing Jerusalem,
had seized the whole body of the Sanhedrim, thrown them into prison, and,
with two illustrious exceptions, put them all to death. Around Hillel and
Shammai, the men whom Herod had spared, a new council had been formed; but
the prestige of the Sanhedrim could never be restored. Pilate abridged
their rights, taking from them more particularly the power of life and
death; yet even after they had lost the right to torture prisoners and
stone offenders, they still exercised a vast authority in Jerusalem, and
in every other Jewish city. Pilate could not dispute their jurisdiction
over Jews, however, in whatever land they dwelt, so long as they did not
encroach on the civil powers. The Sanhedrim comprised three
classes--priests, Levites, and ordinary Jews. The priestly element was
strong. Caiaphas, being the official high priest, had a right to preside.
In his absence the chair was filled by Simeon, rector of the Great
College. Whoever filled the chair was considered as sitting in the place
of Moses.
THE WORKING MAN IN CHRIST'S TIME.
No handicraft could be followed by a slave, and none but a freeman could
learn a trade. Some trades were indeed less eminent than others--to wit,
the art of a tanner was condemned as noisome; the arts of a barber, a
weaver, a fuller, a perfumer, were all considered mean; and no man
following these crafts could be allowed on any pretence to serve in the
sacred office. A tanner, like Jose of Sephoris, might become a rabbi; he
could never be made high priest. Not so with the craft of carpenter--a
craft which had a part of its functions in the synagogue and Temple, which
was often adopted as a profession by men of noble birth, and which enjoyed
the same sort of repute among the Jews that is given in England to the
Church, the Army, and the Bar.
THE PHARISAIC NICETIES.
The Pharisees were so rigid that, according to Buxtorf ("Syn. Judaica"),
if an ox or other animal fell into a pit, it was deemed lawful to draw it
out only when leaving it till Sabbath would involve risk to life. When
delay was not dangerous, the rule was to give the beast food sufficient
for the day; and if there were water in the bottom of the pit, to place
straw and bolsters below it that it might not be drowned. The same author
states that it was a breach of the law to let a cock wear a piece of
ribbon round its leg on Sabbath, for it was making it bear something. It
was also forbidden to walk through a stream on stilts, because, though the
stilts appear to bear you, you really carry the stilts. While scrupulously
observing the law which prohibited the cooking of food on Sabbath, they
did not by any means make the holy day a day of fasting.
THE SIEGES OF JERUSALEM.
From the time Pompey (63 B.C.) captured Jerusalem and subjected the
country to the Roman yoke, the Jews were always on the verge of
insurrection. In 65 A.D., when Florus the Roman procurator robbed the
sacred treasury, and brought on an insurrection, Bernice, the wife of
Agrippa, rushed with bare feet through the streets to intercede with
Florus; but it was in vain. In 69 A.D. Titus approached and besieged the
city, starved out the inhabitants, and destroyed the Temple. Many Jewish
captives were afterwards carried to Rome to swell the triumph of Titus,
and were thrown to the wild beasts or forced to kill one another. The
triumphal arch of Titus, erected soon after his death, remains to this day
in Rome. From that date the Jews ceased to be a nation, and were dispersed
over the world. There are no clear accounts of what became of the Apostles
after the fall of Jerusalem. Some say that they arranged to go into
different regions, as Scythia, Asia, Parthia, India. Those writers who
profess to give later accounts of the Apostles flourished only in the
third or fourth century.
DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM IN 70.
Not long before the outbreak of the Jewish War, seven years before the
siege of Jerusalem, a man, by name Jesus, came to the city at the Feast of
Tabernacles, and in a fit of abstraction cried continually, "Woe to the
city! woe to the Temple!" He alarmed the authorities, who ordered him to
be scourged as a madman; but he continued these exclamations, and during
the siege he was last seen sitting on the wall, still repeating the same
cries, till a missile put an end to him. The Jews rebelled against the
Romans in 66. The Christians, remembering our Lord's admonition (Matt.
xxiv. 15), forsook the city, and fled beyond the Jordan. In April 70, when
the city was filled with strangers, the siege began, and history records
no other instance of such obstinate resistance, such desperate bravery and
contempt of death. The Castle of Antonia was surprised and taken by night.
The famine was so severe that many swallowed their jewels; a mother even
roasted her own child. Titus wished to spare the Temple. But in a fresh
assault a soldier, unbidden, hurled a firebrand through the golden door.
When the flame arose the Jews raised a hideous yell. The Roman legions
vied with each other in feeding the flames. It was burnt on August 10th,
70, the same day of the year on which the first Temple was, according to
tradition, destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. The sight was terrible. The
mountain seemed enveloped in one sheet of flame; all was covered with
corpses; over these heaps the soldiers pursued the fugitives. Josephus
says the number of Jews slain was 1,100,000, and the number sold into
slavery was 90,000. The Christian Church was by this event liberated from
local influences, and took up an independent position in the world.
ANTIOCH THE FIRST GENTILE CHURCH.
The interest of Antioch consists in certain memorable events having
occurred there in the first ages of Christianity. It was situated where
the chain of the Lebanon, running north, and the chain of Taurus, running
east, meet, and was partly on an island. It was here that the Christians,
when dispersed from Jerusalem at the death of Stephen, preached the
Gospel. Here was the first Gentile Church founded; here the disciples of
Christ were first called Christians; here St. Paul first settled as a
minister of the Church and started on his first mission; here St. Paul
rebuked St. Peter for conduct into which he had been betrayed through the
influence of emissaries from Jerusalem. Jews were from the first settled
in Antioch in large numbers. The city was founded in 300 B.C., and became
prosperous. The citizens were noted for scurrilous wit, and for the
nicknames they gave, and perhaps the name of Christian had its origin in
this disposition of theirs. The modern place known as Antioch is a small
and insignificant town of 6,000 inhabitants, though the ancient city was
supposed to have had a population of 200,000. An earthquake destroyed most
of the city in 526, and again in 583. The Saracens captured it in 635; the
Crusaders stormed it in 1089; and it fell under the Moslem rule in 1286,
since which time it has dwindled into insignificance.
PALESTINE EXPLORATIONS.
In modern times the geography of Palestine was chiefly known through the
works of Dr. Robinson, Burckhart, and Vande Velde; but in 1864 a society
sprang up in England for the purpose of a more systematic exploration.
Successive expeditions were sent there for that purpose. In 1868 the
Moabite Stone was discovered by the Rev. F. Klein. It is a block of basalt
about 3-1/2 feet by 2 feet, and has on its face thirty-four lines of
writing in the character known as Phoenician. If it had remained entire,
there would have been no great difficulty in reading the inscription; but
when the Arabs heard that the Europeans attached great value to its
possession, they quarrelled about it and broke it up. About two-thirds of
the fragments were afterwards collected and pieced together. And,
fortunately, a "squeeze" of the whole had been taken before it was broken,
and a translation has been arrived at. The restored monument was preserved
in the Louvre at Paris, and a plaster cast is in the British Museum. The
inscription is supposed to be a record by Media, King of Moab (nearly nine
hundred years before Christ), of the victories and public works he had
achieved. Besides the Moabite Stone, the explorers discovered numerous
dolmens, being circular terraces 3 feet high, some of which were
conjectured to be burial-places; also, dolmens being flat, table-like
surfaces, probably used as altars by the Canaanite tribes.
THE COURSE OF THE JORDAN TO THE DEAD SEA.
Mr. Macgregor, of the _Rob Roy_ canoe, traversed the upper part of the
Jordan, and arrived at certain measurements, which have been corrected
slightly by the Palestine Survey Commission. From the source to the Dead
Sea it is 200 miles long. The source of the tributary of the Hasbany is
1,700 feet above the level of the sea. The Dead Sea is 1,292 feet below
the level of the sea. The Lake of Tiberias is 682 feet below the level of
the sea. The river at first runs 20 miles, then falls into the basin of
Hooleh, 4 miles long; then runs 10 miles, and falls into the basin of
Tiberias, or the Lake of Galilee, 12-1/2 miles long and 8 miles wide; then
runs 65 miles, and falls into the basin of the Dead Sea, 47 miles long and
10 miles wide. The Dead Sea is 1,278 feet deep at its greatest depth; the
Sea of Galilee is 165 feet deep at the greatest; Hooleh about 15 feet
deep. The Jordan ranks in size with the Dee of Aberdeenshire, but is
rather less rapid. The Jordan has nearly the same rapidity as the Clyde
and the Tweed. The Dead Sea, called in the Old Testament the Salt Sea, has
no outlet to the south, but gets rid by evaporation from the surface of
all the water poured into it. This is said to be the most remarkable
depression of the kind on the face of the earth. There is no port, and
there are no fish. The waters of lakes which have no outlet, such as the
Caspian, the Sea of Aral, Lakes Balkash, Van, Uramiah, and the Dead Sea
ultimately become more or less saline. The excessive saltness of the Dead
Sea is represented as 24·57 lbs. of salt in 100 lbs. of water; while that
of the Atlantic is only 6 lbs. of salt in the same quantity.
THE SEA OF GALILEE.
The Sea of Galilee, or Tiberias, or Gennesaret, is pear-shaped, tapering
towards the lower end. In its central part it varies from 60 feet to 165
feet deep. It is 12-1/2 miles long, and its greatest width is 8 miles.
Bethsaida, now called Tabiga, is on the upper shore of Galilee, and
consists of a few huts and mills. Some hot springs here flow into the
lake, and great numbers of fish crowd round that spot, which cormorants
and gulls watch and feed upon. Here was the miraculous draught of fishes.
Here Christ stood in a ship a little from the shore and addressed the
multitude. There was also a Bethsaida on the east of the Jordan at St.
Tell, where the five thousand were fed. The site of Capernaum, as related
(p. 62), is now doubtful; but Mr. Macgregor thought it was at Khan Minyeh,
about a mile west of Bethsaida and on the shore of Galilee. Magdala is on
the west shore of the lake near the middle, now called Midgel, and is a
poor village without beauty or cleanliness. It gives the name to Mary, who
is known over the whole world. Behind Magdala the hills rise abruptly to
about 1,000 feet. Tiberias is three miles farther down the west coast than
Magdala, and is now a filthy town, especially in the Jews' quarter. Christ
seemed never to have entered this town, and the chief reason given is that
it was full of foreigners.
FISHING IN SEA OF GALILEE.
The boats now used on the Sea of Galilee have dwindled to about six, of
five oars each; and for half a century travellers seldom have seen more
than one or two on the lake. The fish in the lake were said by Macgregor
to be the carp and the cat-fish, or coracinus. When Dr. Tristram visited
the country in 1869, he found a mode of fishing in vogue which was to
scatter poisoned bread crumbs, which caused the fish to die and float on
the surface in large shoals. He was told that there were fourteen species
of fish in the lake, but only three sorts were eatable. He also saw a man
wade in naked to guide his seine net round, and then draw it ashore. The
storms or squalls on the Sea of Tiberias are often violent, and this is
said to be owing to its depth below the level of the sea, where the air is
so rarefied and causes a gap in the continuity of the atmosphere. The
steep place where the herd of swine ran down into the Sea of Tiberias is
judged to be at Kersa, directly opposite to Magdala.
THE SOURCES OF THE JORDAN.
Mr. Macgregor, with the _Rob Roy_ canoe, about the year 1868 explored the
sources of the Jordan, which are three. One is the Hasbany, due north,
near which is the Pool of Fuarr, which the natives all believed to be
1,000 feet deep, being unapproachable by them; but when sounded it was
only 11 feet deep. There is a weir made to form this pool, and to supply a
mill near this point, and also a bridge with two arches crosses the stream
a little lower down. Two miles to the east of the Hasbany is another
source of the Jordan, called the Leddan; and on the east bank is a mound,
about 30 feet high and 600 feet wide, said to have been once the town of
Dan, where Jeroboam set up the idol (1 Kings xii. 28). Near this spot is
an impenetrable thicket, covering a pool 100 feet wide, supplied by a
subterranean stream. The natives believed the pool bottomless, but it was
found by the _Rob Roy_ to be only 5 feet deep. This pool also supplies a
mill. About fourteen miles farther east is the third source of the Jordan,
issuing out of a cavern at the village of Banias, which was once the town
of Cæsarea Philippi, where Christ asked His disciples who they thought He
was. Near this spot was supposed to be the scene of the Transfiguration.
Near this also are the vast ruins of the Castle of Subeibeh, built by the
Herods, and held by the Crusaders. It is 1,500 feet above the plain.
THE HOOLEH, OR WATERS OF MEROM.
The three sources of the Jordan--the Hasbany, the Leddan, and the
Banias--unite, after running about 12 miles, at a place called Tell Sheik
Yusuf. The Banias is about 70 feet wide before it reaches this point, and
the banks are 20 feet high and abrupt. The united river is called the
Jordan from this point, being then about 100 feet wide, and 8 or 9 feet
deep. After running about 6 miles, the river becomes dispersed into small
channels, and these are soon lost in a vast morass, called the Hooleh, or
Waters of Merom, choked with reeds and papyrus, and swarming with leeches.
These obstacles prevent even a canoe passing. The passage being thus
blocked for half a mile, the water is again collected in a central pool or
lake about 60 yards wide. A clear channel of a 100 feet wide and 10 feet
deep flows from this pool, between thick walls of papyrus, which grows to
a height of 15 feet above the water. And this is said now to be the
largest papyrus ground in the world. Pelicans and water-fowl abound in
Hooleh, and Mr. Macgregor killed a pelican which measured 10 feet between
the tips of the extended wings. The Hooleh lake, or that part of it which
is clear of the papyrus, is about 4 miles wide and 6 miles long, tapering
to a point at the lower end, where the Jordan again issues as a river. The
lake is not deeper than 15 feet, and is more usually 9 and 10 feet only.
The Jordan, on its issuing from Hooleh, is about 60 feet wide; and after
running 10 miles very rapidly, falls into the Sea of Tiberias or Galilee,
or Lake of Gennesaret.
THE RIVERS OF DAMASCUS.
When Naaman the Syrian went to Elisha to be healed of leprosy, and was
told to wash seven times in the Jordan, he exclaimed, "Are not Abana and
Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?" In
1868 Mr. Macgregor, with the _Rob Roy_ canoe, visited these places.
Damascus was picturesque in its situation, but the houses and people
exceedingly dirty. It is said to be the oldest inhabited city in the
world. Vines and orange trees relieve the mud walls, but there is nothing
really beautiful except the scenery surrounding this city. The population
is said to be now 150,000. The river rises a little to the east of the
source of the Jordan out of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, and flows due east
past Damascus. It is a deep and rapid river about sixty feet wide, with
high banks, without trees, and with fruitful plains on each side.
Tortoises and land crabs abound. The _Rob Roy_ canoe sailed down to the
Tell of Salahiyeh, which is a small green hill like Primrose Hill, near
London. There are many canals used for irrigation in the course of the
river. The river then divides into three branches, on one of which is the
spot known as Abraham's Well, now called the village of Harran. These
three branches become lost in a large morass called Ateibah. The _Rob Roy_
explored this morass, and found it perfectly still water, choked with
reeds and osiers about five feet high. The natives never go into it,
believing some of the pools to be bottomless. The morass or lake is of a
double form, and the whole is about fourteen miles long and four miles
wide, seldom visited except for wild ducks and the myriads of other fowl
which are the only active inhabitants of the spot, and make the only noise
that can be heard. A few villages are dotted over the surrounding plains.
The river Pharpar flows parallel to the Abana in a line about twelve miles
more to the south. It also runs into a large morass, south of which is the
land of Bashan. Here wild boars have their tracks through the reeds. The
"bulls of Bashan" are shaggy buffaloes, which stand up to their middle in
the marshes enjoying the coolness, till the Arab herdsman with a long
stick drives them away, when they bellow and snort, raise their tails and
scamper off, spreading terror all round.
POPULOUSNESS OF GALILEE IN CHRIST'S TIME.
According to Josephus, who lived a few years after the Crucifixion, the
populousness of Galilee was far before most other regions of the world. He
says that in a district of between fifty and sixty miles long, and sixty
or seventy miles broad, there were no less than 204 cities and villages,
the least of which contained 15,000 souls. If this were true, then,
leaving out of view the straggling villages, the population of the
province would amount to the incredible number of 3,060,000. There were,
according to Strabo, many Egyptians, Arabians, and Phoenicians in Galilee
about that period.
CLIMATE OF PALESTINE.
Major Conder, engaged in the survey of Palestine about 1874, said that
Palestine is still a land of corn, wine, and oil, as of yore, and sheep
are still fed in the same pastoral regions; the same vineyards are still
famous; the corn of its plains still yields a hundred-fold. Plagues,
famines, fever, and leprosy still are common. There are still the former
and the latter rains; and the rose of Sharon has not withered; the purple
iris is still royally robed. Except in the disappearance of the lion and
the wild bull there is no change in the fauna. The deer, the antelope, the
fox, the wolf, the hyæna, the jackal, the ostrich, and the crocodile still
survive in the wilder part of the land, and the great boar, the leopard,
the wild goat, and the wild ass. The corn ripens even in April in the
Jordan Valley, and in May on the hills; and the olive harvest and the
vintage follow in the early autumn. In January comes the snow, with ice
and hail. In one year in Jerusalem there were seven falls of snow.
MOUNT HERMON.
Mount Hermon, the second mountain in Syria, is a range of hills lying east
and west, all on the east side of the source of the Jordan, often called
the Anti-Lebanon. The highest cone is entirely naked. The snow never
disappears from the summit, though in the height of summer it melts here
and there, except in the ravines radiating from the top. The parallel
range nearest the Mediterranean is called the Lebanon; and Mount Lebanon,
the highest part, is snow-capped the greater part of the year. The range
decreases in elevation southward. The average height of both ranges,
exclusive of the peaks, is 1,500 to 1,800 feet. The range is rugged,
consisting of deep fissures, precipices, towering rocks, and ravines. The
forests of Lebanon consist of the cedars of Lebanon and a great variety of
trees; but the cedars have dwindled to about 1,400. In the lower valleys
and plains fig trees cling to the rocks, mulberries are cultivated in rows
on step-like terraces, vines also are trained along narrow ledges, and
dense groves of olives occupy the lower parts of the glens. The date palm,
once abundant, is now almost extinct.
THE LILIES OF THE FIELD.
Considerable variety of opinion has existed as to the precise flower which
Christ alluded to in the ever-memorable Sermon on the Mount (Matt. vi.
28). Some have thought it must have been the rose; but the Septuagint
translated the same word into lily, and this is considered the standard
meaning. Father Souciet laboured to prove it ought to be the crown
imperial, a plant common in Persia. Whatever flower was indicated, it was
no doubt conspicuous and beautiful, as well as common. There are red or
purple and white lilies; and probably the scarlet or purple colour was the
one referred to, called the scarlet martagon, which grows in profusion in
the Levant, and in the district of Galilee in April and May. The purple
flowers of the khob or wild artichoke, which abounds in the plains north
of Tabor, are thought by some to be the lilies of the field. A recent
traveller also introduces to notice a plant with lilac flowers like the
hyacinth, which he thought probably the flower meant. Dean Stanley says
the only lilies he saw in Palestine were the large yellow water-lilies
near Lake Merom. Mr. Thompson, in "The Land and the Book," seems to prefer
a large species of lily which grows among thorns, and is fed upon by the
gazelles. He calls the colour gorgeous, but does not state what the colour
is. The anemone _coronaria_ is also noticed by Mr. John Smith, of Kew,
with its brilliant colours, growing everywhere, and is abundant on the
Mount of Olives. The lily of the valley, as known in England, is not a
native of Palestine, and is not the flower of that name mentioned in the
Bible.
WAYSIDE CEREALS, FRUITS, AND FLOWERS OF PALESTINE.
The most substantial as well as ordinary corn and fruits of Palestine are,
and probably were in our Lord's time, wheat, maize, lentils, barley,
vines, olives, figs, and pomegranates. The land was ploughed by oxen. The
fields were not usually separated by hedges, walls, or fences. The plough
was a rude and light implement, which did not penetrate deeply into the
soil, but merely scratched the surface a little. The threshing floor was
merely a smooth and hard place where the corn was piled in a heap in the
centre, and the oxen led round the outside to trample out the grains. The
usual vegetables in Palestine are beans, peas, beets, turnips, carrots,
and radishes. Gourds also abound. The herbs are lettuce, parsley, mint,
mustard, lentils, cabbages, onions, and garlic. Melons and cucumbers are
rather luxuries, the former being manured from the dove-cotes which
abound, and which are often substantial round buildings. The vineyards,
which are surrounded by a hedge and ditch, are carefully watched during
the ripening season to protect them from thieves, and also from the
invasion of foxes, jackals, badgers, bears, and wild boars. The vineyards
also have cherry, apple, pear, fig, and nut trees. The olives are planted
in rows in the orchards. It is a tradition that the olives still growing
at the foot of Mount Olivet were growing in the time of our Lord; but this
is highly improbable, and is contradicted by some facts recorded by
Josephus. The olives are first salted, then crushed in the olive press by
a round stone as a press, run out into stone troughs, and the oil is
stored in skin bottles or in stone jars, which are buried in the ground.
The date palm abounds in the low and sheltered places. The palm tree
consists of a single stem or trunk, rising to sixty or eighty feet without
a branch, and with a tuft of leaves on the top. The fig tree, with its
short stem and wide lateral branches, with sprigs of little figs growing
all round the trunk, is the easiest to climb. The cedar tree was
considered the most excellent for size, beauty of form, and for fragrance
and durability of its wood. Hence Solomon used it chiefly for the Temple.
It attained sometimes 120 feet in height. The wild cypress yielded gopher
wood, of which the Ark was made. The oak and the terebinth are sometimes
confounded together; but a small kind of the latter produces pistachio
nuts. The poplar, evergreen, and sycomore are conspicuous in the jungles
near the Jordan, as well as the tamarisk and cane. Of flowers the rose is
a favourite. The flower called the rose of Sharon was rather the flower of
a bulbous root. The lily of the field referred to in the Sermon on the
Mount has been sometimes identified as a red tulip, called by the French a
meadow anemone or queen of the meadows. It is remarkable for its great
variety of colours, the scarlet abounding especially. There are also
buttercups, dandelions, daisies, poppies, white and yellow crocus,
mandrake, hyacinth, and sweet-scented stock. Of wild shrubs the oleander
grows to a height of twelve to fifteen feet, and with its bright red
flowers adorns the banks of the Jordan. The maidenhair fern hangs
luxuriant round the fountains.
THE BIRDS OF PALESTINE.
The birds found in modern times in Palestine include the following:--The
woodpecker, the robin, the lark, the thrush, the willow wren, and
chiff-chaff; the true bulbul, which is the nightingale of Palestine; the
grackle, or orange-winged blackbird, haunting the gorges of the Dead Sea;
also rock doves issue from the caverns; the wagtail; rock swallows; the
black-headed jay; great spotted cuckoos; the black-shouldered kite; the
red-legged partridge; ducks, rails, and coots; the eagle owl, as large as
those in Central Europe; also little owls; the bat; the seagull, flamingo,
crane, and cormorant; the imperial eagle; the vulture, griffon, and
falcon; the hooded crow, the rook, and jackdaw. Of all the birds of
Jerusalem the raven is the most conspicuous, one species being the
ashy-necked, and smaller than the common sort. These ravens haunt the
trees of the Kedron and Mount Olivet.
WILD BEASTS AND ANIMALS OF PALESTINE.
The wild beasts in Palestine include the following:--The ichneumon, which
frequents the rocks, being as large as a badger, and of the same colour;
the fox, the hedgehog, and the badger; the mole rat, which frequents all
ruins, being twice the size of the English mole, and of a pale slate
colour; the wild boar, the hyæna, and jackal; hares and gazelles. The bees
are of smaller size than the English; butterflies the same as in England.
Lizards and snails are common.
JERUSALEM.
The situation of Jerusalem is such that the ancient Jews believed it to be
the centre of the world, and yet it was out of the great highways, and so
had an immunity from disturbance. It stands on the edge of one of the
highest tablelands in the country. Hence its great height used also to be
constantly mentioned as a noted feature. Its highest point is about 2,600
feet above the level of the sea; the Mount of Olives overtops the highest
part, being 2,724 feet. The situation of Jerusalem was not unlike that of
Rome, except that Rome was in a well-watered plain, leading direct from
the sea, while Jerusalem was on a bare tableland in the heart of the
country. Each had its own cluster of steep hills. One great difficulty was
as to supplying water for the gardens on the north side, as no trace of an
ancient reservoir is now discovered in the upper parts. The arrangement of
streets is now perhaps the same as in early times. A dull, leaden, ashy
hue is everywhere on the buildings and ruins. The three great works in
Solomon's time were the Temple, the Palace, and the Wall of Jerusalem.
After its destruction in 70, the city disappeared from history for fifty
years, and its very name was almost forgotten, till Constantine built the
Martyrion on the site of the Crucifixion. In 326 Constantine's mother, the
Empress Helena, erected magnificent churches in Bethlehem and on the Mount
of Olives. In 369 the Emperor Julian the Apostate made an abortive attempt
to rebuild the Temple. In the fourth and fifth century pilgrims began to
visit it. In 529 the Emperor Justinian built a splendid church in honour
of the Virgin. The Christians ceased to have power there when the Khalif
Omar in 637 captured it. In 1099 the Crusaders first captured it, and held
it till 1187, when Saladin retook it. In 1243 it again came to the hands
of the Christians. It again in 1244 was retaken by the Mohammedans, and
has remained under the Sultans till modern times. There are various
theories of geographers as to the topography of Jerusalem. Some think that
the sites of all the chief places were correctly ascertained in the early
centuries; while others say there is nothing but guesswork as to the site
of the Holy Sepulchre and the Temple.
THE CITY OF NAZARETH.
Nazareth, the city or village where Christ lived after the return from
Egypt till manhood, is situated in a basin among the hills just before
they sink down into the plain of Esdraelon. The surrounding heights rise
about 400 or 500 feet higher, with rounded tops, and they are composed of
the glittering limestone, diversified with fig trees and wild shrubs. The
hollyhock is one of the gay flowers of the field. The valley, which is
about a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide, is rich and well
cultivated, having corn-fields and gardens, hedges of cactus, and clusters
of fruit-bearing trees. The fruits are pomegranates, oranges, figs, and
olives. The village has now about 4,000 population, chiefly Christians,
with a few Mohammedans, a mosque, a Franciscan convent, and two or three
chapels of other confessions. In the rainy season the streams pour down
rapid floods through the hills. The wise man there takes care to build and
dig deep down to the rock, and not to trust to the loose soil as a
foundation. From the heights extensive views are obtained of the Lebanon,
Hebron, Carmel, Gilead, and Gilboa. In this village Christ taught in the
synagogue, and was once dragged to a precipice by His fellow-townsmen to
be cast down. The origin of the disrepute in which Nazareth was held is
not clearly known; but all the inhabitants of Galilee were looked upon
with contempt by the people of Judæa, because they spoke a rude dialect,
and were more exposed to contact with the heathen. Near the village is
shown the Fountain of the Virgin, where the angel's salutation is said to
have taken place, as the Virgin, like the rest of the inhabitants,
resorted there for supplies of water. Another place of note is the cliff
or precipice, about two miles south-east of the town; but geographers
think that a cliff of fifty feet high near the Maronite Church is the
locality where the mob wished to precipitate Christ. It is related that no
Christians lived in Nazareth till the time of the Empress Helena, mother
of Constantine, who built the first Church of the Annunciation. The town
was all but destroyed by Sultan Bibars in 1263, and it was many ages
before it recovered. No Jews reside in Nazareth in modern times.
THE SITE OF CAPERNAUM.
The place where our Lord was so conspicuously occupied, the city of
Capernaum, has caused great controversy among the geographers. The doom
pronounced against it and the other unbelieving cities has been notably
fulfilled, for no one can in the present day pronounce between the two
most probable spots. One of these is Khan Minyeh, a mound of ruins close
to the shore of Gennesaret, at the north-west extremity of the plain. The
other is Tell Hum, three miles north of the last place, where are ruins of
walls and foundations, half a mile long by a quarter wide. It also
projects into the lake, and is backed by rising ground. Dr. Wilson
supports the second, as also do the geographers dating from 1675; while
Dr. Robinson, relying on Josephus, supports the first. It is one of the
insoluble problems.