SOUTHERN GALILEE AND NAZARETH.
SOUTHERN GALILEE AND NAZARETH.
IT is difficult to fix with precision the boundaries of Galilee and Samaria. Originally the Samaritan kingdom included the whole territory of the ten northern tribes from Dan to Bethel; but very soon it shrank within much narrower limits. Galilee, at first a small “circle,” as the name means, around Kadesh Naphtali, on the frontiers of Tyre,[[235]] had in the time of our Lord become a province of great extent stretching southward to the ridge of Carmel and the mountains of Gilboa. The Plain of Esdraelon, which under the kings of Israel had been in the centre of Samaria, was under the Romans its northern boundary, and belonged to Galilee. Jezreel and the other historic sites in the neighbourhood being so closely connected with the southern kingdoms have been spoken of in the preceding chapter. We now proceed to the region lying to the north of the plain.
FOUNTAIN OF MARY AT NAZARETH.
Galilee thus defined consists of a series of fertile hills and valleys, stretching down from Hermon in the north to Tabor and Little Hermon on the south. Its uplands are better wooded, its valleys and plains are richer, its natural beauty greater than the rest of Palestine. Van de Velde truly describes it as “a land rich in beauty and fertility. A thick wood of oaks and other trees continued for a considerable way over the heights, again through the valleys, but everywhere characterised by a luxuriance of verdure, by which you can recognise at once the fertility of Naphtali’s inheritance.” It was a region in which Asher should “dip his foot in oil;” Zebulun and Issachar “rejoice in their going out, and in their tents” and “suck of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in the sand;” and Naphtali be “satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of the Lord.”[[236]]
Among the hills of Southern Galilee Tabor is conspicuous, not so much from its greater elevation—it only rises one thousand four hundred feet from the plain—as from its peculiar form. It is a truncated cone, detached from the surrounding heights, and forms a very striking object from whichever side it is approached. Its general contour reminded me of the Wrekin in Shropshire. Formerly it was richly wooded to the very summit; but the timber has been cut down, and now only a few clumps or detached trees spring from the verdant turf which clothes its sides. The view from the summit is magnificent, commanding a panorama from the mountains of Gilead to the Mediterranean, from Hermon, with its snowy summits, to Ebal and Gerizim on the south. Well might the Psalmist exclaim,
“The north and the south Thou hast created them:
Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in Thy name.”
Its traditional claim to have been the scene of the transfiguration is now universally abandoned. This must be sought for farther north, among the gorges of the Hermon, near Banias, the ancient Cæsarea Philippi.
In crossing the hills of Galilee from Esdraelon to Nazareth, we pass three villages, each with a place in the inspired record. The first is Sôlem, the ancient Shunem. It lies at the foot of Little Hermon, about three miles from the fountain of Jezreel. Luxuriant orange groves and corn-fields, fenced with hedges of prickly pear, encompass a cluster of mud-walled, flat-topped hovels. The inhabitants seemed a merry, good-humoured, contented race, fearing nothing but a Bedouin raid, or a visit from the Turkish tax-gatherer. Blocks of marble, with traces of sculpture upon them, probably brought from the ruins of Jezreel, are worked into the mud-walls of the village, and the largest house has a couple of willow-pattern plates, like those we noticed at Bethel, with a dish to match, over the doorway. But there is nothing to remind us that this is the scene of one of the most touching incidents which the Bible records. It was here that a “great woman” of the village, “the good, kind Shunammite,” made “a little chamber on the wall, and set there a bed, and a stool, and a candlestick,” that the prophet might freely pass in and out. Content to dwell “among her own people” she refused to “be spoken for to the king, or to the captain of the host.” And when a son was granted to her old age her cup of happiness was full. Whilst scarcely a trace of the ancient village exists, the surrounding scenery remains unchanged. It was in these luxuriant corn-fields that the child, smitten by sunstroke, “said to his father, My head, my head. And he said to a lad, Carry him to his mother. And when he had taken him, and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon, and then died.” We follow the bereaved mother, choking down her sobs, and saying “It is well,” as she rides hurriedly across the plain to the prophet’s haunt on Carmel, and sympathize with her joy as she receives back her son.[[237]]
TABOR.
A little farther to the north stands another village, to which a more tragic interest attaches—Endor, the goal of Saul’s journey the night before his death. The Israelites, as we have seen, were encamped near the fountain of Jezreel on Mount Gilboa, the Philistines at Shunem, about midway between Endor and the camp of Saul. The king at the peril of his life gropes his way past the outposts of the enemy to reach the woman who is to reveal to him the secrets of the future. The village retains its ancient name unchanged. And one of the numerous caves still, as formerly, used as dwellings may have afforded a fitting abode for the miserable and wicked woman whose heart relented towards the doomed and despairing king.[[238]]
NAIN.
A ride of about fifty minutes brings us from Endor to Nain. It is a small, poor village, standing on the shoulder of a hill, looking down on one arm of the Valley of Esdraelon. Not very far from Nazareth, and visible across the valley from the hill above the town, it is by no means improbable that our Lord may have known the young man and his widowed mother. If, as many suppose, He was Himself “the only son of his mother, and she was a widow,” a special reason for the miracle is at once discovered in His deep human sympathy with a case so like His own. A steep path leads up the hill side to a group of rock-hewn graves, marking the site of the ancient burial-place of the town. It was on this very path that our Lord saw the weeping mother and “had compassion, and said unto her, Weep not.” Turning to the bier, His word of pity became a word of power, and “He said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him unto his mother.”[[239]]
But a spot of yet deeper and more absorbing interest than any we have visited since we left Jerusalem draws us onward, and we hasten over the intervening space till we reach Nazareth. Up among the hills to the north of the plain is a valley about a mile in length, and perhaps a quarter of a mile in breadth. Several smaller valleys run out from it, and at the junction of two or three of these it expands into a basin over which the hills rise to a height of four hundred or five hundred feet. “It seems,” says Dr. Richardson, rather fancifully, “as if fifteen mountains met to form an enclosure for this delightful spot: they rise round it like the edge of a shell to guard it from intrusion. It is a rich and beautiful field in the midst of barren mountains.” The bottom of the basin is bright with gardens and orchards, divided by hedges of prickly pear twelve or fourteen feet high. The town stands on the western side of the valley and rises a little way up the slope of the hill. It has a brighter, cleaner, and more prosperous look than any town we have seen since leaving Nablus. The population was estimated by Robinson at four thousand. It has increased since then, and is now probably about five thousand. Of these a large proportion are Christian in profession, though it is to be feared that their conduct is little in keeping with the pure and high morality of the gospel. Two large monasteries, one of the Greek, the other of the Latin rite, contain a large number of monks. A recently established Protestant mission seems to be efficient and successful.
The inhabitants of Nazareth, like those of Bethlehem, are deservedly famed for their personal beauty. I was fortunate enough to be present at the wedding festivities of a wealthy landed proprietor in the town. The bride, unfortunately, was absolutely ugly; but I was greatly struck by the fine features of many of the women and the noble bearing of the men. Dr. Porter says truly, “If we go out and sit for an hour of an evening by the little fountain, we shall see many a face which Raphael might have chosen as a study when about to paint his Madonna della Seggiola, and many a figure that Phidias might have selected as a model for Venus.”
Monkish legends and traditions of course are rife throughout the town and neighbourhood. Always offensive, they are doubly so here, both from their absurdity and from the contrast they afford to the silence of Scripture respecting the youth and early manhood of our Lord. We are shown the workshop of Joseph, the house of Mary, and the place from which it was carried away to find its final resting-place at Loretto! A cave is pointed out as the place of the Annunciation. A large slab of stone is declared to be the table at which our Lord and His disciples ate before and after the Resurrection. The traditional Mount of Precipitation is two miles away from the town in defiance of the express statement of Scripture that it was on “the brow of the hill on which the city was built.”[[240]]
NAZARETH.
The fountain of Mary at the eastern end of the town is a place of deep interest. At all hours of the day groups of girls may be seen who have come hither to draw water. It is the common centre around which the whole life of the village gathers. The pilgrim stops to quench his thirst, the shepherd to water his flocks, the girls, with merry song and laughter, fill their pitchers, linger for a gossip with their friends, then poising the vessel upon their shoulders, walk away with light and graceful step. The fountain has been here from time immemorial, and seems always to have been the main, if not the only source of water-supply for the inhabitants. It was to the fountain, which now bears her name, that Mary came, day by day, amongst the village maidens, to fill her pitcher and return to her home. The Protevangelion, one of the earliest of the Apocryphal gospels, says that it was here that she received the angelic salutation which marked her out as the mother of the Lord. The narrative however seems to indicate what the probabilities of the case imply, that the event happened in the seclusion of her own dwelling.
CLIFF BEHIND THE MARONITE CONVENT AT NAZARETH.
A hasty and general survey of the site of Nazareth produces the impression that it contains no cliff down which Jesus could have been “cast headlong.” The town lying along the lower slope of the hill, no steep declivity is visible. But a more careful examination corrects the error and confirms the narrative of the evangelist. I found two or three precipitous walls of rock of thirty or forty feet in depth. One of them had a considerable accumulation of debris at the bottom which if cleared away would probably give twenty feet more. Dean Stanley’s remarks are well worth quoting. “‘They rose’ it is said of the infuriated inhabitants of the city, ‘and cast Him out of the city, and brought Him to a brow of the mountain on which the city was built, so as to cast Him down the cliff.’[[241]] Most readers probably imagine a town built on the summit of a mountain, from which summit the intended precipitation was to take place. This, as I have said, is not the situation of Nazareth, yet its position is in strict accordance with the narrative. It is built upon, that is on the side of ‘a mountain,’ but the brow is not beneath but over the town, and such a cliff as is here implied is to be found in the abrupt face of the limestone rock, about thirty or forty feet high, overhanging the Maronite convent at the south-west extremity of the town.”
To gain a true idea of the scenes amidst which the first thirty years of our Lord’s earthly life were passed we must climb the hills which rise above the town. There is very little in the Nazareth of to-day to recall that of eighteen hundred years ago. Not a single building is now standing which was standing then. It is even doubtful whether the site remains unaltered: and we know that important changes have passed over the scenery of the neighbourhood. The soil has lain fallow and unproductive for centuries. A silent, unpeopled solitude stretches for miles around us. But in our Lord’s days Galilee was like a garden in its luxuriant fertility. The hills, now so bare and barren, were terraced and cultivated to their very summits. A numerous and thriving population occupied the soil. “The little hills rejoiced on every side; the pastures were clothed with flocks; the valleys also were covered over with corn.”[[242]] But amidst all these changes the great natural landmarks remain the same. As we stand on the ridge which rises just above the town, we know that we tread on the very spots where Jesus of Nazareth often walked, and that we look on the landscape which was beneath His eye. The hills, the valleys, the sea, the plains make up a scene of surpassing beauty, the main features of which are unaltered by the lapse of centuries. Below us lies the little town in the peaceful seclusion of its quiet valley—far from the busy crowd, aside from the thronged highways. On the west the sun is sinking down into the sea, leaving a broad line of light across the Mediterranean. Hermon, on the north, with its crown of snow, glows in the fading light. “The excellency of Carmel and Sharon” stretch away to the south. Eastward the eye ranges over the hills of Galilee, the valley of the Jordan, and the rich plains of Gilead beyond. The view though somewhat less extensive than that from Tabor is even more beautiful. The hours of a Sabbath afternoon and evening spent in meditation and prayer on the thymy turf of this glorious upland have left behind them memories which no lapse of time can efface or weaken.
CHURCH OF THE ANNUNCIATION, NAZARETH.
The numerous flocks of sheep and goats which were being led in to be folded for the night formed a striking object in the landscape, and recalled to mind a question which has perplexed many eastern travellers. Our Lord, speaking of His coming to judgment, says, “And before Him shall be gathered all nations; and He shall separate them from one another as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.”[[243]] But the sheep and the goats are invariably brought in together. I had failed to find any instance in which they were divided. This, of all others, was the place to seek an explanation. It was given me by a shepherd who was leading his flock past the spot where I stood. The division is made not in the evening when the flocks are folded, but in the morning as they are taken out to pasture. The goats travelling much more quickly than the sheep and thriving upon a much scantier vegetation, are driven up to the mountain tops where they pick their food from amongst the rocks and stones. The sheep are kept upon the lower slopes, where the grass is more abundant and the pasturage richer. It is thus not to the night of death when “like sheep they are laid in the grave,”[[244]] but the resurrection morning to which the illustration points and when the final separation shall be made. In this case, as in so many others the seeming discrepancy arises from our imperfect acquaintance with the facts. A more complete knowledge not only removes the apparent difficulty, but brings out a deeper meaning in the sayings of Him whose “words are spirit and are life.”
We cannot leave Nazareth without reflecting on the silence of Scripture respecting our Lord’s residence here. Of the thirty-three years of His earthly life twenty-eight were spent in this secluded valley; yet the history of those years is an almost total blank. A journey to Jerusalem is the only incident recorded. “The child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon Him.... He was subject unto His parents.... He increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.”[[245]] This is all we know—no more. Imagination, working upon Apocryphal legends and obscure hints, has endeavoured to fill in the vague outline with biographical details. But the attempt is unwarranted, even if it be not irreverent. It is impossible for us to lift the veil which hides these years of mysterious growth and silent preparation. When “the day of His showing unto Israel” had come, He emerged from His obscurity; and we shall trace His footsteps on the shores of the neighbouring lake, the world’s great Teacher, revealing God to man, and man to himself.
It was at Cana of Galilee, the home of Nathanael,[[246]] that our Lord worked His first miracle, “and manifested forth His glory.”[[247]] There are two villages near Nazareth, still bearing a similar name, each of which has been regarded as the scene of the manifestation. Kefr Kenna, a small village about an hour and a half to the north-west, and Kana-el-Jelil at double the distance. The former is the traditional site. The claims of the latter are supported by the deservedly high authority of Robinson, and its name is absolutely identical with that of the Biblical narrative. It is perhaps impossible to decide in which of the two it was that
“The modest water, awed by power divine,
Confessed the God, and blushed itself to wine.”
With the exception of a fountain, apparently of the Roman period, said to have been the place from which the water was drawn, there is nothing in either of them to connect itself with the miracle. In the wedding festivities at Nazareth, of which I have already spoken, the bride was brought from near Kefr Kenna. The innumerable guests who thronged the house for a week, served to illustrate and to account for the inadequacy of the supplies provided for a similar festivity in the time of our Lord.
FOUNTAIN AT CANA.