Ibn Ezra visited Cyprus before his arrival in London in 1158, when he wrote the Sabbath Epistle. It is not unlikely that the heterodox practices of the sect of whom Benjamin here speaks had been put forward in certain books to which Ibn Ezra alludes, and induced him to compose the pamphlet in defence of the traditional mode of observance of the Sabbath day. This supposition is not inconsistent with Graetz's theory, vol. VI, p. 447. See also Dr. Friedlander, Ibn Ezra in England, J.Q.R., VIII, p. 140, and Joseph Jacobs, The Jews of Angevin England, p. 35.
See Gibbon, chaps, lviii and lix; Charles Mills, History of the Crusades, I, p. 159; C. R. Conder, Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, p. 39.
The several MSS. give different readings. The kingdom reached to the Taurus mountains and the Sultanate of Rum or Iconium.
Beazley remarks that Benjamin must have passed along this coast before 1167, when Thoros died at peace and on terms of vassalage to the Emperor Manuel Comnenus. Malmistras is forty-five miles from Tarsus. Both had been recaptured by Manuel in 1155. Josippon, I, chap. i, identifies Tarshish with Tarsus.
No doubt the river Fer, otherwise Orontes, is here referred to. Ancient Antioch lies on the slope of Mount Silpius, and the city-wall erected by Justinian extended from the river up to the hill-plateau. Abulfeda says: "The river of Hamâh is also called Al Urunt or the Nahr al Maklûb (the Overturned) on account of its course from south to north; or, again, it is called Al' Âsi (the Rebel), for the reason that though most rivers water the lands on their borders without the aid of water-wheels, the river of Hamâh will not irrigate the lands except by the aid of machines for raising its waters." (Guy le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, p. 59.) It is strange that R. Benjamin should call the Orontes the river Jabbok, but he always takes care to add that it rises in the Lebanon, to avoid any misconception that the Jabbok which falls into the Jordan is meant.