Fetellus (1150 A.D.) is yet more explicit. Capernaum, he says, is at the head of the lake, two miles from the descent of the mountain, and apparently three from the fountain where the five thousand were fed, which fountain would probably be ’Ain-et-Tîn, a large source, west of Minieh, and not far from the hill which Sæwulf points out as being the Mensa.
The whole of this topography is summed up by Marino Sanuto, whose valuable chart of Palestine shows us the position of the various traditional sites of the fourteenth century. On this chart the Mensa is shown in a position which is unmistakable. The valleys which run down to the plain of Gennesaret are drawn with some fidelity, and the Mensa is placed north of them; at the border of the lake, Bethsaida is shown, about in the position of Minieh, and Capernaum near that of Tell Hûm; in the letter-press the account is equally clear, Capernaum being placed near the north-east corner of the lake, and Bethsaida just where the lake begins to curve round southward.
Christian tradition points, then, to Tell Hûm as being Capernaum, but Jewish hatred has preserved the Jewish site under the opprobrious epithet of Minieh; the question is simply whether—setting aside the important testimony of Josephus—Jewish or Christian tradition is to be accepted. A single instance will be sufficient to show the comparative value of the two. Jerome speaks of Ajalon, for example, as three miles north-east of Bethel, just where the ruin of ’Alya now stands; he very honestly adds, however, that the Jews pointed out another site at a village called Alus, which, from his description, may be proved to be the modern Yalo. Recent discovery has shown that Jerome was wrong and the Jews right; and yet, further, Jerome’s site cannot possibly be reconciled with the position in which he himself correctly places Beth Horon. This is but one instance out of many in which Jerome blunders when differing from the Jews, and no impartial reader can study the Onomasticon with Jerome’s translation, without seeing that in the fourth century the topography of Palestine was only imperfectly understood.
It may be safely said that Christian tradition, though affording often valuable indications, cannot be taken as authoritative, for the chances are equal that it is correct or the reverse. When, as in the case of the Temple, of the Place of Stoning, of Joseph’s Tomb, and of Jacob’s Well, it agrees with Jewish tradition, the sites thus preserved invariably appear to be authentic, and fulfil the required indications found in the Bible; but when these two traditions are discordant, the Christian ceases to be of much value, for it is evident that the traditions of the Jews, handed down unbroken by an indigenous population which was never driven from the country, must take precedence of the foreign ecclesiastical traditions of comparatively later times, which can so often be proved self-inconsistent, or founded on a fallacy.
It is a wonderful reflection that to Jewish hatred we perhaps owe our only means of fixing one of the most interesting sites in Palestine, and that through the opprobrious epithet of Minai or “Sorcerers,” the position of Christ’s own city is handed down to the Christians of the nineteenth century.
On Saturday, 10th July, 1875, the Survey party marched to Safed, where they were endangered by a fanatical attack by the Moorish settlers of the town. The Survey was suspended in consequence; and the spread of cholera necessitated the withdrawal of the party from Palestine. The chief offenders were however imprisoned at Acre, and a sum of £270 was paid as a fine to the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
