Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

A volume might be written on the history and topography of Nazareth, but the present sketch is necessarily a short one. A chief feature of the place must not, however, be forgotten—the view from the summit of the hill by the little chapel of Neby S’ain, whose untranslatable name is a puzzle to the residents.

We can scarcely doubt that this scene, unchanged as it must be in its noble natural features, was one often before the eyes of Christ in childhood and manhood, and it is remarkable how much that is stirring in the history of Israel was enacted within the theatre of rolling hills which bound the view.

Here on the south the broad brown Plain of Esdraelon stretches away to the hills of Samaria. The peak of the Precipitation stands above it at the end of the plateau of Nazareth, and beyond, the top of Tabor and the cone of Jebel Duhy rise up on the left. The ridge of Gilboa appears farther south, cliff above cliff, tilted eastwards and shelving down gently to the plain on the west. Turn-to the right the eye follows the broken outline of mountains rising into the volcanic cone of Sheikh Iskander, and farther on, the whole range of Carmel, in its length of twelve miles, is stretched dark and wooded from the Peak of the Sacrifice to the Convent promontory where Haifa nestles at its feet. Over the ridge far south the gleaming sea appears; to the north is the hollow bay of Acre with its white circle of surf, the town itself not visible; behind us again on the north are the steep Galilean hills, the Safed mountains, the beautiful plain of Asochis where Kânah stands on the slope; farthest away of all is the snowy dome of Hermon.

Very beautiful on a clear day is this panorama, and striking indeed is the jagged and broken hill horizon, purple against the orange sunset.

Here, then, the Saviour may have stood, and seen before His eyes the theatre of many a tragedy of Jewish history. Tabor, from which the army of Barak burst on the host of horse and chariots by the Kishon springs beneath; Endor where Saul crept round the hillside by night to the witch’s cave; the broad valley down which Gideon drove the Midianites, up which Jehu came in his chariot to Jezreel, visible on its rocky knoll; Gilboa, on whose slopes Saul and Jonathan had perished, caught between the Philistines and the precipices; Carmel, the site of the great triumph of the God of Elijah, and the great sea on which still in autumn the little cloud comes up like a man’s hand and swells till huge thunder-pillars are piled black and high above the mountains. On the north Sepphoris the Roman capital, Seph the “city set on a hill,” Rumeh where some said Messias was first to appear, the road to Capernaum, and the solitary ridges of Hermon where the transfigured Saviour was seen by the three Apostles.

But, as we look round, nineteen centuries later, we mark the influence of the history of the Gospels, and of the growth of tradition. On the south the traditional Leap of our Lord, two miles from the city built on the brow of the hill. In Nain, beneath and unseen, the Christian chapel, commemorative of the raising of the widow’s son, now in turn a Moslem mosque. On Carmel a grotto of Elijah, venerated by Christians and Druses. On the hill of Sepphoris a ruined church, six centuries old, once thought to be the home of Joachim and Anne, the Virgin’s parents. On the plain, a ruined Cana, perhaps only dating from Crusading times. On Tabor a false site for the Transfiguration, and three churches in ruins.

Yet with a history so long and eventful, the land itself is unchanged; the brown plains, the grey barren hills, the wooded cliffs of Carmel, the gleaming sea, the snow-clad Hermon, are still the same that Christ once looked on; and we merely add to the theatre of Jewish victory or defeat the sites venerated, in loving, if mistaken zeal by the Christian pilgrims of the eighteen centuries before our time.

From the hill-top northwards, the view extends to the ruin of Kânah, a village destroyed not long ago, to judge from the existing remains; beneath the hills north-east lies hidden the prosperous village of Kefr Kenna. These are the two places which claim each to represent Cana of Galilee, the site of Christ’s first miracle.

Unfortunately there is scarcely anything in Scripture which would lead to a choice between the two, nor do the chance references of Josephus enable us to do more than speculate as to the comparative likelihood of the sites. In the Talmud, Cana is not noticed; thus there is nothing in contemporary literature to enable us to decide.

One thing only seems pretty certain—that the Crusaders believed Khŭrbet Kânah to be Cana. Sæwulf in 1102 A.D. gives a very particular description of the place as six miles north of Nazareth, with a place called Roma half-way, which he describes as a castle near the road from Acre to Tiberias, where travellers broke the journey.