Not less touching was the special designation of the saint so commemorated. I believe that the Easterns pay more respect than Europeans do to the memory of him whom the Saviour himself pronounced to be greater than all the Old Testament prophets. And while we are accustomed to ascribe to him only one of his official characters,—that of the Baptizer,—they take pleasure in recalling his other scriptural offices; as, for instance, this of the Herald, or Preacher [131a] of righteousness, and that of the Forerunner. [131b] Indeed, individuals are not unfrequently named after him in baptism by this latter appellation, without the name John.
This building appears to have been at all times heavy and coarse in construction; indeed, one may fairly suppose that part of the frontal has at some time been taken down, and strangely put together again.
This church is the only object of curiosity that I had found along the recent novel route.
On leaving Mejdal, I descended to inspect once more the site so interesting to me of Ras el ’Ain, at half an hour’s distance,—which I unhesitatingly
believe to be Antipatris, as I conceived it to be on my first seeing the place the preceding year. I had then passed it rather late in the evening, and upon the other side.
Cuf’r Saba, to which I was then going, is a wretched village, of unburnt bricks, on the wide open plain, with no other water near it than the deposit of rain-water in an adjoining square tank of clay. Yet travelling authors have constantly pronounced this to be the locality of Antipatris. Not one of them, however, has visited the place.
What does Josephus say (Antiq. xvi. 5, 2, in Whiston)?—“After this solemnity and these festivals were over, Herod erected another city in the plain called Caphar Saba, where he chose out a fit place, both for plenty of water and goodness of soil, and proper for the production of what was there planted; where a river encompassed the city itself, and a grove of the best trees for magnitude was round about. This he named Antipatris, from his father Antipater.” Πολιν αλλην ανηyειρεν εν τω πεδιω τω λεyομενω Καφαρσαβα . . . τοπον ευυδρον . . . εκλεξας κ.τ.λ. No words can be more distinctly descriptive; yet Robinson, who had not visited that district, in his positive manner lays down that the village of Cuf’r Saba is the site of Antipatris; and “doubtless” all that is said about “well watered,” and “a river encompassing the city,” means that some wadi or watercourse came down from the hills in that
direction, and made the place watery in the winter season.
Now, what are the facts remaining at the present day? Upon the same plain with Cuf’r Saba, and within sight of it, at hardly six miles’ distance, is a large mound capable of containing a small town, with foundations of ancient buildings, bits of marble, Roman bricks, and tesseræ scattered about,—but especially a large strong castle of Saracenic work, the lower courses of the walls of real Roman construction; and at the foot of the mound rises the river Aujeh out of the earth in several copious streams, crowded with willows, tall wild canes, and bulrushes,—the resort of numerous flocks, and of large herds of horned cattle brought from a distance, and (as I have seen there) counted by the Government inspector of the district, for the levying of agricultural taxes upon them. [133] This is our Ras el ’Ain.
For a considerable extent there is capital riding-ground of green grass, so rare in Palestine. Let any one familiar with that country answer, Could Herod have selected a better spot for a military station, (as Antipatris was,) just on the border, descending from the hill-country upon the plain? With this description in view, we understand all the more vividly the narrative of Felix sending St Paul to Cæsarea. To elude the machinations of