[(17.)] “the mount of Galilee.”—This is intended to designate the northern summit of the Mount of Olives, on which was the tower Viri Galilei, so called because two men in white stood there at the moment of the Ascension (Raumer, Palæstina, etc., 310). De Lannoy refers to this spot when describing pilgrimages to the Mount of Olives: “Item, le lieu de Galilée, où Jhésu-Crist s’apparut à ses onze appostres”; only he has confounded the place where the two stood with that of the eleven.—Bruun.
[(18.)] “Dead Sea, which is one hundred and fifty stadia wide.”—Josephus (Wars, etc., iv, 8, 3) wrote that the Dead Sea was 580 stadia in length, and 150 stadia wide. Seetzen (Reiseberichte in Monatliche Correspondenz, Berlin, 1854, xviii, 440), gives the width at 13-1/2 English miles, which Robinson reduces to 11-1/4 miles, at the same time observing that the water level rose from 10 feet to 15 feet; and that when he happened to be there in the month of May, the water had sufficiently risen to inundate, over the space of one mile, a salt lake on its southern shore. The indications of Josephus and of Schiltberger may have reference to the same season of the year.—Bruun.
(18A.) Captain Warren (Underground Jerusalem, 175) gives much new and valuable information on the Jordan and the valley of that river, and explains that the rise and fall in the level of the Dead Sea is caused by the fluctuations in the rush of water, the time of greater evaporations not coinciding with that of the freshets. This rise and fall might possibly be greater, were there no other regulating arrangement than evaporation; but at the southern end there is a vast tract of land, only submerged by a few feet (here is Robinson’s salt lake), and when this is covered the evaporation is great; and should the waters be unduly extracted, this becomes dry land. The Jordan overflows its banks at harvest time, which is simply owing to the harvest being early in that semi-tropical district, when the waters of the river are swollen by the waters of Hermon. The disparity in the dimensions of the Dead Sea, as noted by different authors, is here accounted for and explained. See Duc de Luynes’ Voy. d’Exploration à la Mer Morte, etc., Paris, 1874.—Ed.
[(19.)] “Christians usually bathe in the Jordan.”—Pilgrims, even in the days of Josephus and of Jerome, looked for salvation through baptism in the Jordan, and still may thousands be seen on Easter Monday, wending their way from Jerusalem to Jericho, performing the distance in five hours; two other hours bring them to the Jordan, and they assemble at the ruins of a church and monastery that were dedicated to St. John the Baptist. The church was equally a ruin in Daniel’s time, but the monastery and vaulted chapel near Hermon were in existence. It is clear that this mount could not have been either the great Hermon of the Lebanon, or the lesser Hermon which is situated in the middle of the plain of Jezreel to the south of Mount Tabor.
The monastery of St. John the Baptist (De Lannoy) was perhaps identical with that constructed, according to Adamnanus (Raumer, Palæstina, etc., 60), by St. Helena, at the place where Christ was baptised. Pocock (Desc. of the East, etc., ii, 49) makes it distant one mile from the Jordan, and says that Greeks and Latins, who are at issue as to the exact locality, are mistaken in seeking it on the western bank of the river, John having baptised at Bethany beyond the Jordan. Noroff (Péler. en T. S., 49) points out that Pocock himself is in error, and that the Greeks and Latins were quite right in keeping to the western bank, in front of Bethabara and not of Bethany.—Bruun.
[(20.)] “from these it has its name.”—Many authors, from Josephus to Burkhardt, have derived the name of the river Jordan from the two springs, Jor and Dan, although the sources are in reality the Banias, Dan, and Hasbeny; so that every allowance should be made if Schiltberger has failed to give the correct etymology of the name, which signifies in Hebrew “that which flows downwards”.—Bruun.
[(21.)] “where the Infidels often have a fair during the year.”—This beautiful plain was in all probability the valley of Jericho, watered by the Jordan after it leaves the lake of Tiberias or Gennesareth, and traverses two calcareous hills, described by Justin in words similar to those of Schiltberger,—“Est namque vallis quæ continuis montibus velut muro quodam clauditur.”
The valley of Jericho, compared by Josephus to a paradise, θεῶν χωρίον, tractum divinum, is far from meriting such encomium, even though we cannot but agree with Ritter that, considering the profusion and utility of the vegetation still growing wildly in this fertile valley, and the scattered remains of old aqueducts, it must have been one of the most beautiful gardens in Palestine whilst in a state of cultivation during the Crusades.
That the sepulchre of St. James was in this valley is a very puzzling statement, because it is asserted on tradition that the Apostle of that name, surnamed the Elder, was beheaded on Mount Zion, on the spot where stands the church that bears his name; it is alluded to by Schiltberger and De Lannoy, and is actually in the custody of the Armenians, who state that the head of the saint was carried off to Spain, Quaresimus (Elucidatio Terræ Sanctæ, ii, 77) asserting that the body, as well as the head, is at Campostella. According to Daniel and De Lannoy, the tomb of St. James the Less was in the valley of Josaphat, near that of the prophet Zacharias, close to which, says Schiltberger, reposed the remains of the prophet Jacob, a name substituted for that of James, or rather James the Less, who, it is said, concealed himself in a tomb near to that of Zacharias, upon the day that our Lord was betrayed.—Bruun.