Meantime, the scene, which the tradition of many centuries located erroneously as the spot upon which the miracle took place, is exactly above us as we wind along a rocky path cut in the precipice which overhangs the Sea of Galilee. This huge impending crag is crowned by an artificial plateau, which is two hundred feet long by one hundred broad, and in the northwest angle are the remains of a wall and the ruins of a building, probably a fortress of some sort. This spot was known in the middle ages as the Mensa Christi, or Table of Christ. In olden time the great Damascus high-road ran just below, and the fort above doubtless commanded this pass; but it has become impassable, and the path now follows the channel of an aqueduct hewn out of the living rock. For about two hundred yards we find ourselves riding along the narrow floor of this ancient watercourse. On our left the smooth rock rises precipitously, and on our right it forms a wall from three to four feet high, over which we could drop a stone perpendicularly into the waters of the lake. The aqueduct which thus forms our singular roadway is about three feet wide; emerging from it, after we turn the angle of the rock, we find ourselves overlooking a little bay, into which rushes a brawling torrent, the largest which enters the lake excepting the Jordan, and which here turns a mill. It is, however, only a few yards long, as it bursts from the ground in great force, in what is by far the most powerful spring in Galilee, and is, without doubt, the celebrated Fountain of Capernaum mentioned by Josephus as watering the plain of Genesareth. This it did by means of the aqueduct which we had already traversed, the distance from the fountain to the plain not being above a mile. Besides the principal fountain, which is estimated as being more than half the size of the celebrated source of the Jordan at Banias, there are four smaller fountains, all more or less brackish, and varying in temperature from 73° to 86°.
One of the special subjects of interest connected with these fountains is the presence in them of the remarkable fish called the coracinus. The only known habitats of this fish in the world are in the Nile, in a fountain which I have also visited in the plain of Genesareth, called Mudawara, and in this spring. Josephus accounts for its existence here, as well as in the Nile, by a hypothetical subterranean water communication with the great river of Egypt. Modern geologists point to it as an evidence of the fact that in some long bygone period Palestine might have been included in a great Ethiopian basin. However the circumstance is to be accounted for, it is most remarkable, and was doubted until Canon Tristram verified it twenty years ago by a somewhat singular experience. Crossing the little stream which issues from the fountain of Mudawara and flows into the lake, and which happened to be very low at the time, he was surprised to observe a quantity of fish wriggling along in single file, and so close together that the mouth of one touched the tail of the one before it. In places there was so little water that they had to flop across intervals of almost dry land; here he caught them easily with his hand, and, as many averaged three feet in length, he was not long in making a good bag. What surprised him most, however, was to find that as soon as he laid hold of one it began hissing and screaming like a cat. Making a bag of his cloak, he carried them off in triumph to his camp, which was three hours distant, and could hear them hissing and caterwauling in it all the way. He describes them as being a most delicious fish to eat, something like an eel in flavor, and possessed of extraordinary vitality, as some of them were still living after they had been two days out of the water. The last volume just issued by the Palestine Exploration Fund contains a print of this extraordinary creature, which has a long, slender body, apparently not much thicker than that of a good-sized eel, with two long fins, one on the back and one on the belly. The mouth, with its long, cartilaginous streamers (I do not know the ichthyological term for them), somewhat resembles that of a catfish. I unfortunately had no means of fishing for them on the occasion of my visit, and they did not happen to be migrating to their spawning grounds, which they were evidently doing when Tristram caught them; but my late experiences on the shores of the lake have been so full of interest that I propose to make another visit in the spring, when I hope to go supplied with tackle, and to give you my own piscatory experiences.
There is a small tract of fertile land in the rear of the mill, but no ruins except those connected with mills or water-works. Nevertheless, it is impossible almost to conceive that a position so favored by nature should not have been the site of a town, and it is on this spot that many geographers place the western Bethsaida. There are no apparent grounds for their doing so beyond the necessity of finding a spot somewhere which should support their hypothesis. If, however, they must have a second Bethsaida, I should rather put it a mile farther off, at Khan Minieh, instead of so very close to Capernaum as this would be, always supposing Tell Hum to be Capernaum, which is only two miles distant from this spot. Dr. Thomson's theory that El-Tabghah, the modern name of this place, was the grand manufacturing suburb of that large city, from which its fountain took its name, seems to me rational. Here were the mills, not only for it, but for all the neighbourhood; so also the potteries, tanneries, and other operations of this sort would be clustered around these great fountains, a theory somewhat borne out by the name, Tabghah, which resembles the Arabic word Dabbaga, meaning tannery.
There is no doubt that in this neighbourhood somewhere, probably on the plain of Genesareth, was the location of a town far older than any of those whose sites we are now discussing, and this is the Chinneroth mentioned in the Old Testament, from which the lake, in days long anterior to those of Christ, took its name, and which the Talmud renders Ginizer, which is therefore doubtless identical with Genesareth. Indeed, it may be noted as a curious fact, which has been forced upon me by these investigations, that the towns noticed in the Gospels, excluding the large cities, such as Jerusalem, Tyre, and Sidon, are almost all places not mentioned in the Old Testament. Nazareth and Capernaum, Bethsaida, and Chorazin and Tiberias are names never occurring in the Hebrew Scriptures; and the scenery of the life of Christ lies, as a rule, apart from the centres, religious or political, which reappear again and again in the earlier episodes of Jewish history.
[CAPERNAUM AND CHORAZIN.]
Haifa, Jan. 20.—Perhaps the most interesting spot in the world to those deeply under the influence of that charm which association lends to places hallowed by the ministrations of the Founder of Christianity is to be found in a desert, rock-strewn promontory on the northwest shore of the Lake of Tiberias; for among these piles of hewn blocks of black basalt still remain the ruins of a great synagogue, within whose walls, the foundations of which may still be distinctly traced, were collected the multitudes who flocked to hear the teaching of Christ. While modern tourists resort in crowds to Jerusalem to visit the mythical sites which are supposed, upon the vague basis of ecclesiastical tradition, to be identified with episodes in the life of the great Teacher, scarcely one ever finds his way to this remote locality lying just out of the beaten track along which Cook leads his herds of sightseers; and yet it is probable that the greater part of that period in the life of Christ, the record of which is contained in the four Gospels, was spent at Capernaum, which the most careful investigation, by the highest authorities in such matters, has identified with these ruins of Tell Hum, amid which I was just now standing. Here it was that Christ cured Peter's mother-in-law, restored the paralytic, called Matthew, cured the centurion's servant, raised Jairus's daughter from the dead, and obtained the tribute of money from the mouth of a fish. It was here that he spoke the parables of the sower, the tares, the treasure hid in the field, the merchant seeking goodly pearls, and the net cast into the sea. Sir Charles Wilson, whose researches on this spot led him to identify it as being the site of the city of Capernaum, believes this synagogue was, “without doubt, the one built by the Roman centurion (Luke vii. 51), and, therefore, one of the most sacred spots on earth.” It was in this building, if that be the case, that the well-known discourse contained in the sixth chapter of John was delivered; and it was not without a strange feeling, says the same explorer, “that, on turning over a large block, we found the pot of manna engraved on its face, and remembered the words: “I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead.”
This very synagogue was probably the scene of the healing of the demoniac and of the delivery of many of those divine lectures on faith, humility, brotherly love, and formality in worship, as we read at the end of one of them: “These things said he in the synagogue as he taught in Capernaum.” Perhaps it was in the little creek, where a boat was now riding at anchor only a few feet from the shore, that Christ taught the people from the boat so as to avoid the crush of the multitude. It was doubtless in one of these inlets that James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, were mending their nets when, being called, they left their ship and followed him; and it was on this coast that Andrew and Peter were casting their nets when they were summoned to become fishers of men. It has a higher claim to be called the birthplace of the religion which has since revolutionized the world than any other spot upon it; and it is a matter of some surprise to me that neither the Greek nor the Roman Catholic churches, in their zeal to discover holy places, which may serve as levers for political intrigue, have yet thought of occupying this one, which would seem the holiest of all. Perhaps it would lead to a comparison between their practice and the teaching of which it was the scene, which might give rise to some inconvenient reflections.
Apart from their associations the ruins themselves are not particularly striking. They cover an area of about half a mile in length by a quarter in breadth, and consist chiefly of the black blocks of basaltic stone which formed the walls of the houses. The traces of the synagogue, however, remain sufficiently for the building to be planned. Built of white limestone blocks, it must have formed a conspicuous object amid the black basalt by which it was surrounded. It was seventy-five feet by fifty-seven, built north and south, and at the southern end had three entrances. Many of the columns and capitals have been carried away, but enough still remain to convey some idea of the general plan and aspect of the building. The capitals are of the Corinthian order, and there were epistylia that rested upon the columns and probably supported wooden rafters. There are also remains of a heavy cornice and frieze. The exterior was probably decorated with attached pilasters.
Two miles north of Capernaum are the ruins of Chorazin. There is no difficulty in identifying the site, which may be determined partly by the itineraries of early travellers, and partly by the similarity of the modern name, Kirazeh. The path to them leads up the sloping, rocky hillside, but, owing to the peculiar character of the masonry, which is barely to be distinguished at one hundred yards from the rocks which surround it, the extent and importance of these ruins have been overlooked until quite recently. They cover an area as large as, if not larger than, those of Capernaum, and are situated partly in a shallow valley, partly on a rocky spur formed by a sharp bend in the Wady Kirazeh, here a wild gorge eighty feet deep. From this spot there is a beautiful view of the Lake of Tiberias to its southern end; and here, too, are gathered the most interesting ruins—a synagogue with Corinthian capitals and niche-heads cut, not, as at Capernaum, in limestone, but in hard black basalt. The dimensions of this building are about the same as those of the one at Capernaum, but the interior is a mass of ruins. Two pedestals still remain in situ, and a portion of the wall. The characteristic of this synagogue is an excess of ornamentation of rather a debased kind. The niches are most elaborate, and remain as sharp as when they were cut in the hard material used. The mouldings of the door-posts are similar to those used in other synagogues, and there are many stones cut with deep mouldings and pieces of classical cornices strewn among the ruins.
Many of the dwelling-houses were until recently in a tolerably perfect state, the walls being in some cases six feet high; and, as they are probably of the same class of houses as that in which Christ dwelt, a description of them may be interesting. They are generally square, of different sizes, the largest, however, not over thirty feet square, and have one or two columns down the centre to support the roof, which appears to have been flat, as in the modern Arab houses. The walls are about two feet thick, built of masonry or of loose blocks of basalt. There is a low doorway in the centre of one of the walls, and each house has windows twelve inches high and six wide. In one or two cases the house was divided into four chambers.