federates, and followed his victory as far as Sobah, formerly remembered in the division of Syria, otherwise called Sophena. And after the possession of the Danites, it had the joint name of Leschem Dan. Weissenburg writes it Lacis; the Geneva, f Laish; Josephus, Dana; Benjamin, Balina ; Breitenbach, Belena; but the now inhabitants know it by the name of Belina to this day: witness Neubrigensis, Tyrius, Volaterranus, Brochard the monk, and Postellus, who also taketh this city to be the same which in Matth. xv. 39. in the Vulgar is called Magedan; for which the Greek text hath Magdala in that place; and in St. Mark viii. 10. speaking of the same story, Dalmanutha. At such time as the children of Dan obtained this place, it seemeth that it was either a free city, of the alliance and confederacy of the Zidonians, or else subject unto the kings thereof; for it is written, Judg. xviii. 28. And there was none to help, because Lais was far from Zidon, and they had no business with other men; for it was above thirty English miles from the Mediterranean sea, and from Zidon. In aftertimes, when these regions became subject to the state of Rome, it had the name of Paneas, from a fountain adjoining so called, and therefore Ptolomy calls it Cæsarea Paniæ. Hegesippus calls it Parnium, saith Weissenburg; but he had read it in a corrupt copy, for in Hegesippus, set out by Badius, it is written Paneum, without an r: and at such time as Philip the son of the elder Herod, brother to Herod tetrarch of Galilee, became governor of Traconitis, sometime Basan, this city was by him amplified and fortified; and both to give memory to his own name, and to flatter Tiberius Cæsar, he called it & Cæsarea Philippi; and so it became the metropolis and head city of Traconitis, and one of the first cities of Decapolis. And being by Agrippa, in the succeeding age, greatly adorned, by him, in honour of Nero, it was called Neronia, or Neroniada. But as nothing remained with that emperor, but the memory f Judg. xviii. Of another Cæsaria, (or Cæsarea,) called Cæsarea Palestinæ, see hereafter in the former part of Ma-. nasseh. Of Diocæsarea, see Sephoris in Zabulon. of his impiety, so in St. Jerome's time the citizens remembered their former Paneas, and so recalled it, with the territory adjoining, by the ancient name. Of this city was that woman whom Christ healed of a bloody issue, by touching the hem of his garment with a constant faith; who afterwards, as she was a woman of great wealth and ability, being mindful of God's goodness, and no less grateful for the same, as h Eusebius and Nicephorus report, caused two statues to be cast in pure copper, the one representing Christ, as near as it could be moulded, the other made like herself, kneeling at his feet, and holding up her hands towards him. These she mounted upon two great bases or pedestals, of the same metal, which she placed by a fountain near her own house; both which, saith Eusebius, remained in their first perfection, even to his own time, which himself had seen, who lived in the reign of Constantine the Great. But in the year after Christ 363, that monster Julian Apostata caused that worthy monument to be cast down and defaced, setting up the like of his own in the same place; which image of his was with fire from heaven broken into fitters; the head, body, and other parts sundered and scattered, to the great admiration of the people at that time living. The truth of this accident is also confirmed by Sozomenus Salaminius, in his 5th book and 20th chapter. i This city, built by the Danites, was near the joining together of those two rivers which arise from the springs of Jor and Dan, the two i apparent fountains of Jordan, in a soil exceeding fruitful and pleasant; for as it is written, Judges xviii. it is a place which doth want nothing that is in the world. In the fields belonging to this city, it was that St. Peter acknowledged Christ to be the Son of God; whereupon it was answered, Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram, &c. After this city received the Christian faith, h Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. 7. c. 14. Niceph. 1. 6. c. 15. i Josephus, in the book of the Jewish war, 18. saith, That Philip the tetrarch cast chaff into a fountain called Phiala, distant 120 stadia northeast from Cæsarea; which chaff, being carried underground, was cast up again at Panium, or Dan, whereby it is conjectured, that the first spring of Jordan is from this fountain called Phiala, from whence Jor and Dan receive their waters. it was honoured with a bishop's seat, and it ran the same fortune with the rest, for it was after taken and retaken by the Saracens and Christians; under Fulch the fourth king of Jerusalem, and after the death of Godfry of Bulloin, the king of Damascus wrested it from the Christians, and shortly after by them again it was recovered. Lastly, now it remaineth, with all that part of the world, subjected to the Turk. §. 4. Of Capernaum, and the cities of Decapolis. AMONG the remarkable cities within this tribe, Capernaum is not the least, so often remembered by the evangelists. This city had the honour of Christ's presence three years; who for that time was as a citizen thereof, in which he first preached and taught the doctrine of our salvation, according to that notable prophecy of Isaiah ix. 2. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. Capernaum was seated on Jordan, even where it entereth into the sea of Galilee, in an excellent and rich soil; of whose destruction Christ himself prophesied in these words: And thou, Capernaum, which art lifted up unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell, &c. which shewed the pride and greatness of that city, for it was one of the principal cities of Decapolis, and the metropolis of Galilee. And although there were some marks of this city's magnificence in St. Jerome's time, as himself confesseth, it being then a reasonable burgh or town; yet those that have since, and long since seen it, as Brochard, Breidenbech, and Saliniac, affirm, that it then consisted but of six poor fishermen's houses. The region of ten principal cities, called Decapolitana, or Decapolis, is in this description often mentioned, and in k St. Matthew, Mark, and Luke also remembered; but I find no agreement among the cosmographers what proper limits it had; and so Pliny himself confesseth: for Marius Niger, speaking from others, bounds it on the north by the Matt, iv. Mark vii. Luke viii. Niger. Comment. Asiæ 4. fol. 503. 1 mountain Casius in Casiotis, and endeth it to the south at Egypt and Arabia; by which description it embraceth Phoenicia, a part of Colesyria, all Palæstina, and Judæa. m Pliny also makes it large, and for the ten cities of which it taketh name, he numbereth four of them to be situated towards Arabia, to wit, first these three, Damascus, nOpotos, Raphana; then Philadelphia; (which was first called Amana, saith Stephanus, or, as I guess, Amona rather, because it was the chief city of the Ammonites, known by the name of Rabbah, before Ptol. Philadelphus gave it this later and new name;) then Scythopolis, sometime Nysa, built (as is said) by Bacchus in memory of his nurse, who died therein,, anciently known by the name of Bethsan; for the sixth he setteth Gadara, (not that Gadara in Colesyria, which was also called Antioch and Seleucia,) but it is Gadara in Basan, which Pliny in this place meaneth, seated on a high hill, near the river Hieromaix. This river Ortelius takes to be the river Jaboc, which boundeth Gad and Manasseh over Jordan; but he mistaketh it, for Hieromaix falleth into the sea of Galilee, between Hippos and Gerasa, whereas Jaboc entereth the same sea between Ephron and Phanuel. For the seventh, he nameth Hippos, or Hippion, a city so called of a colony of horsemen there garrisoned by Herod, on the east side of the Galilæan sea, described hereafter in the tribe of Manasseh over Jordan. For the eighth, Pella, which is also called Butis, and Berenice, seated in the south border of the region over Jordan called Peræa. For the ninth, Gelasa, which Josephus takes to be Gerasa; and Gerasa is found in Colesyria by Josephus, Hegesippus, and Stephanus; but by Ptolomy (whom I rather follow) in Phoenicia. The tenth and last, Pliny nameth Canatha, and so doth Suetonius and Stephanus, which Volaterran calls Gamala, but Hegesippus rightly Camala, a city in the region of Basan over Jordan, so called because those two hills, on which it is seated, have the shape of a camel. m Plin. 1. 5. c. 18. n Opotos, a city standing in the valley of Colesyria, watered by Chrysorrhoas, as Damascus is. Plin. 1. 5. • Pliny hath Hippon Dion, for which Volaterran reads Hippidion. Ortelius takes them for two cities. But the collection of these ten cities, whereof this region took name, is better gathered out of Brochard, Breidenbach, and Saligniac, which makes them to be these; Cæsarea Philippi and Asor, before remembered, Cedes Nephtalim, Sephet, Corazin, Capernaum, Bethsaida, Jotapata, Tiberias, and Scythopolis, or Bethsan. For all other authors disagree herein, and give no reason for their opinion. One place of the evangelist St. Matthew makes it manifest, that this region, called Decapolitana, was all that tract between Zidon and the sea of Galilee: for thus it is written in Matthew iv. And he departed again from the coasts of Tyrus and Zidon, and came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis: so that it was bounded by Damascus and Libanus on the north, by the Phoenician sea, between Zidon and Ptolomais, on the west, by the hills of Gelbo and Bethsan on the south, and by the mountains Tracones, otherwise Hermon, Sanir, and Galaad, on the east; which is, from east to west, the whole breadth of the Holy Land; and from the north to the south near the same distance, which may be each way forty English miles. §. 5. BUT to look back again towards Libanus, there is seated, near the foot thereof, the city of P Hammath, or Chammath, of which (as they say) the country adjoining taketh name; the same which Josephus calleth Amathitis and Amathensis: 9 Jacobus Zeigler, Ituræa. Ituræa regio tenet borealia tribus Nephtali, per montem Libanum usque Trachones. "The country of Ituræa," saith he, "containeth the north 66 parts of the tribe of Nephtali, along the mount Libanus "to Trachones." But herein following Strabo, who calls Trachonitis, Ituræa, he mistakes the seat of this region; P The Septuagint write it Ammath. Jerome, Emath. Josephus, Amath. Josh. xix. 35. Chammath. ch. xxi. 32. Chammoth-Dor. 1 Chron. vi. 76. Chammon. 2 Kings xiv. 8. Chammath-Jehudæ, as Junius reads it. Whereas also, for further distinction, there is added, (in Israel,) to note that it was of old belonging to Judah, though seated in Israel, that is, in the kingdom of the ten tribes, the other Chamath being in Syria Soba. 4 Zeigler. in Neptal. |