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sons 45,400, besides

infants, women, and children under twenty years of age. The land of Nephtalim took beginning on the north part from the fountains of Jordan, and the hills of Libanus adjoining, as far south as the sea of Galilee, bounded on the west by Asher, and on the east and south-east by Jordan.

On the north side of Libanus, and adjoining to this territory of Nephtalim, did the Amorites (or Emorites) also inhabit; in which tract, and under Libanus, was the city of Heliopolis, which the height of the mountains adjoining shadowed from the sun the better part of the day. Postellus calls it Balbec; Niger, Marbech; and Leonclavius, Beallebeca.

Of this name of y Heliopolis, there are two great cities in Egypt; the first called On, by the Hebrews and the Chaldean paraphrast, otherwise Bethsemes, or, after the Latins, Solis oppidum, or Domus solis," the city of the sun;" into which, saith Ulpian, Severus the Roman emperor sent a colony; the other, Gestelius nameth Dealmarach; and of this name Stephanus also findeth a city in Thrace, and Glycas in Phrygia.

There is also in the same valley, adjoining to Nephtalim, Chalcis and Abila. Chalcis, of whom the region towards Palmyrena hath the name of Chalcidica, over which Herod, Agrippa, and Berenice the queen commanded.

Abila also gave name to the region adjoining, of which Lysanius, the son of Herod the elder, became tetrarch or governor, whereof Ptolomy gave it the addition of Lysanii, and called it Abila Lysanii. Volaterran names it Aphila; of which he notes that one Diogenes, a famous sophister, was native, who by Volaterran is entitled Aphileus, not Abileus. After that this city of Abila, or Aphila, had received the Christian faith, Priscillinus became bishop thereof, slain afterwards by our British Maximus at Trever. For distinction of this city, (if it be not the same, as it may be

y Guil. Tyr. Bell. Sac. 1. 9. c. 15. Theodor. 4. Hist. Ecclesiast. Mela. 1. 3. c. 9. Just. Gestel. in itinerar.

Joseph. in pluribus locis. Euseb. 8.
Demonst. Volat. l. 11. f. 243.

thought to be the same,) it is to be remembered, that in the tribe of 2 Manasseh, joining upon the bounds of the tribe of Nephtalim, there is another city of the same name, saving that it is written with an e for an i, and called Abela, remembered in the 20th chapter of the second of Samuel; the same Josephus calls Abelmachea, and Jerome Bethmacha. In the place of Samuel, for distinction sake, it is written Abel Beth-Mahaca, (for belike it was the town of Mahaca, the wife of Macir, the son of Manasseh, the father of Gilead;) in the Chronicles it is called Abel-Majim. This city Joab besieged, because Seba the son of Bichri, who rebelled against David, fled thereinto for succour; but a certain wise woman of the city persuading the people to cast Seba's head over the wall, Joab retired his army. The same city was afterwards taken by the king of Damascus, Benhadad, and after a while by Teglatphalasar.

The word Abel may be expounded, either to signify bewailing or a plain ground, and therefore no marvel that many towns (with some addition for distinction sake) were thus called; for even of bewailing many places took name; as Bochim, Judg. ii. 4. and so doubtless a Abel-Misraim, Gen. 1. 11. and yet Junius, in his note upon Numb. xxxiii. 49. thinks that Abel-Sittim was so called, rather by reason of the plain ground there, (to wit, in the land of Moab,) and so perhaps Abel-Meholah in the tribe of Ephraim; the town of Elisha the prophet; also Abel-Vinearum of the Ammonites, whither Jephta pursued them.

§. 2. Of Hazor.

IN this tribe of Nephtalim, was that famous city of Jabin, in Joshua's time, called Asor, (or, after the Chaldean para

Also a third in Ephraim, called Abel-Mechola; and a fourth in Reuben, called Abel-Sittim, also AbelMitsraim, at the ford of Jordan, and, as it seems, in the same tribe of Reuben, of all which, in that which follows: to which also we may add AbelMagnum, the name, as some think, of a city otherwise called Bethshemes,

near the border of the Philistines; or according to others, of the great stone in the border. 1 Sam. vi. 18. Joseph. Ant. 1. 7. c. 10. 2 Sam. xx. 1 Kings XV. 2 Kings xv.

a And Abel Magnum, 1 Sam. vi. 18. Judg. vii. 24. 1 Reg. xix. 15. Judg. xi. 35.

phrast, Haszor,) by Josephus, Asora; by Junius, bChatzor; which Laicstan names Hesron, the regal city and metropolis of Canaan, seated in the west part of Nephtalim towards Asher. In this city was that great rendezvous and assembly of those twenty-four kings against Joshua, who being all overthrown, slain, and scattered, this their powerful city was by Joshua taken and burnt to dust. But in process of time, the same being rebuilt by the Canaanites, a second king Jabin, 137 years after the death of this first Jabin, invaded the Israelites; and, being ordained of God to punish their idolatry, he prevailed against them, and held them in a miserable servitude twenty years, till Deborah the prophetess overthrew Sisera, Jabin's lieutenant, and his army, near the mountain Tabor. This city Solomon restored at such time as he also reedified Gezar, burnt by Pharaoh of Egypt, with Megido, Bethoron, and other cities; but about 260 years after, it fell into the hands of Teglatphalasar, king of the Assyrians. It is now, saith Adrichomius, called Antiopia; it was one of the principal cities of Decapolis. There is another city of this name in the territory of Benjamin, seated on the confines of Ascalon, called the new Hazor, d saith Jerome.

C

§. 3.

Of Cæsarea Philippi.

THERE was also on the border, and within the territory of Nephtalim, that renowned city of Lais, or Laiisch, as Junius writes it, or e Leschen; which city the children of Dan (being straitened in their territory under Juda) invaded and mastered, and gave it the name of their own parent Dan, and by that name it is written in Gen. xiv. at which place Abraham surprised Chedorlaomer and his con

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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 5 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.

8 Of another Cæsaria, (or Cæsarea,) called Cæsarea Palestinæ, sec

hereafter in the former part of Manasseh. 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 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.

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.

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