as lord of the sea-towns, which his father had taken from the Philistines, might have greatly distressed the Tyrians, and perhaps have brought them even into subjection. Which Hiram knowing, was glad (and no marvel) that Solomon rather meant as a man of peace to employ his father's treasure in magnificent works, than in pursuing the conquest of all Syria. Therefore he willingly aided him, and sent him cunning workmen, to increase his delight in goodly buildings, imageries, and instruments of pleasure.

As these passages between Solomon and Hiram are no strong arguments of piety in the Tyrians, so those other proofs, which Bozius frames negatively upon particular examples, are very weak. For what the religion of Cadmus was, I think, no man knows. It seems to me, that having more cunning than the Greeks, and being very ambitious, he would fain have purchased divine honours, which his daughters, nephews, and others' of his house obtained, but his own many misfortunes beguiled him of such hopes, if he had any. Thales and Pherecydes are but single examples. Every savage nation hath some whose wisdom excelleth the vulgar, even of civil people. Neither did the moral wisdom of these men express any true knowledge of the true God: only they made no good mention of the gods of Greece, whom, being newly come thither, they knew not. It is no good argument to say, that Cadmus and Thales being Tyrians are not known to have taught idolatry, therefore the Tyrians were not idolaters. But this is of force, that Carthage, Utica, Leptis, Cadiz, and all colonies of the Tyrians (of which I think the islands before mentioned in the Red sea to have been, for they traded in all seas) were idolaters, even from their first beginnings; therefore the Tyrians who planted them, and to whom they had reference, were so likewise.

This their idolatry from Solomon's time onwards is acknowledged by Bozius, who would have us think them to have been formerly a strange kind of devout Edomites. In which fancy he is so peremptory, that he styleth men of contrary opinion impios politicos; as if it were impiety to think that

God (who even among the heathen, which have not known his name, doth favour virtue and hate vice) hath often rewarded moral honesty with temporal happiness. Doubtless this doctrine of Bozius would better have agreed with Julian the apostate than with Cyril. For if the Assyrians, Greeks, Romans, and all those nations of the Gentiles, did then prosper most, when they drew nearest unto the true religion; what may be said of the foul idolatry which grew in Rome, as fast as Rome itself grew; and was enlarged with some new superstition, almost upon every new victory? How few great battles did the Romans win, in which they vowed not either a temple to some new god, or some new honour to one of their old gods? Yea, what one nation, save only that of the Jews, was subdued by them, whose gods they did not afterwards entertain in their city? Only the true God, which was the God of the Jews, they rejected, upbraiding the Jews with him, as if he were unworthy of the Roman majesty. Shall we hereupon enforce the lewd and foolish conclusion, which heathen writers used against the Christians in the primitive church, that such idolatry had caused the city of Rome to flourish, and that the decay of those abominations did also bring with it the decay of the empire? It might well be thought so, if prosperity were a sign or effect of true religion. Such is the blind zeal of Bozius, who writing against those whom he falsely terms impious, gives strength to such as are impious indeed. But such indiscretion is usually found among men of his humour; who, having once either foolishly embraced the dreams of others, or vainly fashioned in their own brains any strange chimeras of divinity, condemn all such in the pride of their zeal, as atheists and infidels, that are not transported with the like intemperate ignorance. Great pity it is that such mad dogs are oftentimes encouraged by those who, having the command of many tongues, when they themselves cannot touch a man in open and generous opposition, will wound him secretly by the malicious virtue of an hypocrite.

RALEGH, HIST. WORLD, VOL. II.

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CHAP. IX.

Of the tribe of Ephraim; and of the kings of the ten tribes, whose head was Ephraim.

SECT. I.

Of the memorable places in the tribe of Ephraim.

HAVING now passed over Phoenicia, we come to the next territory adjoining, which is that of Ephraim; sometime taken, iper excellentiam, for the whole kingdom of the ten tribes. Ephraim was the second son of Joseph, whose issues, when they left Egypt, were in number 45,000; all which dying in the deserts, Joshua excepted, there entered the Holy Land of their children, grown to be able men, 32,500, who sat down on the west side of Jordan, between Manasseh and Benjamin; who bounded Ephraim by the north and south, as Jordan and the Mediterranean sea did by the east and west.

The first and chief city which Ephraim had was Samaria, the metropolis of the kingdom of Israel, built by Amris, or Homri, king thereof, and seated on the top of the mountain Somron, which overlooketh all the bottom, and as far as the sea-coast. It was afterwards called Sebaste, or Augusta, in honour of Augustus Cæsar. This city is often remembered in the scriptures, and magnificent it was in the first building; for, as Brochard observeth, the ruins which yet remain, and which Brochard found greater than those of Jerusalem, tell those that behold them what it was when it stood upright; for to this day there are found great store of goodly marble pillars, with other hewn and carved stone, in great abundance, among the rubble.

It was beaten to the ground by the sons of Hyrcanus the high priest; restored and built by the first Herod, the son of Antipater; who, to flatter Cæsar, called it Sebaste. Herein were the prophets Helisæus and Abdias buried,

i Psalm lix. lxxviii, cviii. Par. 25.

and so was John Baptist. It now hath nothing but a few cottages filled with Grecian monks.

Near Samaria, towards the south, is the hill of Bethel, and a town of that name; on the top of which mountain Jeroboam erected one of his golden calves to be worshipped, with which he seduced the Israelites.

k

In sight of this mountain of Bethel was that ancient city of Sichem, after the restoration called Neapolis, now Pelosa, and Napolasa: it was destroyed by Simeon and Levi, in revenge of the ravishment of their sister Dinah; and after that by Abimelech evened with the soil. Jeroboam raised it up again, and the Damascenes a third time cast it down.

Under Sichem, towards the sea, standeth Pharaton, or Pirhathon, on the mountain ! Amalek, the city of Abdon judge of Israel; and under it Bethoron of the Levites, built, as it is said, by Sara, the daughter of Ephraim. Near to this city, Judas Maccabæus overthrew Seron and Lysias, lieutenants to Antiochus. This city had Solomon formerly repaired and fortified.

Between Bethoron and the sea, standeth Samir, of which Josh. x. and Saron, whose king was slain by m Joshua; it is also mentioned Acts ix. 35. And of this Saron the valley taketh name, which, beginning at Cæsarea Palæstinæ, extendeth itself along the coast as far as Joppe, saith Adrichome. Though indeed the name Sarona is not particularly given to this valley, but to every fruitful plain region; for not only this valley is so called, to wit, between Cæsarea and Joppe, but that also between the mountain Tabor and the sea of Galilee; for so St. Jerome, upon Isaiah xxxv. interprets the word Saron; and so doth the same father, in his commentaries upon Abdia, read Saron for Assaron, understanding thereby a plain near Lidda; which Lidda, in his time, was called Diospolis, or the city of Jupiter, one of the toparchies of Judæa, the fifth in dignity, (or the third after Pliny,) where St. Peter (non sua sed Christi virtute)

Sichar. John iv. 5. Maborthan Joseph. 11. Ant. 1.

I Judg. xii. 15.

m Josh. xii. 18.

cured Æneas. n Niger calls all that region, from Antilibanus to Joppe, Sarona. This Joppe was burnt to the ground by the Romans, those ravens and spoilers of all estates, disturbers of commonweals, usurpers of other princes' kingdoms; who, with no other respect led, than to amplify their own glory, troubled the whole world; and themselves, after murdering one another, became a prey to the most savage and barbarous nations.

In Diospolis (saith Will. of Tyre) was St. George beheaded and buried; in whose honour and memory Justinian the emperor caused a fair church to be built over his tomb; these be Tyrius's words: Relicta a dextris locis maritimis Antipatride, et Joppe, per-late patentem planitiem Eleutheriam pertranseuntes, Liddam quæ est Diospolis, ubi et egregii martyris Georgii usque hodie sepulchrum ostenditur, pervenerunt, ejus ecclesiam quum ad honorem ejusdem martyris pius et orthodoxus princeps Romanorum, Augustus Justinianus multo studio et devotione prompta ædificari præceperat, &c. "They having left," saith he, "on the right hand, the sea-towns Antipatris and Joppe, passing "over the great open plain of Eleutheria, came to Lidda, "which is Diospolis, where the sumptuous tomb of the fa

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mous martyr St. George is at this day shewed: whose "church, when the godly and orthodox prince of the Ro"mans, high and mighty Justinian, had commanded to be "built, with great earnestness and present devotion," &c. Thus far Tyrius, by whose testimony we may conjecture that this St. George was not that Arian bishop of Alexandria, but rather some better Christian; for this of Alexandria was slain there in an uproar of the people, and his ashes cast into the sea, as P Ammianus Marcellinus reports. And yet also it may be, that this Georgius was a better Christian than he is commonly thought; for his words of the temple of Genius, "How long shall this sepulchre stand?" occasioned the uproar of the people against him, as fearing

n Acts ix. Luke xxiii. Niger. Comm. 4. Asiæ fol. 503. 14.

Of this St. George, see more

above in this second book, c. 7. sect. 3. §. 5.

P Lib. 22. C. II.