ページの画像
PDF
ePub

sis in Cilicia. In the time of the Maccabees this city received many changes: and while Judas Maccabæus governed the Jews, the Syrians that were garrisoned in Joppe, having their fleet in the port, invited 200 principal citizens aboard them, and cast them all into the sea; which Judas revenged by firing their fleet, and putting the companies which sought to escape to the sword.

It was twice taken by the Romans, and by Cestius the lieutenant utterly burnt and ruined. But in the year of Christ 1250, Lodowick the French king gave it new walls and towers it is now the Turk's, and called Jaffa. There are certain rocks in that port, whereunto it is reported that Andromeda was fastened with chains, and from thence delivered from the sea-monster by Perseus. This fable (for so I take it) is confirmed by y Josephus, Solinus, and Pliny. Marcus Scaurus, during his office of ædileship, shewed the bones of this monster to the people of Rome. St. Jerome upon Jonas speaks of it indifferently.

The next unto Joppe was Jamnia, where Judas Maccabæus burnt the rest of the Syrian fleet; the fire and flame whereof was seen at Jerusalem, 240 furlongs off. It had sometime a bishop's seat, saith a Will. of Tyre; but there is no sign of it at this time that such a place there

was.

After Jamnia is the city of Geth, or Gath, sometime Anthedon, saith Volaterran. And so Montanus, fol. 244. seems to understand it. For he sets it next to Egypt, of all the Philistine cities, and in the place of Anthedon. But Volaterran gives neither reason nor authority for his opinion; for Ptolomy sets Anthedon far to the south of Joppe; and Geth was the first and not the last (beginning from the north) of all the great cities of the Philistines; and about sixteen miles from Joppe, where St. Jerome in his time found a great village of the same name. It was sometime the habitation and seminary of the Anakims; strong and

* 2 Macc. ii. 12.

y Lib. 3. 1. 15. de Bell. Jud. Solin. c. 47. Plin. l. 5. c. 9.

22 Macc. xii.

a De Bell. sacr.

b Hieron. in Michæam.

RALEGH, HIST. WORLD. VOL. II.

X

giant-like men, whom Joshua could not expel, nor the Danites after him; nor any of the Israelites, till David's time; who slew Goliath, as his captains did divers others, not much inferior in strength and stature unto Goliath.

[ocr errors]

Roboam the son of Solomon rebuilt Geth; Ozias the son of Amazia destroyed it again. It was also laid waste by Azael king of Syria. Fulke, the fourth king of Jerusalem, built a castle in the same place out of the old ruins. Whether this Geth was the same that Will. of Tyre in the holy war calls Ibijlin, I much doubt; the error growing by taking Geth for Anthedon.

Not far from Geth, or Gath, standeth Bethsemes, or the house of the Sun. In the fields adjoining to this city (as is thought) was the ark of God brought by a yoke of two kine, turned loose by the d Philistines; and the Bethsemites presuming to look therein, there were slain of the elders seventy, and of the people 50,000, by the ordinance of God. After which slaughter, and the great lamentation of the people, it was called the great Abel, saith St. Jerome. Benedictus Theologus finds three other cities of this name; one in f Nephtalim, another in Juda, and another in Issachar; Jerome finds a fifth in Benjamin.

e

Keeping the sea-coast, the strong city of Accaron offereth itself, sometime one of the five satrapies or governments of the Philistines. St. Jerome makes it the same with Cæsarea Palæstina. Pliny confounds it with Apollonia: it was one of those that defended itself against the Danites and Judeans. It worshipped Beelzebub the god of hornets or flies. To which idol it was that 8 Ahaziah king of Israel sent to inquire of his health: whose messengers Elijah meeting by the way, caused them to return with a sorrowful

[blocks in formation]

answer to their master. This city is remembered in many places of scripture.

Christianus Schrot placeth Azotus next to Geth, and then Accaron, or Ekron. This Azotus, or Asdod, was also an habitation of the Anakims, whom Joshua failed to destroy, though he once possessed their city. Herein stood a sumptuous temple, dedicated to the hidol Dagon: the same idol which fell twice to the ground of itself, after the ark of God was by the Philistines carried into their temple; and in the second fall it was utterly broken and defaced. Near it was that famous Judas Maccabæus slain by Bacchides and Alcimus, the lieutenants of Demetrius. Afterwards it was taken by Jonathan: and the rest of the citizens being put to the sword, all that fled into the temple of Dagon were, with their idol, therein consumed with fire; near which also he overthrew Apollonius.

Gabinius the Roman rebuilt it. It had a bishop's seat while Christianity flourished in those parts. But in St. Jerome's time it was yet a fair village. And this was the last of the sea-towns within the tribe of Dan.

The cities which are within the land eastward from Azotus, and beyond the fountain of Ethiopia, wherein Philip the apostle baptized the eunuch, are Tsorah, or Sarara, and Esthaol, and between them Castra Danis near Hebron: though this place, where Samson was born, may seem by the words, Judg. xviii. 12. to be in the tribe of Judah, as the other also were bordering towns between Dan and Juda.

After these, within the bounds of Juda, but belonging to the Danites, they find Gedor; or, as it is 1 Macc. xv. Cedron, which Cendebæus, the lieutenant of Antiochus, fortified against the Jews, and near which himself was by the k Maccabees overthrown.

Then Modin, the native city of the Maccabees; and wherein they were buried, on whose sepulchre the seven marble pillars, which were erected of that height as they served for a mark to the seamen, remained many hun

[blocks in formation]

dreds of years after their first setting up, as Brochard and Breidenbach witness.

There are besides these the city of Cariathiarim, that is, the city of the woods; seated in the border of Juda, Benjamin, and Dan, wherein the ark of God remained twenty years in the house of Aminadab; till such time as David carried it thence to Jerusalem: of this place (as they say) was Zacharias the son of Barachias, or Jehoida, who was slain between the temple and the altar: also Urias, whom Joachim king of Jerusalem slaughtered, as we find in Jeremy. Many other places which they place in this tribe, rather as I take it upon presumption than warrant, I omit: as that of Caspin, taken with great slaughter by m Judas Maccabæus: and Lachis, whose king was slain by Joshua, in which also Amazias was slain; the same which Sennacherib took, Ezechias reigning in Juda.

Of other cities belonging to this tribe, see in Joshua xix. from the 41st verse, where also it is added, that the Danites' portion was too little for their number of families; and therefore that they invaded Leshem, and inhabited it: which city, after amplified by Philip the brother of Herod Antipas, was called Cæsarea Philippi, as before, and made the metropolis of Ituræa and Trachonitis; of which coasts this Philip was tetrarch: but of this city see more in Nephtalim. In this tribe there are no mountains of fame.

It hath two rivers or torrents: the northernmost riseth out of the mountains of Juda; and passing by Modin, falleth into the sea by Sachrona. n The other hath the name of Sorek, or Sored, whose banks are plentiful of vines, which have no seeds or stones; the wine they yield is red, of excellent colour, taste, and savour, &c. In this valley of Sorek, so called from the river, inhabited Delilah, whom Samson loved.

SECT. II.

The tribe of Simeon.

THE tribe of Simeon takes up the rest of the sea-coast of

Alias Cariath-baal and Baal, or Baalpharosim. 1 Sam. vii. 1. 2 Sam. vi. 2. 2 Chron. xxiv. 22. Matt. xxiii. 33. Jer. xxvi. 20.

m 2 Macc. xii. 13. Jos. xii. 11. 2 Kings xiv. 19.

n Hieron. in Isai. et Micheam 1. Broch. Breid. Judg. xvi. 4.

Canaan to the border of Egypt; who being the second son of Jacob by Leah, there were increased of that family, while they abode in Egypt, as they were numbered at mount Sinai, 59,300 able men; all which ending their lives in the deserts, there entered the land of promise of their issues 22,200 bearing arms, who were in part mixed with Juda, and in part severed, inhabiting a small territory on the seacoast, belonging to Edumæa; of which the first city adjoining to Dan was Ascalon.

The reguli, or petty kings thereof, were called Ascalonitæ ; of which P Volaterran out of Xanthus, in the history of the Lydians, reports, that Tantalus and Ascalus were the sons of Hymenæus: and that Ascalus being employed by Aciamus, king of the Lydians, with an army in Syria, falling in love with a young woman of that country, built this city, and called it after his own name: the same hath Nicolaus in his history, saith Volaterran.

Diodorus Siculus, in his third book, remembereth a lake near Ascalon, wherein there hath been a temple dedicated to Derceto the goddess of the Syrians, having the face of a woman and the body of a fish; who, as I have said before, in the story of Ninus, was the mother of Semiramis, feigned to be cast into this lake, and fed and relieved by doves. And therefore was the dove worshipped both in Babylonia and Syria, of which Tibullus the poet :

Alba Palestino sancta columba Syro.

The white dove is for holy held in Syria-Palestine.

It was one of the chiefest and strongest cities of the Philistines. It bred many learned men, (4 saith Volaterran,) as Antiochus, Sosus, Cygnus, Dorotheus the historian, and Artemidorus, who wrote the story of Bithynia.

In Ascalon, as some say, was that wicked Herod born, that, seeking after our Saviour, caused all the male children, of two years old and under, to be slain. In the Christian times it had a bishop, and after that, when it was by the

• And therefore no marvel that divers places named Jos. xv. in the large portion of Juda be reckoned in this tribe: see Jos. xix. 1, 9. where

thus much is expressly noted.

P Volat. Geog. 1. 11. fol. 244.
a Volat. ut supra.

« 前へ次へ »