HIS DECLARATION OF CHRIST’S DIVINITY.Journeying on northward, Jesus came into the neighborhood of♦Caesarea Philippi, and while he was there in some solitary place, praying alone with his select disciples, at the conclusion of his prayer, he asked them, “Who do men say that I, the son of man, am?” And they answered him, “Some say that thou art John the Baptist:” Herod, in particular, we know, had this notion; “some, that thou art Elijah, and others that thou art Jeremiah, or one of the prophets, that is risen again.” So peculiar was his doctrine, and so far removed was he, both in impressive eloquence and in original views, from the degeneracy and servility of that age, that the universal sentiment was, that one of the bold, pure “spirits of the fervent days of old,” had come back to call Judah from foreign servitude, to the long remembered glories of the reigns of David and Solomon. But his chosen ones, who had by repeated instruction, as well as long acquaintance, better learned their Master, though still far from appreciating his true character and designs, had yet a higher and juster idea of him, than the unenlightened multitudes who had been amazed by his deeds. To draw from them the distinct acknowledgment of their belief in him, Jesus at last plainly asked his disciples, “But who do ye say that I am?” Simon Peter, in his usual character as spokesman, replied for the whole band, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus, recognizing in this prompt answer, the fiery and devoted spirit that would follow the great work of redemption through life, and at last to death, replied to the zealous speaker in terms of marked and exalted honor, prophesying at the same time the high part which he would act in spreading and strengthening the kingdom of his Master: “Blessed art thou, Simon, son of Jonah,for flesh and blood have not revealed this unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, that thou art aROCK, and on thisrockI will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven.” In such high terms was the chief apostle distinguished, and thus did his Master peculiarly commission him above the rest, for the high office, to which all the energies of his remaining life were to be devoted.♦“Cesarea” replaced with “Caesarea”Who do men say that I am.——The common English translation, here makes a gross grammatical blunder, putting the relative in the objective case,——“Whomdo men say,”&c.(Matthewxvi.13–15.) It is evident that on inverting the order, putting the relative last instead of first, it will be in the nominative,——“Men say that I am who?” making, in short, a nominative after the verb, though it here comes before it by the inversion which the relative requires. Here again the blunder may be traced to a heedless copying of the Vulgate. In Latin, as in Greek, the relative is given in the accusative, and very properly, because it is followed by the infinitive. “Quem dicunt homines esse Filium hominis?” which literally is, “Whom do men say the son of man to be?”——a very correct form of expression; but the blunder of our translators was, in preserving the accusative, while they changed the verb, from the infinitive to the finite form; for “whom” cannot be governed by “say.” Hammond has passed over the blunder; but Campbell, Thomson, and Webster, have corrected it.Son of Man.——This expression has acquired a peculiarly exalted sense in our minds, in consequence of its repeated application to Jesus Christ, and its limitation to him, in the New Testament. But in those days it had no meaning by which it could be considered expressive of any peculiar characteristic of the Savior, being a mere general emphatic expression for the common word “man,” used in solemn address or poetical expressions. Both in the Old and New Testament it is many times applied to men in general, and to particular individuals, in such a way as to show that it was only an elegant periphrasis for the common term, without implying any peculiar importance in the person thus designated, or referring to any peculiar circumstance as justifying this appellative in that case. Any concordance will show how commonly the word occurred in this connection. The diligent Butterworth enumerates eighty-nine times in which this word is applied to Ezekiel, in whose book of prophecy it occurs oftener than in any other book in the Bible. It is also applied to Daniel, in the address of the angel to him, as to Ezekiel; and in consideration of the vastly more frequent occurrence of the expression in the writers after the captivity, and its exclusive use by them as a formula of solemn address, it has been commonly considered as having been brought into this usage among the Hebrews, from the dialects of Chaldea and Syria, where it was much more common. In Syriac, more particularly, the simple expression, “man,” is entirely banished from use by this solemn periphrasis,(‡ Syriac word)(bar-nosh,) “SON OF MAN,” which every where takes the place of the original direct form. It should be noticed also, that in every place in the Old Testament where this expression (“son of man”) occurs, before Ezekiel, the former part of the sentence invariably contains the direct form of expression, (“man,”) and this periphrasis is given in the latter part of every such sentence, for the sake of a poetical repetition of the same idea in a slightly different form. Take, for instance, Psalmviii.4, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?” And exactly so in every other passage anterior to Ezekiel, as Numbersxxiii.19, Jobxxv.16,xxxv.8, Isaiahli.12,lvi.2, and several other passages, to which any good concordance will direct the reader.The New Testament writers too, apply this expression in other ways than as a name of Jesus Christ. It is given as a mere periphrasis, entirely synonymous with “man,” in a general or abstract sense, without reference to any particular individual, in Markiii.28, (compare Matthewxii.13, where the simple expression “men” is given,)Hebrewsii.6, (a mere translation of Psalmviii.4,) Ephesiansiii.5, Revelationi.13,xiv.14. In the peculiar emphatic limitation to which this note refers, it is applied by Jesus Christ to himself about eighty times in the gospels, but is never used by any other person in the New Testament, as a name of the Savior, except by Stephen, in Acts,vii.56. It never occurs in this sense in the apostolic epistles. (Bretschneider.) For this use of the word, I should not think it necessary to seek any mystical or important reason, as so many have done, nor can I see that in its application to Jesus, it has any very direct reference to the circumstance of his having, though divine, put on a human nature, but simply a nobly modest and strikingly emphatic form of expression used by him, in speaking of his own exalted character and mighty plans, and partly to avoid the too frequent repetition of the personal pronoun. It is at once evident that this indirect form, in the third person, is both more dignified and modest in solemn address, than the use of the first person singular of the pronoun. Exactly similar to this are many forms of circumlocution with which we are familiar. The presiding officer of any great deliberative assembly, for instance, in announcing his own decision on points of order, by a similar periphrasis, says “The chair decides,”&c.In fashionable forms of intercourse, such instances are still more frequent. In many books, where the writer has occasion to speak of himself, he speaks in the third person, “the author,”&c.; as in an instance close at hand, in this book it will be noticed, that where it is necessary for me to allude to myself in thetextof the work, which, of course, is more elevated in its tone than thenotes, I speak, according to standard forms of scriptorial propriety, in the third person, as “the author,”&c.; while here, in these small discussions, which break in on the more dignified narrative, I find it at once more convenient and proper, to use the more familiar and simple forms of♦expression.♦“expresssion” replaced with “expression”This periphrasis (“son of”) is not peculiar to oriental languages, as every Greek scholar knows, who is familiar with Homer’s common expressionυιες Αχαιων, (uies Akhaion,) “sons of Grecians,” instead of “Grecians” simply, which by a striking coincidence, occurs in Joelxiii.6, in the same sense. Other instances might be needlessly♦multiplied.♦“multipled” replaced with “multiplied”Thou art a Rock,&c.——This is the just translation of Peter’s name, and the force of the declaration is best understood by this rendering. As it stands in the original, it is “Thou artΠετρος, (Petros, ‘a rock,’) and on thisΠετρα(Petra, ‘a rock’) I will build my church,”——a play on the words so palpable, that great injustice is done to its force by a common tame, unexplained translation. The variation of the words in the Greek, from the masculine to the feminine termination, makes no difference in the expression. In the Greek Testament, the feminineπετρα(petra) is the only form of the word used as the common noun for “rock,” but the masculineπετρος(petros) is used in the most finished classic writers of the ancient Greek, of the Ionic, Doric and Attic, as Homer, Herodotus, Pindar, Xenophon, and, in the later order of writers, Diodorus Siculus.H. Stephens gives the masculine form as the primitive, but Schneider derives it from the feminine.After this distinct profession of faith in him, by his disciples, through Peter, Jesus particularly and solemnly charged them all, that they should not, then, assert their belief to others, lest they should thereby be drawn into useless and unfortunate contests about their Master, with those who entertained a very different opinion of him. For Jesus knew that his disciples, shackled and possessed as they were with their fantasies about the earthly reign of a Messiah, were not, as yet, sufficiently prepared to preach this doctrine: and wisely foresaw that the mass of the Jewish people would either put no faith at all in such an announcement, or that the ill disposed and ambitious would abuse it, to the purposes of effecting a political revolution, by raising a rebellion against the Roman rulers of Palestine, and oversetting foreign power. Hehad, it is true, already sent forth his twelve apostles, to preach the coming of the kingdom, (Matthewx.7,) but that was only to the effect that the time of the Messiah’s reign was nigh,——that the lives and hearts of all must be changed,——all which the apostles might well preach, without pretending to announce who the Messiah was.HIS AMBITIOUS HOPES AND THEIR HUMILIATION.This avowal of Peter’s belief that Jesus was the Messiah, to which the other apostles gave their assent, silent or loud, was so clear and hearty, that Jesus plainly perceived their persuasion of his divine authority to be so strong, that they might now bear a decisive and open explanation of those things which he had hitherto rather darkly and dimly hinted at, respecting his own death. He also at this time, brought out the full truth the more clearly as to the miseries which hung over him, and his expected death, with the view the more effectually to overthrow those false notions which they had preconceived of earthly happiness and triumph, to be expected in the Messiah’s kingdom; and with the view, also, of preparing them for the events which must shortly happen; lest, after they saw him nailed to the cross, they should all at once lose their high hopes, and utterly give him up. He knew too, that he had such influence with his disciples, that if their minds were shocked, and their faith in him shaken, at first, by such a painful disclosure, he could soon bring them back to a proper confidence in him. Accordingly, from this time, he began distinctly to set forth to them, how he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. There is much room for reasonable doubt, as to the manner in which those who heard this declaration of Christ, understood it at the time. As to the former part of it, namely, that he would be ill-treated by the great men of the Jewish nation, both by those ruling in the civil and religious government, it was too plain for any one to put any but the right meaning upon it. But the promise that he should, after this horrible fate, rise again from the dead on the third day, did not, as it is evident, by any means convey to them the meaning which all who read it now, are able to find in it. Nothing can be more plain to a careful reader of the gospels, than that his disciples and friends had not the slightest expectation that he would ever appear to them after his cruel death; and the mingled horror and dread with which the first news of that event was received bythem, shows them to have been utterly unprepared for it. It required repeated positive demonstration, on his part, to assure them that he was truly alive among them, in his own form and character. The question then is——what meaning had they all along given to the numerous declarations uttered by him to them, apparently foretelling this, in the distinct terms, of which the above passage is a specimen? Had they understood it as we do, and yet so absolutely disbelieved it, that they put no faith in the event itself, when it had so palpably occurred? And had they, for months and years, followed over Palestine, through labors, and troubles, and dangers, a man, who, as they supposed, was boldly endeavoring to saddle their credulity with a burden too monstrous for even them to bear? They must, from the nature of their connection with him, have put the most unlimited confidence in him, and could not thus devotedly have given themselves up to a man whom they believed or suspected to be constantly uttering to them a falsehood so extravagant and improbable. They must, then, have put some meaning on it, different from that which our clearer light enables us to see in it; and that meaning, no doubt, they honestly and firmly believed, until the progress of events showed them the power of the prophecy in its wonderful and literal fulfilment. They may have misunderstood it in his life time, in this way: the universal character of the language of the children of Shem, seems to be a remarkable proneness to figurative expressions, and the more abstract the ideas which the speaker wishes to convey, the more strikingly material are the figures he uses, and the more poetical the language in which he conveys them. Teachers of morals and religion, most especially, have, among those nations of the east, been always distinguished for their highly figurative expressions, and none abound more richly in them than the writers of the Old and New Testament. So peculiarly effective, for his great purposes, did Jesus Christ, in particular, find this variety of eloquence, that it is distinctly said of him, that he seldom or never spoke to the people without a parable, which he was often obliged to expound more in detail, to his chosen followers, when apart with them. This style of esoteric and exoteric instruction, had early taught his disciples to look into his most ordinary expressions for a hidden meaning; and what can be more likely than that often, when left to their own conjectures, they, for a time, at least, overleaped the simple literal truth, into a fog of figurative interpretations, as too many of their very modern successorshave often done, to their own and others’ misfortune. We certainly know that, in regard to those very expressions about raising the dead, there was a very earnest inquiry among the three chief apostles, some time after, as will be mentioned in place, showing that it never seemed possible to them that their Lord, mighty as he had showed himself, could ever mean to say to them, that, when his bitter foes had crowned his life of toil and cares with a bloody and cruel exit, he——evenHe, could dare to promise them, that he would break through that iron seal, which, when once set upon the energies of man, neither goodness, nor valor, nor knowledge, nor love, had ever loosened, but which, since the first dead yielded his breath, not the mightiest prophet, nor the most inspired, could ever break through for himself. The figure of death and resurrection, has often been made a striking image of many moral changes;——of some one of which, the hearers of Jesus probably first interpreted it. In connection with what he had previously said, nothing could seem more natural to them, than that he, by this peculiarly strong metaphor, wished to remind them that, even after his death, by the envious and cruel hands of Jewish magistrates, over but a few days, his name, the ever fresh influence of his bright and holy example——the undying powers of his breathing and burning words, should still live with them, and with them triumph after the momentary struggles of the enemies of the truth.The manner, also, in which Simon Peter received this communication, shows that he could not have anticipated so glorious and dazzling a result of such horrible evils: for, however literally he may have taken the prophecy of Christ’s cruel death, he used all his powers to dissuade his adored master from exposing himself to a fate so dark and dreadful,——so sadly destructive of all the new-born hopes of his chosen followers, and from which the conclusion of the prophecy seemed to offer no clear or certain mode of escape. Never before, had Jesus spoken in such plain and decided terms, about the prospect of his own terrible death. Peter, whose heart had just been lifted up to the skies with joy and hope, in the prospect of the glorious triumphs to be achieved by his Lord through his means, and whose thoughts were even then dwelling on the honors, the power, the fame, which were to accrue to him for his share in the splendid work,——was shocked beyond measure, at the strange and seemingly contradictory view of the results, now taken by his great leader. With the confidentfamiliarity to which their mutual love and intimacy entitled him, in some measure, he laid his hand expostulatingly upon him, and drew him partly aside, to urge him privately to forget thoughts of despondency, so unworthy of the great enterprise of Israel’s restoration, to which they had all so manfully pledged themselves as his supporters. We may presume, that he, in a tone of encouragement, endeavored to show him how impossible it would be for the dignitaries of Jerusalem to withstand the tide of popularity which had already set so strongly in favor of Jesus; that so far from looking upon himself as in danger of a death so infamous, from the Sanhedrim, he might, at the head of the hosts of his zealous Galileans, march as a conqueror to Jerusalem, and thence give laws from the throne of his father David, to all the wide territories of that far-ruling king. Such dreams of earthly glory seemed to have filled the soul of Peter at that time; and we cannot wonder, then, that every ambitious feeling within him recoiled at the gloomy announcement, that the idol of his hopes was to end his days of unrequited toil, by a death so infamous as that of the cross. “Be it far from thee, Lord,” “God forbid,” “Do not say so,” “Do not thus damp our courage and high hopes,” “This must not happen to thee.”——Jesus, on hearing these words of ill-timed rebuke, which showed how miserably his chief follower had been infatuated and misled, by his foolish and carnal ambition, turned away indignantly from the low and degraded motives, by which Peter sought to bend him from his holy purposes. Not looking upon him, but upon the other disciples, who had kept their feelings of regret and disappointment to themselves, he, in the most energetic terms, expressed his abhorrence of such notions, by his language to the speaker. “Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art a scandal to me; for thou savorest not the things which be of God, but the things which be of men. In these fervent aspirations after eminence, I recognize none of the pure devotion to the good of man, which is the sure test of the love of God; but the selfish desire for transient, paltry distinction, which characterizes the vulgar ambition of common men, enduring no toil or pain, but in the hope of a more than equal earthly reward speedily accruing.” After this stern reply, which must have strongly impressed them all with the nature of the mistake of which they had been guilty, he addressed them still further, in continuation of the same design, of correcting their false notion of the earthly advantages to be expected by hiscompanions in toil. He immediately gave them a most untempting picture of the character and conduct of him, who could be accepted as a fit fellow-worker with Jesus. “If any one wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and let him take up his cross, (as if we should say, let him come with his halter around his neck, and with the gibbet on his shoulder,) and follow me. For whosoever shall save his life for my sake, shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake, shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain thewhole world, and lose his own soul? For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels; andTHEN, he shallrewardevery man according to his works.” “I solemnly tell you, there are some standing here who shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”——“In vain would you, in pursuit of your idle dreams of earthly glory, yield up all the powers of your soul, and spend your life for an object so worthless. After all, what is there in all the world, if you should have the whole at your disposal——what, for the momentary enjoyment of which, you can calmly pay down your soul as the price? Seek not, then, for rewards so unworthy of the energies which I have recognized in you, and have devoted to far nobler purposes. Higher honors will crown your toils and sufferings, in my service;——nobler prizes are seen near, with the eye of faith. Speedily will the frail monuments of this world’s wonders crumble, and the memory of its greatnesses pass away; but over the ruins of kingdoms, the coming of theManto whom you have joined yourselves is sure, and in that triumphant advent, you shall find the imperishable requital of your faithful and zealous works. And of the nature and aspect of the glories which I now so dimly shadow in words, some of those who now hear me shall soon be the living witnesses, as of a foretaste of rewards, whose full enjoyment can be yours, only after the weariness and misery of this poor life are all passed. Years of toil, dangers, pain, and sorrow,——lives passed in contempt and disgrace,——deaths of ignominy, of unpitied anguish, and lingering torture, must be your passage to the joys of which I speak; while the earthly honors which you now covet, shall for ages continue to be the prize of the base, the cruel, and the foolish, from whom you vainly hope to snatch them.”THE TRANSFIGURATION.The mysterious promise thus made by Jesus, of a new andpeculiar exhibition of himself, to some of his chosen ones, he soon sought an occasion of executing. About six or eight days after this remarkable conversation, he took Peter, and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, and went with them up into a high mountain, apart by themselves. As to the name and place of this mountain, a matter of some interest certainly, there have been two opinions among those who have attempted to illustrate the topography of the gospels. The phrase, “a high mountain,” has instantly brought to the thoughts of most learned readers, Mount Tabor, famous for several great events in Bible history, which they have instantly adopted, without considering the place in which the previous account had left Jesus, which was Caesarea Philippi; hereafter described as in the farthest northern part of Galilee. Now, Mount Tabor, however desirable in other particulars, as the scene of a great event in the life of Jesus, was full seventy miles south of the place where Jesus had the conversation with his disciples, which led to the remarkable display which followed a few days after, on the mountain. It is true, that the intervening period of a week, was sufficient to enable him to travel this distance with ease; but the difficulty is, to assign some possible necessity or occasion for such a journey. Certainly, he needed not to have gone thus far to find a mountain, for Caesarea Philippi itself stands by the base of Paneas, which is a part of the great Syrian range of Antilibanus. This great mountain, or mountain chain, rises directly behind the city, and parts of it are so high above the peak of Tabor, or any other mountain in Palestine, as to be covered with snow, even in that warm country. The original readers of the gospel story, were dwellers in Palestine, and must have been, for the most part, well acquainted with the character of the places which were the scenes of the incidents, and could hardly have been ignorant of the fact, that this splendid city, so famous as the monument of royal vanity and munificence, was near the northern end of Palestine, and of course, must have been known even by those who had never seen it, nor heard it particularly described, to be very near the great Syrian mountains; so near too, as to be very high elevated above the cities of the southern country, since not far from the city gushed out the most distant sources of the rapid Jordan. But another difficulty, in respect to this journey of seventy miles to Tabor, is, that while the gospels give no account of it, it is even contradicted by Mark’s statement, that after departing from themountain, he passed through Galilee, and came to Capernaum, which is between Tabor and Caesarea Philippi, twenty or thirty miles from the former, and forty or fifty from the latter. Now, that Jesus Christ spared no exertion of body or mind, in “going about doing good,” no one can doubt; but that he would spend the strength devoted to useful purposes, in traveling from one end of Galilee to the other, for no greater good than to ascend a particular mountain, and then to travel thirty miles back on the same route, is a most unnecessary tax upon our faith. But here, close to Caesarea Philippi, was the mighty range of Antilibanus, known in Hebrew poetry by the name of Hermon in this part; andHe, whose presence made all places holy, could not have chosen, among all the mountains of Palestine, one which nature had better fitted to impress the beholder who stood on the summit, with ideas of the vast and sublime. Modern travelers assure us that, from the peaks behind the city, the view of the lower mountains to the south,——of the plain through which the young Jordan flows, soon spreading out into the broad sheet of lake Houle, (Samachonitis lacus,) and of the country, almost to lake Tiberias, is most magnificent. The precise peak which was the scene of the event here related, it is impossible to conjecture. It may have been any one of three which are prominent: either the castle hill, or, farther off and much higher, Mount Bostra, once the site of a city, or farther still, and highest of all, Merura Jubba, which is but a few hours walk from the city. The general impression of the vulgar, however, and of those who take the traditions of the vulgar and the ignorant, without examination, has been, that Tabor was the scene of the event, so that, at this day, it is known among the stupid Christians of Palestine, by the name of the Mount of the Transfiguration. So idly are these foolish local traditions received, that this falsehood, so palpable on inspection, has been quietly handed down from traveler to traveler, ever since the crusades, when hundreds of these and similar localities, were hunted up so hastily, and by persons so ill-qualified for the search, that more modern investigators may be pardoned for treating with so little consideration the voice ofsuchantiquity, when it is found opposed to a rational and consistent understanding of the gospel story. When the question was first asked, “Where is the mount of the transfiguration?” there were enough persons interested to reply, “Mount Tabor.” No reason was probably asked for the decision, and none was given; but as the scene was acted on ahigh mountain in Galilee, and as Tabor answered perfectly to this very simple description, and was moreover interesting on many other accounts, both historical and natural, it was adopted for the transfiguration without any discussion whatever, among those on the spot. Still, to learned and diligent readers of the gospels, the♦inconsistencies of such a belief have been so obvious, that many great theologians have decided, for the reasons here given, that the transfiguration must have taken place on some part of Mount Paneas, as it was called by the Greeks and Romans, known among the Jews, however, from the earliest times, by the far older name of MountHermon. On the determination of this point, more words have been expended than some may deem the matter to deserve; but among the various objects of the modern historian of Bible times, none is more important or interesting,♠than that of settling the often disputed topography of the sacred narrative; and as the ground here taken differs so widely from the almost universally received opinion, the minute reasons were loudly called for, in justification of the author’s boldness. The ancient blunders here detected, and shown to be based only upon a guess, is a very fair specimen of the way in which, in the moral as in the natural sciences, “they all copy from one another,” without taking pains to look into the truth of small matters. And it seems to show, moreover, how, when men of patient and zealous accuracy, have taken the greatest pains to expose and correct so causeless an error, common readers and writers too, will carelessly and lazily slip back into the old blunder, thus making the counsels of the learned of no effect, and loving darkness rather than light, error rather than exactness, because they are too shiftless to find a good reason for what is laid down before them as truth. But so it is. It is, and always has been, and always will be, so much easier for men to swallow whole, or reject whole, the propositions made to them, that the vast majority had much rather believe on other people’s testimony, than go through the harassing and tiresome task, of looking up the proofs for themselves. In this very instance, this important topographical blunder was fully exposed and corrected a century and a half ago, by Lightfoot, the greatest Hebrew scholar that ever lived; and we see how much wiser the world is for his pains.♦“inconsistences” replaced with “inconsistencies”♠duplicate word “than” removedCaesarea Philippi.——This city stood where all the common maps place it, in the farthest northern part of Palestine, just at the foot of the mountains, and near the fountain head of the Jordan. The name by which it is called in the gospels, is another instance, like Julias Bethsaida, of a compliment paid by the servile kings, ofthe divisions of Palestine, to their imperial masters, who had given, and who at any time could take away, crown and kingdom from them. The most ancient name by which this place is known to have been mentioned in the Hebrew scriptures, isLasha, in Genesisx.19, afterwards variously modified intoLeshem, (Joshuaxix.47,) andLaish, (Judgesxviii.7:xiv.29,) a name somewhat like the former in sound, though totally different in meaning, (לשםleshem, “a precious stone,” andלישlaish, “a lion,”) undoubtedly all three being from the same root, but variously modified in the changing pronunciations of different ages and tribes. In the earliest passage, (Genesisx.19,) it is clearly described as on the farthest northern limit of the land of Canaan, and afterwards, being conquered long after most of the cities of that region, by the tribe of Dan, and receiving the name of this tribe, as an addition to its former one, it became proverbially known under the name ofDan, as the farthest northern point of the land of Israel, as Beersheba was the southern one. It did not, however, lose its early Canaanitish name till long after, for, in Isaiahx.30, it is spoken of under the name of Laish, as the most distant part of Israel, to which the cry of the distressed could reach. It is also mentioned under its later name of Dan, in Genesisxiv.14, and Deuteronomyxxxiv.1, where it is given by the writer, or some copyist, in anticipation of the subsequent account of its acquiring this name after the conquest. Josephus also mentions it, under this name, in Antiquities booki.chapter 10, and bookviii.chapter 8, section 4, in both which places he speaks of it as standing at one of the sources of the Jordan, from which circumstance, no doubt, the latter part of the river’s name is derived. After the overthrow of the Israelitish power in that region, it fell into the hands of new possessors, and under the Greeks and Romans, went by the name of Panias, (Josephus and Ptolemy,) or Paneas, (Josephus and Pliny,) which name, according to Ptolemy, it had under the Phoenicians. This name, supposed to have been taken from the Phoenician name of the mountain near, Josephus gives to it, in all the later periods of his history, until he speaks of the occasion on which it received a new change of name.Its commanding and remarkable position, on the extremity of Palestine, made it a frontier post of some importance; and it was therefore a desirable addition to the dominions of Herod the Great, who received it from his royal patron, Augustus Caesar, along with its adjacent region between Galilee and Trachonitis, after the death of Zenodorus, its former possessor. (Josephus Antiquities bookxv.chapter 10, section 3.) Herod the Great, out of gratitude for this princely addition to his dominions, at a time when attempts were made to deprive him of his imperial master’s favor, raised near this city, a noble monument to Augustus. (Josephus as above quoted.) “He built a monument to him, of white marble, in the land of Zenodorus, near Panium. There is a beautiful cave in the mountain, and beneath it there is a chasm in the earth, rugged, and of immense depth, full of still water, and over it hangs a vast mountain; and under the cave rise the springs of the Jordan. This place, already very famous, he adorned with the temple which he consecrated to Caesar.” A lofty temple of white marble, on such a high spot, contrasted with the dark rocks of the mountain and cave around, must have been a splendid object in the distance, and a place of frequent resort.This city, along with the adjacent provinces, after the death of the first Herod, was given to his son Philip, made tetrarch of Iturea and Trachonitis. This prince, out of gratitude to the royal donor, at the same time when he rebuilt and repaired Bethsaida, as already mentioned, “also embellished Paneas, at the fountains of the Jordan, and gave it the name of Caesarea.” (Josephus Antiquities bookxviii.chapter 2, section 1, also Jewish War, bookii.chapter 9, section 1,) and to distinguish it from other Caesareas, hereafter to be mentioned, it was called from the name of its royal builder, Caesarea Philippi, that is, “the Caesarea of Philip.” By this name it was most commonly known in the time of Christ; but it did not answer the end of perpetuating the name of its builder and his patron, for it shortly afterwards recovered its former name, Paneas, which, probably, never went wholly out of use. As late as the time of Pliny, (about A. D. 70,) Paneas was a part of the name of Caesarea.Fons Paneas, qui cognomen dedit Caesareae, “the fountain Paneas, which gave to Caesarea a surname.” (Pliny Natural History bookv.chapter 15,) which shows, that at that time, the name Paneas was one, by which even foreign geographers recognized this city, in spite of the imperial dignity of its new title. Eusebius, (about A. D. 315,) speaks of “Caesarea Philippi, which the Phoenicians call Paneas, at the foot of mount Panium.” (Φιλιππου Καισαρεια ἡν Πανεαδα Θοινικες προσαγορευσι,&c.Church History bookvii.chapter 17.) Jerome, (about A. D. 392,) never mentions the name Caesarea Philippi, as belongingto this city, except in commenting on Matthewxvi.13, where he finds it necessary to explain this name, as an antiquated term, then out of use.Caesaream Philippi, quaeNUNCdicitur Paneas, “Caesarea Philippi, which isnowcalled Paneas;” and in all the other places where he has occasion to mention the place, he gives it only the name of Paneas. Thus, in commenting on Amosviii.14, he says, “Dan, on the boundary of the Jewish territory, wherenowis Paneas.” And on Jeremiahiv.15,——“The tribe Dan, near mount Lebanon, and the city which isnowcalled Paneas,”&c.——See also commentary on Danielxiii.16.After the death of Philip, this city, along with the rest of his dominions, was presented by Cains Caligula to Agrippa, who added still farther to the improvements made by Philip, more particularly ornamenting the Panium, or famous source of the Jordan, near the city, as Josephus testifies. (Jewish War, bookiii.chapter 9, section 7.) “The natural beauty of the Panium, moreover, was still more highly adorned (προσεξησκηται) with royal magnificence, being embellished by the wealth of Agrippa.” This king also attempted to perpetuate the name of one of his imperial patrons, in connection with the city, calling itNeronias, in honor of one who is well enough known without this aid. (Josephus Antiquities bookxx.chapter 8, section 3.) The perfectly transient character of this idle appellation, is abundantly shown from the preceding copious quotations.The city, now called Banias, (notBelinas, as Wahl erroneously says,) has been visited and examined in modern times by several travelers, of whom, none has described it more minutely than Burckhardt. His account of the mountains around the city, so finely illustrates my description of the scene of the transfiguration, that I extract largely from it here. In order to appreciate the description fully, it must be understood thatHeishis now the general Arabic name for the mountain chain, which was by ancient authors variously called Lebanon, Libanus, Anti-Libanus, Hermon, and Panium; for all these names have been given to the mountain-range, on whose slope Caesarea Philippi, or Paneas, stood.“The district of Banias is classic ground; it is the ancientCaesarea Philippi; the lake Houle, is theLacus Samachonitis. Immediately after my arrival, I took a man of the village to shew me the way to the ruined castle of Banias, which bears East by South from it. It stands on the top of a mountain, which forms part of the mountain of Heish, at an hour and a quarter from Banias; it is now in complete ruins, but was once a very strong fortress. Its whole circumference is twenty-five minutes. It is surrounded by a wall ten feet thick, flanked with numerous round towers, built with equal blocks of stone, each about two feet square. The keep, or citadel, seems to have been on the highest summit, on the eastern side, where the walls are stronger than on the lower, or western side. The view from thence over the Houle and a part of its lake, the Djebel Safad, and the barren Heish, is magnificent. On the western side, within the precincts of the castle, are ruins of many private habitations. At both the western corners, runs a succession of dark, strongly built, low apartments, like cells, vaulted, and with small narrow loop holes, as if for musquetry. On this side also, is a well more than twenty feet square, walled in, with a vaulted roof at least twenty-five feet high; the well was, even in this dry season, full of water: there are three others in the castle. There are many apartments and recesses in the castle, which could only be exactly described by a plan of the whole building. It seems to have been erected during the period of the crusades, and must certainly have been a very strong hold to those who possessed it. I could discover no traces of a road or paved way leading up the mountain to it. In winter time, the shepherds of the Felahs of the Heish, who encamp upon the mountains, pass the night in the castle with their cattle.“Banias is situated at the foot of the Heish, in the plain, which in the immediate vicinity of Banias is not called Ard Houle, but Ard Banias. It contains about one hundred and fifty houses, inhabited mostly by Turks: there are also Greeks, Druses, and Enzairie. It belongs to Hasbeya, whose Emir nominates the Sheikh. On the north-east side of the village, is the source of the river of Banias, which empties itself into the Jordan at the distance of an hour and a half, in the plain below. Over the source is a perpendicular rock, in which several niches have been cut to receive statues. The largest niche is above a spacious cavern, under which the river rises. This niche is six feet broad and as much in depth, and has a smaller niche in the bottom of it. Immediately above it, in the perpendicular face of the rock, is another niche, adorned with pilasters, supporting a shell ornament.“Round the source of the river are a number of hewn stones. The stream flowson the north side of the village, where is a well built bridge, and some remains of the ancient town, the principal part of which seems, however, to have been on the opposite side of the river, where the ruins extend for a quarter of an hour from the bridge. No walls remain, but great quantities of stones and architectural fragments are scattered about.“I went to see the ruins of the ancient city of Bostra, of which the people spoke much. Bostra must not be confounded with Boszra, in the Haouran; both places are mentioned in the Books of Moses. The way to the ruins lies for an hour and a half in the road by which I came from Rasheyat-el-Fukhar, it then ascends for three quarters of an hour a steep mountain to the right, on the top of which is the city; it is divided into two parts, the largest being upon the very summit, the smaller at ten minutes walk lower down, and resembling a suburb to the upper part. Traces are still visible of a paved way that had connected the two divisions. There is scarcely any thing in the ruins worth notice; they consist of the foundations of private habitations, built of moderate sized square stones. The lower city is about twelve minutes walk in circumference; a part of the four walls of one building only remains entire; in the midst of the ruins was a well, at this time dried up. The circuit of the upper city may be about twenty minutes; in it are the remains of several buildings. In the highest part is a heap of wrought stones, of larger dimensions than the rest, which seem to indicate that some public building had once stood on the spot. There are several columns of one foot, and of one foot and a half in diameter. In two different places, a short column was standing in the centre of a round paved area of about ten feet in diameter. There is likewise a deep well, walled in, but now dry.“The country around these ruins is very capable of cultivation. Near the lower city are groups of olive trees.“I descended the mountain in the direction towards the source of the Jordan, and passed, at the foot of it, the miserable village of Kerwaya. Behind the mountain of Bostra is another, still higher, called Djebel Meroura Djoubba.” [Burckhardt’s Syria,pp.37–42.]From Conder’s Modern Traveler I also draw a sketch of other travelers’ observations on the place and the surrounding country.“Burckhardt, in coming from Damascus, pursued the more direct route taken by the caravans, which crosses the Jordan at Jacob’s Bridge. Captains Irby and Mangles left this road at Khan Sasa, and passed to the westward for Panias, thus striking between the road to Acre, and that by Raschia and Hasbeya. The first part of the road from Sasa, led through a fine plain, watered by a pretty, winding rivulet, with numerous tributary streams, and many old ruined mills. It then ascended over a very rugged and rocky soil, quite destitute of vegetation, having in some places traces of an ancient paved way, ‘probably the Roman road from Damascus to Caesarea Philippi.’ The higher part of Djebel Sheikh was seen on the right. The road became less stony, and the shrubs increased in number, size and beauty, as they descended into a rich little plain, at the immediate foot of the mountain. ‘From this plain,’ continues captain M., ‘we ascended, and, after passing a very small village, saw on our left, close to us, a very picturesque lake, apparently perfectly circular, of little more than a mile in circumference, surrounded on all sides by sloping hills, richly wooded. On quitting Phiala, at but a short distance from it, we crossed a stream which discharges into the larger one which we first saw: the latter we followed for a considerable distance; and then, mounting a hill to the south-west, had in view the great Saracenic castle, near Panias, the town of that name, and the plain of the Jordan, as far as the Lake Houle, with the mountains on the other side of the plain, forming altogether a finecoup d’œil. As we descended towards Panias, we found the country extremely beautiful. Great quantities of wild flowers, and a variety of shrubs, just budding, together with the richness of the verdure, grass, corn and beans, showed us, all at once, the beauties of spring, (February 24,) and conducted us into a climate quite different from Damascus. In the evening we entered Panias, crossing a causeway constructed over the rivulet, which flows from the foot of Djebel Sheikh. The river here rushes over great rocks in a very picturesque manner, its banks being covered with shrubs and the ruins of ancient walls.’“Panias, afterwards called Caesarea Philippi, has resumed its ancient name. The present town of Banias is small. Seetzen describes it as a little hamlet of about twenty miserable huts, inhabited by Mahomedans. The ‘Castle of Banias’ is situated on the summit of a lofty mountain: it was built, Seetzen says, without giving his authority, in the time of the caliphs.” [Modern TravelerVol. I.pp.353–6.]The distance, in time, from Mount Tabor to Caesarea Philippi, may be conceived from the account given by Ebn Haukal, an Arabian geographer and traveler of the tenth century. He says “from Tibertheh (Tiberias, which is near Tabor) toSur, (Tyre,) is one day’s journey; and from that toBanias, (Paneas,) is two day’s easy journey.” [Sir W. Ouseley’s translation of Ebn Haukal’s Geography,pp.48, 49.]
HIS DECLARATION OF CHRIST’S DIVINITY.Journeying on northward, Jesus came into the neighborhood of♦Caesarea Philippi, and while he was there in some solitary place, praying alone with his select disciples, at the conclusion of his prayer, he asked them, “Who do men say that I, the son of man, am?” And they answered him, “Some say that thou art John the Baptist:” Herod, in particular, we know, had this notion; “some, that thou art Elijah, and others that thou art Jeremiah, or one of the prophets, that is risen again.” So peculiar was his doctrine, and so far removed was he, both in impressive eloquence and in original views, from the degeneracy and servility of that age, that the universal sentiment was, that one of the bold, pure “spirits of the fervent days of old,” had come back to call Judah from foreign servitude, to the long remembered glories of the reigns of David and Solomon. But his chosen ones, who had by repeated instruction, as well as long acquaintance, better learned their Master, though still far from appreciating his true character and designs, had yet a higher and juster idea of him, than the unenlightened multitudes who had been amazed by his deeds. To draw from them the distinct acknowledgment of their belief in him, Jesus at last plainly asked his disciples, “But who do ye say that I am?” Simon Peter, in his usual character as spokesman, replied for the whole band, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus, recognizing in this prompt answer, the fiery and devoted spirit that would follow the great work of redemption through life, and at last to death, replied to the zealous speaker in terms of marked and exalted honor, prophesying at the same time the high part which he would act in spreading and strengthening the kingdom of his Master: “Blessed art thou, Simon, son of Jonah,for flesh and blood have not revealed this unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, that thou art aROCK, and on thisrockI will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven.” In such high terms was the chief apostle distinguished, and thus did his Master peculiarly commission him above the rest, for the high office, to which all the energies of his remaining life were to be devoted.
HIS DECLARATION OF CHRIST’S DIVINITY.
Journeying on northward, Jesus came into the neighborhood of♦Caesarea Philippi, and while he was there in some solitary place, praying alone with his select disciples, at the conclusion of his prayer, he asked them, “Who do men say that I, the son of man, am?” And they answered him, “Some say that thou art John the Baptist:” Herod, in particular, we know, had this notion; “some, that thou art Elijah, and others that thou art Jeremiah, or one of the prophets, that is risen again.” So peculiar was his doctrine, and so far removed was he, both in impressive eloquence and in original views, from the degeneracy and servility of that age, that the universal sentiment was, that one of the bold, pure “spirits of the fervent days of old,” had come back to call Judah from foreign servitude, to the long remembered glories of the reigns of David and Solomon. But his chosen ones, who had by repeated instruction, as well as long acquaintance, better learned their Master, though still far from appreciating his true character and designs, had yet a higher and juster idea of him, than the unenlightened multitudes who had been amazed by his deeds. To draw from them the distinct acknowledgment of their belief in him, Jesus at last plainly asked his disciples, “But who do ye say that I am?” Simon Peter, in his usual character as spokesman, replied for the whole band, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus, recognizing in this prompt answer, the fiery and devoted spirit that would follow the great work of redemption through life, and at last to death, replied to the zealous speaker in terms of marked and exalted honor, prophesying at the same time the high part which he would act in spreading and strengthening the kingdom of his Master: “Blessed art thou, Simon, son of Jonah,for flesh and blood have not revealed this unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, that thou art aROCK, and on thisrockI will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven.” In such high terms was the chief apostle distinguished, and thus did his Master peculiarly commission him above the rest, for the high office, to which all the energies of his remaining life were to be devoted.
♦“Cesarea” replaced with “Caesarea”
♦“Cesarea” replaced with “Caesarea”
♦“Cesarea” replaced with “Caesarea”
Who do men say that I am.——The common English translation, here makes a gross grammatical blunder, putting the relative in the objective case,——“Whomdo men say,”&c.(Matthewxvi.13–15.) It is evident that on inverting the order, putting the relative last instead of first, it will be in the nominative,——“Men say that I am who?” making, in short, a nominative after the verb, though it here comes before it by the inversion which the relative requires. Here again the blunder may be traced to a heedless copying of the Vulgate. In Latin, as in Greek, the relative is given in the accusative, and very properly, because it is followed by the infinitive. “Quem dicunt homines esse Filium hominis?” which literally is, “Whom do men say the son of man to be?”——a very correct form of expression; but the blunder of our translators was, in preserving the accusative, while they changed the verb, from the infinitive to the finite form; for “whom” cannot be governed by “say.” Hammond has passed over the blunder; but Campbell, Thomson, and Webster, have corrected it.
Son of Man.——This expression has acquired a peculiarly exalted sense in our minds, in consequence of its repeated application to Jesus Christ, and its limitation to him, in the New Testament. But in those days it had no meaning by which it could be considered expressive of any peculiar characteristic of the Savior, being a mere general emphatic expression for the common word “man,” used in solemn address or poetical expressions. Both in the Old and New Testament it is many times applied to men in general, and to particular individuals, in such a way as to show that it was only an elegant periphrasis for the common term, without implying any peculiar importance in the person thus designated, or referring to any peculiar circumstance as justifying this appellative in that case. Any concordance will show how commonly the word occurred in this connection. The diligent Butterworth enumerates eighty-nine times in which this word is applied to Ezekiel, in whose book of prophecy it occurs oftener than in any other book in the Bible. It is also applied to Daniel, in the address of the angel to him, as to Ezekiel; and in consideration of the vastly more frequent occurrence of the expression in the writers after the captivity, and its exclusive use by them as a formula of solemn address, it has been commonly considered as having been brought into this usage among the Hebrews, from the dialects of Chaldea and Syria, where it was much more common. In Syriac, more particularly, the simple expression, “man,” is entirely banished from use by this solemn periphrasis,(‡ Syriac word)(bar-nosh,) “SON OF MAN,” which every where takes the place of the original direct form. It should be noticed also, that in every place in the Old Testament where this expression (“son of man”) occurs, before Ezekiel, the former part of the sentence invariably contains the direct form of expression, (“man,”) and this periphrasis is given in the latter part of every such sentence, for the sake of a poetical repetition of the same idea in a slightly different form. Take, for instance, Psalmviii.4, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?” And exactly so in every other passage anterior to Ezekiel, as Numbersxxiii.19, Jobxxv.16,xxxv.8, Isaiahli.12,lvi.2, and several other passages, to which any good concordance will direct the reader.
The New Testament writers too, apply this expression in other ways than as a name of Jesus Christ. It is given as a mere periphrasis, entirely synonymous with “man,” in a general or abstract sense, without reference to any particular individual, in Markiii.28, (compare Matthewxii.13, where the simple expression “men” is given,)Hebrewsii.6, (a mere translation of Psalmviii.4,) Ephesiansiii.5, Revelationi.13,xiv.14. In the peculiar emphatic limitation to which this note refers, it is applied by Jesus Christ to himself about eighty times in the gospels, but is never used by any other person in the New Testament, as a name of the Savior, except by Stephen, in Acts,vii.56. It never occurs in this sense in the apostolic epistles. (Bretschneider.) For this use of the word, I should not think it necessary to seek any mystical or important reason, as so many have done, nor can I see that in its application to Jesus, it has any very direct reference to the circumstance of his having, though divine, put on a human nature, but simply a nobly modest and strikingly emphatic form of expression used by him, in speaking of his own exalted character and mighty plans, and partly to avoid the too frequent repetition of the personal pronoun. It is at once evident that this indirect form, in the third person, is both more dignified and modest in solemn address, than the use of the first person singular of the pronoun. Exactly similar to this are many forms of circumlocution with which we are familiar. The presiding officer of any great deliberative assembly, for instance, in announcing his own decision on points of order, by a similar periphrasis, says “The chair decides,”&c.In fashionable forms of intercourse, such instances are still more frequent. In many books, where the writer has occasion to speak of himself, he speaks in the third person, “the author,”&c.; as in an instance close at hand, in this book it will be noticed, that where it is necessary for me to allude to myself in thetextof the work, which, of course, is more elevated in its tone than thenotes, I speak, according to standard forms of scriptorial propriety, in the third person, as “the author,”&c.; while here, in these small discussions, which break in on the more dignified narrative, I find it at once more convenient and proper, to use the more familiar and simple forms of♦expression.
♦“expresssion” replaced with “expression”
♦“expresssion” replaced with “expression”
♦“expresssion” replaced with “expression”
This periphrasis (“son of”) is not peculiar to oriental languages, as every Greek scholar knows, who is familiar with Homer’s common expressionυιες Αχαιων, (uies Akhaion,) “sons of Grecians,” instead of “Grecians” simply, which by a striking coincidence, occurs in Joelxiii.6, in the same sense. Other instances might be needlessly♦multiplied.
♦“multipled” replaced with “multiplied”
♦“multipled” replaced with “multiplied”
♦“multipled” replaced with “multiplied”
Thou art a Rock,&c.——This is the just translation of Peter’s name, and the force of the declaration is best understood by this rendering. As it stands in the original, it is “Thou artΠετρος, (Petros, ‘a rock,’) and on thisΠετρα(Petra, ‘a rock’) I will build my church,”——a play on the words so palpable, that great injustice is done to its force by a common tame, unexplained translation. The variation of the words in the Greek, from the masculine to the feminine termination, makes no difference in the expression. In the Greek Testament, the feminineπετρα(petra) is the only form of the word used as the common noun for “rock,” but the masculineπετρος(petros) is used in the most finished classic writers of the ancient Greek, of the Ionic, Doric and Attic, as Homer, Herodotus, Pindar, Xenophon, and, in the later order of writers, Diodorus Siculus.
H. Stephens gives the masculine form as the primitive, but Schneider derives it from the feminine.
After this distinct profession of faith in him, by his disciples, through Peter, Jesus particularly and solemnly charged them all, that they should not, then, assert their belief to others, lest they should thereby be drawn into useless and unfortunate contests about their Master, with those who entertained a very different opinion of him. For Jesus knew that his disciples, shackled and possessed as they were with their fantasies about the earthly reign of a Messiah, were not, as yet, sufficiently prepared to preach this doctrine: and wisely foresaw that the mass of the Jewish people would either put no faith at all in such an announcement, or that the ill disposed and ambitious would abuse it, to the purposes of effecting a political revolution, by raising a rebellion against the Roman rulers of Palestine, and oversetting foreign power. Hehad, it is true, already sent forth his twelve apostles, to preach the coming of the kingdom, (Matthewx.7,) but that was only to the effect that the time of the Messiah’s reign was nigh,——that the lives and hearts of all must be changed,——all which the apostles might well preach, without pretending to announce who the Messiah was.HIS AMBITIOUS HOPES AND THEIR HUMILIATION.This avowal of Peter’s belief that Jesus was the Messiah, to which the other apostles gave their assent, silent or loud, was so clear and hearty, that Jesus plainly perceived their persuasion of his divine authority to be so strong, that they might now bear a decisive and open explanation of those things which he had hitherto rather darkly and dimly hinted at, respecting his own death. He also at this time, brought out the full truth the more clearly as to the miseries which hung over him, and his expected death, with the view the more effectually to overthrow those false notions which they had preconceived of earthly happiness and triumph, to be expected in the Messiah’s kingdom; and with the view, also, of preparing them for the events which must shortly happen; lest, after they saw him nailed to the cross, they should all at once lose their high hopes, and utterly give him up. He knew too, that he had such influence with his disciples, that if their minds were shocked, and their faith in him shaken, at first, by such a painful disclosure, he could soon bring them back to a proper confidence in him. Accordingly, from this time, he began distinctly to set forth to them, how he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. There is much room for reasonable doubt, as to the manner in which those who heard this declaration of Christ, understood it at the time. As to the former part of it, namely, that he would be ill-treated by the great men of the Jewish nation, both by those ruling in the civil and religious government, it was too plain for any one to put any but the right meaning upon it. But the promise that he should, after this horrible fate, rise again from the dead on the third day, did not, as it is evident, by any means convey to them the meaning which all who read it now, are able to find in it. Nothing can be more plain to a careful reader of the gospels, than that his disciples and friends had not the slightest expectation that he would ever appear to them after his cruel death; and the mingled horror and dread with which the first news of that event was received bythem, shows them to have been utterly unprepared for it. It required repeated positive demonstration, on his part, to assure them that he was truly alive among them, in his own form and character. The question then is——what meaning had they all along given to the numerous declarations uttered by him to them, apparently foretelling this, in the distinct terms, of which the above passage is a specimen? Had they understood it as we do, and yet so absolutely disbelieved it, that they put no faith in the event itself, when it had so palpably occurred? And had they, for months and years, followed over Palestine, through labors, and troubles, and dangers, a man, who, as they supposed, was boldly endeavoring to saddle their credulity with a burden too monstrous for even them to bear? They must, from the nature of their connection with him, have put the most unlimited confidence in him, and could not thus devotedly have given themselves up to a man whom they believed or suspected to be constantly uttering to them a falsehood so extravagant and improbable. They must, then, have put some meaning on it, different from that which our clearer light enables us to see in it; and that meaning, no doubt, they honestly and firmly believed, until the progress of events showed them the power of the prophecy in its wonderful and literal fulfilment. They may have misunderstood it in his life time, in this way: the universal character of the language of the children of Shem, seems to be a remarkable proneness to figurative expressions, and the more abstract the ideas which the speaker wishes to convey, the more strikingly material are the figures he uses, and the more poetical the language in which he conveys them. Teachers of morals and religion, most especially, have, among those nations of the east, been always distinguished for their highly figurative expressions, and none abound more richly in them than the writers of the Old and New Testament. So peculiarly effective, for his great purposes, did Jesus Christ, in particular, find this variety of eloquence, that it is distinctly said of him, that he seldom or never spoke to the people without a parable, which he was often obliged to expound more in detail, to his chosen followers, when apart with them. This style of esoteric and exoteric instruction, had early taught his disciples to look into his most ordinary expressions for a hidden meaning; and what can be more likely than that often, when left to their own conjectures, they, for a time, at least, overleaped the simple literal truth, into a fog of figurative interpretations, as too many of their very modern successorshave often done, to their own and others’ misfortune. We certainly know that, in regard to those very expressions about raising the dead, there was a very earnest inquiry among the three chief apostles, some time after, as will be mentioned in place, showing that it never seemed possible to them that their Lord, mighty as he had showed himself, could ever mean to say to them, that, when his bitter foes had crowned his life of toil and cares with a bloody and cruel exit, he——evenHe, could dare to promise them, that he would break through that iron seal, which, when once set upon the energies of man, neither goodness, nor valor, nor knowledge, nor love, had ever loosened, but which, since the first dead yielded his breath, not the mightiest prophet, nor the most inspired, could ever break through for himself. The figure of death and resurrection, has often been made a striking image of many moral changes;——of some one of which, the hearers of Jesus probably first interpreted it. In connection with what he had previously said, nothing could seem more natural to them, than that he, by this peculiarly strong metaphor, wished to remind them that, even after his death, by the envious and cruel hands of Jewish magistrates, over but a few days, his name, the ever fresh influence of his bright and holy example——the undying powers of his breathing and burning words, should still live with them, and with them triumph after the momentary struggles of the enemies of the truth.The manner, also, in which Simon Peter received this communication, shows that he could not have anticipated so glorious and dazzling a result of such horrible evils: for, however literally he may have taken the prophecy of Christ’s cruel death, he used all his powers to dissuade his adored master from exposing himself to a fate so dark and dreadful,——so sadly destructive of all the new-born hopes of his chosen followers, and from which the conclusion of the prophecy seemed to offer no clear or certain mode of escape. Never before, had Jesus spoken in such plain and decided terms, about the prospect of his own terrible death. Peter, whose heart had just been lifted up to the skies with joy and hope, in the prospect of the glorious triumphs to be achieved by his Lord through his means, and whose thoughts were even then dwelling on the honors, the power, the fame, which were to accrue to him for his share in the splendid work,——was shocked beyond measure, at the strange and seemingly contradictory view of the results, now taken by his great leader. With the confidentfamiliarity to which their mutual love and intimacy entitled him, in some measure, he laid his hand expostulatingly upon him, and drew him partly aside, to urge him privately to forget thoughts of despondency, so unworthy of the great enterprise of Israel’s restoration, to which they had all so manfully pledged themselves as his supporters. We may presume, that he, in a tone of encouragement, endeavored to show him how impossible it would be for the dignitaries of Jerusalem to withstand the tide of popularity which had already set so strongly in favor of Jesus; that so far from looking upon himself as in danger of a death so infamous, from the Sanhedrim, he might, at the head of the hosts of his zealous Galileans, march as a conqueror to Jerusalem, and thence give laws from the throne of his father David, to all the wide territories of that far-ruling king. Such dreams of earthly glory seemed to have filled the soul of Peter at that time; and we cannot wonder, then, that every ambitious feeling within him recoiled at the gloomy announcement, that the idol of his hopes was to end his days of unrequited toil, by a death so infamous as that of the cross. “Be it far from thee, Lord,” “God forbid,” “Do not say so,” “Do not thus damp our courage and high hopes,” “This must not happen to thee.”——Jesus, on hearing these words of ill-timed rebuke, which showed how miserably his chief follower had been infatuated and misled, by his foolish and carnal ambition, turned away indignantly from the low and degraded motives, by which Peter sought to bend him from his holy purposes. Not looking upon him, but upon the other disciples, who had kept their feelings of regret and disappointment to themselves, he, in the most energetic terms, expressed his abhorrence of such notions, by his language to the speaker. “Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art a scandal to me; for thou savorest not the things which be of God, but the things which be of men. In these fervent aspirations after eminence, I recognize none of the pure devotion to the good of man, which is the sure test of the love of God; but the selfish desire for transient, paltry distinction, which characterizes the vulgar ambition of common men, enduring no toil or pain, but in the hope of a more than equal earthly reward speedily accruing.” After this stern reply, which must have strongly impressed them all with the nature of the mistake of which they had been guilty, he addressed them still further, in continuation of the same design, of correcting their false notion of the earthly advantages to be expected by hiscompanions in toil. He immediately gave them a most untempting picture of the character and conduct of him, who could be accepted as a fit fellow-worker with Jesus. “If any one wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and let him take up his cross, (as if we should say, let him come with his halter around his neck, and with the gibbet on his shoulder,) and follow me. For whosoever shall save his life for my sake, shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake, shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain thewhole world, and lose his own soul? For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels; andTHEN, he shallrewardevery man according to his works.” “I solemnly tell you, there are some standing here who shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”——“In vain would you, in pursuit of your idle dreams of earthly glory, yield up all the powers of your soul, and spend your life for an object so worthless. After all, what is there in all the world, if you should have the whole at your disposal——what, for the momentary enjoyment of which, you can calmly pay down your soul as the price? Seek not, then, for rewards so unworthy of the energies which I have recognized in you, and have devoted to far nobler purposes. Higher honors will crown your toils and sufferings, in my service;——nobler prizes are seen near, with the eye of faith. Speedily will the frail monuments of this world’s wonders crumble, and the memory of its greatnesses pass away; but over the ruins of kingdoms, the coming of theManto whom you have joined yourselves is sure, and in that triumphant advent, you shall find the imperishable requital of your faithful and zealous works. And of the nature and aspect of the glories which I now so dimly shadow in words, some of those who now hear me shall soon be the living witnesses, as of a foretaste of rewards, whose full enjoyment can be yours, only after the weariness and misery of this poor life are all passed. Years of toil, dangers, pain, and sorrow,——lives passed in contempt and disgrace,——deaths of ignominy, of unpitied anguish, and lingering torture, must be your passage to the joys of which I speak; while the earthly honors which you now covet, shall for ages continue to be the prize of the base, the cruel, and the foolish, from whom you vainly hope to snatch them.”THE TRANSFIGURATION.The mysterious promise thus made by Jesus, of a new andpeculiar exhibition of himself, to some of his chosen ones, he soon sought an occasion of executing. About six or eight days after this remarkable conversation, he took Peter, and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, and went with them up into a high mountain, apart by themselves. As to the name and place of this mountain, a matter of some interest certainly, there have been two opinions among those who have attempted to illustrate the topography of the gospels. The phrase, “a high mountain,” has instantly brought to the thoughts of most learned readers, Mount Tabor, famous for several great events in Bible history, which they have instantly adopted, without considering the place in which the previous account had left Jesus, which was Caesarea Philippi; hereafter described as in the farthest northern part of Galilee. Now, Mount Tabor, however desirable in other particulars, as the scene of a great event in the life of Jesus, was full seventy miles south of the place where Jesus had the conversation with his disciples, which led to the remarkable display which followed a few days after, on the mountain. It is true, that the intervening period of a week, was sufficient to enable him to travel this distance with ease; but the difficulty is, to assign some possible necessity or occasion for such a journey. Certainly, he needed not to have gone thus far to find a mountain, for Caesarea Philippi itself stands by the base of Paneas, which is a part of the great Syrian range of Antilibanus. This great mountain, or mountain chain, rises directly behind the city, and parts of it are so high above the peak of Tabor, or any other mountain in Palestine, as to be covered with snow, even in that warm country. The original readers of the gospel story, were dwellers in Palestine, and must have been, for the most part, well acquainted with the character of the places which were the scenes of the incidents, and could hardly have been ignorant of the fact, that this splendid city, so famous as the monument of royal vanity and munificence, was near the northern end of Palestine, and of course, must have been known even by those who had never seen it, nor heard it particularly described, to be very near the great Syrian mountains; so near too, as to be very high elevated above the cities of the southern country, since not far from the city gushed out the most distant sources of the rapid Jordan. But another difficulty, in respect to this journey of seventy miles to Tabor, is, that while the gospels give no account of it, it is even contradicted by Mark’s statement, that after departing from themountain, he passed through Galilee, and came to Capernaum, which is between Tabor and Caesarea Philippi, twenty or thirty miles from the former, and forty or fifty from the latter. Now, that Jesus Christ spared no exertion of body or mind, in “going about doing good,” no one can doubt; but that he would spend the strength devoted to useful purposes, in traveling from one end of Galilee to the other, for no greater good than to ascend a particular mountain, and then to travel thirty miles back on the same route, is a most unnecessary tax upon our faith. But here, close to Caesarea Philippi, was the mighty range of Antilibanus, known in Hebrew poetry by the name of Hermon in this part; andHe, whose presence made all places holy, could not have chosen, among all the mountains of Palestine, one which nature had better fitted to impress the beholder who stood on the summit, with ideas of the vast and sublime. Modern travelers assure us that, from the peaks behind the city, the view of the lower mountains to the south,——of the plain through which the young Jordan flows, soon spreading out into the broad sheet of lake Houle, (Samachonitis lacus,) and of the country, almost to lake Tiberias, is most magnificent. The precise peak which was the scene of the event here related, it is impossible to conjecture. It may have been any one of three which are prominent: either the castle hill, or, farther off and much higher, Mount Bostra, once the site of a city, or farther still, and highest of all, Merura Jubba, which is but a few hours walk from the city. The general impression of the vulgar, however, and of those who take the traditions of the vulgar and the ignorant, without examination, has been, that Tabor was the scene of the event, so that, at this day, it is known among the stupid Christians of Palestine, by the name of the Mount of the Transfiguration. So idly are these foolish local traditions received, that this falsehood, so palpable on inspection, has been quietly handed down from traveler to traveler, ever since the crusades, when hundreds of these and similar localities, were hunted up so hastily, and by persons so ill-qualified for the search, that more modern investigators may be pardoned for treating with so little consideration the voice ofsuchantiquity, when it is found opposed to a rational and consistent understanding of the gospel story. When the question was first asked, “Where is the mount of the transfiguration?” there were enough persons interested to reply, “Mount Tabor.” No reason was probably asked for the decision, and none was given; but as the scene was acted on ahigh mountain in Galilee, and as Tabor answered perfectly to this very simple description, and was moreover interesting on many other accounts, both historical and natural, it was adopted for the transfiguration without any discussion whatever, among those on the spot. Still, to learned and diligent readers of the gospels, the♦inconsistencies of such a belief have been so obvious, that many great theologians have decided, for the reasons here given, that the transfiguration must have taken place on some part of Mount Paneas, as it was called by the Greeks and Romans, known among the Jews, however, from the earliest times, by the far older name of MountHermon. On the determination of this point, more words have been expended than some may deem the matter to deserve; but among the various objects of the modern historian of Bible times, none is more important or interesting,♠than that of settling the often disputed topography of the sacred narrative; and as the ground here taken differs so widely from the almost universally received opinion, the minute reasons were loudly called for, in justification of the author’s boldness. The ancient blunders here detected, and shown to be based only upon a guess, is a very fair specimen of the way in which, in the moral as in the natural sciences, “they all copy from one another,” without taking pains to look into the truth of small matters. And it seems to show, moreover, how, when men of patient and zealous accuracy, have taken the greatest pains to expose and correct so causeless an error, common readers and writers too, will carelessly and lazily slip back into the old blunder, thus making the counsels of the learned of no effect, and loving darkness rather than light, error rather than exactness, because they are too shiftless to find a good reason for what is laid down before them as truth. But so it is. It is, and always has been, and always will be, so much easier for men to swallow whole, or reject whole, the propositions made to them, that the vast majority had much rather believe on other people’s testimony, than go through the harassing and tiresome task, of looking up the proofs for themselves. In this very instance, this important topographical blunder was fully exposed and corrected a century and a half ago, by Lightfoot, the greatest Hebrew scholar that ever lived; and we see how much wiser the world is for his pains.
After this distinct profession of faith in him, by his disciples, through Peter, Jesus particularly and solemnly charged them all, that they should not, then, assert their belief to others, lest they should thereby be drawn into useless and unfortunate contests about their Master, with those who entertained a very different opinion of him. For Jesus knew that his disciples, shackled and possessed as they were with their fantasies about the earthly reign of a Messiah, were not, as yet, sufficiently prepared to preach this doctrine: and wisely foresaw that the mass of the Jewish people would either put no faith at all in such an announcement, or that the ill disposed and ambitious would abuse it, to the purposes of effecting a political revolution, by raising a rebellion against the Roman rulers of Palestine, and oversetting foreign power. Hehad, it is true, already sent forth his twelve apostles, to preach the coming of the kingdom, (Matthewx.7,) but that was only to the effect that the time of the Messiah’s reign was nigh,——that the lives and hearts of all must be changed,——all which the apostles might well preach, without pretending to announce who the Messiah was.
HIS AMBITIOUS HOPES AND THEIR HUMILIATION.
This avowal of Peter’s belief that Jesus was the Messiah, to which the other apostles gave their assent, silent or loud, was so clear and hearty, that Jesus plainly perceived their persuasion of his divine authority to be so strong, that they might now bear a decisive and open explanation of those things which he had hitherto rather darkly and dimly hinted at, respecting his own death. He also at this time, brought out the full truth the more clearly as to the miseries which hung over him, and his expected death, with the view the more effectually to overthrow those false notions which they had preconceived of earthly happiness and triumph, to be expected in the Messiah’s kingdom; and with the view, also, of preparing them for the events which must shortly happen; lest, after they saw him nailed to the cross, they should all at once lose their high hopes, and utterly give him up. He knew too, that he had such influence with his disciples, that if their minds were shocked, and their faith in him shaken, at first, by such a painful disclosure, he could soon bring them back to a proper confidence in him. Accordingly, from this time, he began distinctly to set forth to them, how he must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. There is much room for reasonable doubt, as to the manner in which those who heard this declaration of Christ, understood it at the time. As to the former part of it, namely, that he would be ill-treated by the great men of the Jewish nation, both by those ruling in the civil and religious government, it was too plain for any one to put any but the right meaning upon it. But the promise that he should, after this horrible fate, rise again from the dead on the third day, did not, as it is evident, by any means convey to them the meaning which all who read it now, are able to find in it. Nothing can be more plain to a careful reader of the gospels, than that his disciples and friends had not the slightest expectation that he would ever appear to them after his cruel death; and the mingled horror and dread with which the first news of that event was received bythem, shows them to have been utterly unprepared for it. It required repeated positive demonstration, on his part, to assure them that he was truly alive among them, in his own form and character. The question then is——what meaning had they all along given to the numerous declarations uttered by him to them, apparently foretelling this, in the distinct terms, of which the above passage is a specimen? Had they understood it as we do, and yet so absolutely disbelieved it, that they put no faith in the event itself, when it had so palpably occurred? And had they, for months and years, followed over Palestine, through labors, and troubles, and dangers, a man, who, as they supposed, was boldly endeavoring to saddle their credulity with a burden too monstrous for even them to bear? They must, from the nature of their connection with him, have put the most unlimited confidence in him, and could not thus devotedly have given themselves up to a man whom they believed or suspected to be constantly uttering to them a falsehood so extravagant and improbable. They must, then, have put some meaning on it, different from that which our clearer light enables us to see in it; and that meaning, no doubt, they honestly and firmly believed, until the progress of events showed them the power of the prophecy in its wonderful and literal fulfilment. They may have misunderstood it in his life time, in this way: the universal character of the language of the children of Shem, seems to be a remarkable proneness to figurative expressions, and the more abstract the ideas which the speaker wishes to convey, the more strikingly material are the figures he uses, and the more poetical the language in which he conveys them. Teachers of morals and religion, most especially, have, among those nations of the east, been always distinguished for their highly figurative expressions, and none abound more richly in them than the writers of the Old and New Testament. So peculiarly effective, for his great purposes, did Jesus Christ, in particular, find this variety of eloquence, that it is distinctly said of him, that he seldom or never spoke to the people without a parable, which he was often obliged to expound more in detail, to his chosen followers, when apart with them. This style of esoteric and exoteric instruction, had early taught his disciples to look into his most ordinary expressions for a hidden meaning; and what can be more likely than that often, when left to their own conjectures, they, for a time, at least, overleaped the simple literal truth, into a fog of figurative interpretations, as too many of their very modern successorshave often done, to their own and others’ misfortune. We certainly know that, in regard to those very expressions about raising the dead, there was a very earnest inquiry among the three chief apostles, some time after, as will be mentioned in place, showing that it never seemed possible to them that their Lord, mighty as he had showed himself, could ever mean to say to them, that, when his bitter foes had crowned his life of toil and cares with a bloody and cruel exit, he——evenHe, could dare to promise them, that he would break through that iron seal, which, when once set upon the energies of man, neither goodness, nor valor, nor knowledge, nor love, had ever loosened, but which, since the first dead yielded his breath, not the mightiest prophet, nor the most inspired, could ever break through for himself. The figure of death and resurrection, has often been made a striking image of many moral changes;——of some one of which, the hearers of Jesus probably first interpreted it. In connection with what he had previously said, nothing could seem more natural to them, than that he, by this peculiarly strong metaphor, wished to remind them that, even after his death, by the envious and cruel hands of Jewish magistrates, over but a few days, his name, the ever fresh influence of his bright and holy example——the undying powers of his breathing and burning words, should still live with them, and with them triumph after the momentary struggles of the enemies of the truth.
The manner, also, in which Simon Peter received this communication, shows that he could not have anticipated so glorious and dazzling a result of such horrible evils: for, however literally he may have taken the prophecy of Christ’s cruel death, he used all his powers to dissuade his adored master from exposing himself to a fate so dark and dreadful,——so sadly destructive of all the new-born hopes of his chosen followers, and from which the conclusion of the prophecy seemed to offer no clear or certain mode of escape. Never before, had Jesus spoken in such plain and decided terms, about the prospect of his own terrible death. Peter, whose heart had just been lifted up to the skies with joy and hope, in the prospect of the glorious triumphs to be achieved by his Lord through his means, and whose thoughts were even then dwelling on the honors, the power, the fame, which were to accrue to him for his share in the splendid work,——was shocked beyond measure, at the strange and seemingly contradictory view of the results, now taken by his great leader. With the confidentfamiliarity to which their mutual love and intimacy entitled him, in some measure, he laid his hand expostulatingly upon him, and drew him partly aside, to urge him privately to forget thoughts of despondency, so unworthy of the great enterprise of Israel’s restoration, to which they had all so manfully pledged themselves as his supporters. We may presume, that he, in a tone of encouragement, endeavored to show him how impossible it would be for the dignitaries of Jerusalem to withstand the tide of popularity which had already set so strongly in favor of Jesus; that so far from looking upon himself as in danger of a death so infamous, from the Sanhedrim, he might, at the head of the hosts of his zealous Galileans, march as a conqueror to Jerusalem, and thence give laws from the throne of his father David, to all the wide territories of that far-ruling king. Such dreams of earthly glory seemed to have filled the soul of Peter at that time; and we cannot wonder, then, that every ambitious feeling within him recoiled at the gloomy announcement, that the idol of his hopes was to end his days of unrequited toil, by a death so infamous as that of the cross. “Be it far from thee, Lord,” “God forbid,” “Do not say so,” “Do not thus damp our courage and high hopes,” “This must not happen to thee.”——Jesus, on hearing these words of ill-timed rebuke, which showed how miserably his chief follower had been infatuated and misled, by his foolish and carnal ambition, turned away indignantly from the low and degraded motives, by which Peter sought to bend him from his holy purposes. Not looking upon him, but upon the other disciples, who had kept their feelings of regret and disappointment to themselves, he, in the most energetic terms, expressed his abhorrence of such notions, by his language to the speaker. “Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art a scandal to me; for thou savorest not the things which be of God, but the things which be of men. In these fervent aspirations after eminence, I recognize none of the pure devotion to the good of man, which is the sure test of the love of God; but the selfish desire for transient, paltry distinction, which characterizes the vulgar ambition of common men, enduring no toil or pain, but in the hope of a more than equal earthly reward speedily accruing.” After this stern reply, which must have strongly impressed them all with the nature of the mistake of which they had been guilty, he addressed them still further, in continuation of the same design, of correcting their false notion of the earthly advantages to be expected by hiscompanions in toil. He immediately gave them a most untempting picture of the character and conduct of him, who could be accepted as a fit fellow-worker with Jesus. “If any one wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and let him take up his cross, (as if we should say, let him come with his halter around his neck, and with the gibbet on his shoulder,) and follow me. For whosoever shall save his life for my sake, shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake, shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain thewhole world, and lose his own soul? For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels; andTHEN, he shallrewardevery man according to his works.” “I solemnly tell you, there are some standing here who shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”——“In vain would you, in pursuit of your idle dreams of earthly glory, yield up all the powers of your soul, and spend your life for an object so worthless. After all, what is there in all the world, if you should have the whole at your disposal——what, for the momentary enjoyment of which, you can calmly pay down your soul as the price? Seek not, then, for rewards so unworthy of the energies which I have recognized in you, and have devoted to far nobler purposes. Higher honors will crown your toils and sufferings, in my service;——nobler prizes are seen near, with the eye of faith. Speedily will the frail monuments of this world’s wonders crumble, and the memory of its greatnesses pass away; but over the ruins of kingdoms, the coming of theManto whom you have joined yourselves is sure, and in that triumphant advent, you shall find the imperishable requital of your faithful and zealous works. And of the nature and aspect of the glories which I now so dimly shadow in words, some of those who now hear me shall soon be the living witnesses, as of a foretaste of rewards, whose full enjoyment can be yours, only after the weariness and misery of this poor life are all passed. Years of toil, dangers, pain, and sorrow,——lives passed in contempt and disgrace,——deaths of ignominy, of unpitied anguish, and lingering torture, must be your passage to the joys of which I speak; while the earthly honors which you now covet, shall for ages continue to be the prize of the base, the cruel, and the foolish, from whom you vainly hope to snatch them.”
THE TRANSFIGURATION.
The mysterious promise thus made by Jesus, of a new andpeculiar exhibition of himself, to some of his chosen ones, he soon sought an occasion of executing. About six or eight days after this remarkable conversation, he took Peter, and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, and went with them up into a high mountain, apart by themselves. As to the name and place of this mountain, a matter of some interest certainly, there have been two opinions among those who have attempted to illustrate the topography of the gospels. The phrase, “a high mountain,” has instantly brought to the thoughts of most learned readers, Mount Tabor, famous for several great events in Bible history, which they have instantly adopted, without considering the place in which the previous account had left Jesus, which was Caesarea Philippi; hereafter described as in the farthest northern part of Galilee. Now, Mount Tabor, however desirable in other particulars, as the scene of a great event in the life of Jesus, was full seventy miles south of the place where Jesus had the conversation with his disciples, which led to the remarkable display which followed a few days after, on the mountain. It is true, that the intervening period of a week, was sufficient to enable him to travel this distance with ease; but the difficulty is, to assign some possible necessity or occasion for such a journey. Certainly, he needed not to have gone thus far to find a mountain, for Caesarea Philippi itself stands by the base of Paneas, which is a part of the great Syrian range of Antilibanus. This great mountain, or mountain chain, rises directly behind the city, and parts of it are so high above the peak of Tabor, or any other mountain in Palestine, as to be covered with snow, even in that warm country. The original readers of the gospel story, were dwellers in Palestine, and must have been, for the most part, well acquainted with the character of the places which were the scenes of the incidents, and could hardly have been ignorant of the fact, that this splendid city, so famous as the monument of royal vanity and munificence, was near the northern end of Palestine, and of course, must have been known even by those who had never seen it, nor heard it particularly described, to be very near the great Syrian mountains; so near too, as to be very high elevated above the cities of the southern country, since not far from the city gushed out the most distant sources of the rapid Jordan. But another difficulty, in respect to this journey of seventy miles to Tabor, is, that while the gospels give no account of it, it is even contradicted by Mark’s statement, that after departing from themountain, he passed through Galilee, and came to Capernaum, which is between Tabor and Caesarea Philippi, twenty or thirty miles from the former, and forty or fifty from the latter. Now, that Jesus Christ spared no exertion of body or mind, in “going about doing good,” no one can doubt; but that he would spend the strength devoted to useful purposes, in traveling from one end of Galilee to the other, for no greater good than to ascend a particular mountain, and then to travel thirty miles back on the same route, is a most unnecessary tax upon our faith. But here, close to Caesarea Philippi, was the mighty range of Antilibanus, known in Hebrew poetry by the name of Hermon in this part; andHe, whose presence made all places holy, could not have chosen, among all the mountains of Palestine, one which nature had better fitted to impress the beholder who stood on the summit, with ideas of the vast and sublime. Modern travelers assure us that, from the peaks behind the city, the view of the lower mountains to the south,——of the plain through which the young Jordan flows, soon spreading out into the broad sheet of lake Houle, (Samachonitis lacus,) and of the country, almost to lake Tiberias, is most magnificent. The precise peak which was the scene of the event here related, it is impossible to conjecture. It may have been any one of three which are prominent: either the castle hill, or, farther off and much higher, Mount Bostra, once the site of a city, or farther still, and highest of all, Merura Jubba, which is but a few hours walk from the city. The general impression of the vulgar, however, and of those who take the traditions of the vulgar and the ignorant, without examination, has been, that Tabor was the scene of the event, so that, at this day, it is known among the stupid Christians of Palestine, by the name of the Mount of the Transfiguration. So idly are these foolish local traditions received, that this falsehood, so palpable on inspection, has been quietly handed down from traveler to traveler, ever since the crusades, when hundreds of these and similar localities, were hunted up so hastily, and by persons so ill-qualified for the search, that more modern investigators may be pardoned for treating with so little consideration the voice ofsuchantiquity, when it is found opposed to a rational and consistent understanding of the gospel story. When the question was first asked, “Where is the mount of the transfiguration?” there were enough persons interested to reply, “Mount Tabor.” No reason was probably asked for the decision, and none was given; but as the scene was acted on ahigh mountain in Galilee, and as Tabor answered perfectly to this very simple description, and was moreover interesting on many other accounts, both historical and natural, it was adopted for the transfiguration without any discussion whatever, among those on the spot. Still, to learned and diligent readers of the gospels, the♦inconsistencies of such a belief have been so obvious, that many great theologians have decided, for the reasons here given, that the transfiguration must have taken place on some part of Mount Paneas, as it was called by the Greeks and Romans, known among the Jews, however, from the earliest times, by the far older name of MountHermon. On the determination of this point, more words have been expended than some may deem the matter to deserve; but among the various objects of the modern historian of Bible times, none is more important or interesting,♠than that of settling the often disputed topography of the sacred narrative; and as the ground here taken differs so widely from the almost universally received opinion, the minute reasons were loudly called for, in justification of the author’s boldness. The ancient blunders here detected, and shown to be based only upon a guess, is a very fair specimen of the way in which, in the moral as in the natural sciences, “they all copy from one another,” without taking pains to look into the truth of small matters. And it seems to show, moreover, how, when men of patient and zealous accuracy, have taken the greatest pains to expose and correct so causeless an error, common readers and writers too, will carelessly and lazily slip back into the old blunder, thus making the counsels of the learned of no effect, and loving darkness rather than light, error rather than exactness, because they are too shiftless to find a good reason for what is laid down before them as truth. But so it is. It is, and always has been, and always will be, so much easier for men to swallow whole, or reject whole, the propositions made to them, that the vast majority had much rather believe on other people’s testimony, than go through the harassing and tiresome task, of looking up the proofs for themselves. In this very instance, this important topographical blunder was fully exposed and corrected a century and a half ago, by Lightfoot, the greatest Hebrew scholar that ever lived; and we see how much wiser the world is for his pains.
♦“inconsistences” replaced with “inconsistencies”♠duplicate word “than” removed
♦“inconsistences” replaced with “inconsistencies”
♦“inconsistences” replaced with “inconsistencies”
♠duplicate word “than” removed
♠duplicate word “than” removed
Caesarea Philippi.——This city stood where all the common maps place it, in the farthest northern part of Palestine, just at the foot of the mountains, and near the fountain head of the Jordan. The name by which it is called in the gospels, is another instance, like Julias Bethsaida, of a compliment paid by the servile kings, ofthe divisions of Palestine, to their imperial masters, who had given, and who at any time could take away, crown and kingdom from them. The most ancient name by which this place is known to have been mentioned in the Hebrew scriptures, isLasha, in Genesisx.19, afterwards variously modified intoLeshem, (Joshuaxix.47,) andLaish, (Judgesxviii.7:xiv.29,) a name somewhat like the former in sound, though totally different in meaning, (לשםleshem, “a precious stone,” andלישlaish, “a lion,”) undoubtedly all three being from the same root, but variously modified in the changing pronunciations of different ages and tribes. In the earliest passage, (Genesisx.19,) it is clearly described as on the farthest northern limit of the land of Canaan, and afterwards, being conquered long after most of the cities of that region, by the tribe of Dan, and receiving the name of this tribe, as an addition to its former one, it became proverbially known under the name ofDan, as the farthest northern point of the land of Israel, as Beersheba was the southern one. It did not, however, lose its early Canaanitish name till long after, for, in Isaiahx.30, it is spoken of under the name of Laish, as the most distant part of Israel, to which the cry of the distressed could reach. It is also mentioned under its later name of Dan, in Genesisxiv.14, and Deuteronomyxxxiv.1, where it is given by the writer, or some copyist, in anticipation of the subsequent account of its acquiring this name after the conquest. Josephus also mentions it, under this name, in Antiquities booki.chapter 10, and bookviii.chapter 8, section 4, in both which places he speaks of it as standing at one of the sources of the Jordan, from which circumstance, no doubt, the latter part of the river’s name is derived. After the overthrow of the Israelitish power in that region, it fell into the hands of new possessors, and under the Greeks and Romans, went by the name of Panias, (Josephus and Ptolemy,) or Paneas, (Josephus and Pliny,) which name, according to Ptolemy, it had under the Phoenicians. This name, supposed to have been taken from the Phoenician name of the mountain near, Josephus gives to it, in all the later periods of his history, until he speaks of the occasion on which it received a new change of name.
Its commanding and remarkable position, on the extremity of Palestine, made it a frontier post of some importance; and it was therefore a desirable addition to the dominions of Herod the Great, who received it from his royal patron, Augustus Caesar, along with its adjacent region between Galilee and Trachonitis, after the death of Zenodorus, its former possessor. (Josephus Antiquities bookxv.chapter 10, section 3.) Herod the Great, out of gratitude for this princely addition to his dominions, at a time when attempts were made to deprive him of his imperial master’s favor, raised near this city, a noble monument to Augustus. (Josephus as above quoted.) “He built a monument to him, of white marble, in the land of Zenodorus, near Panium. There is a beautiful cave in the mountain, and beneath it there is a chasm in the earth, rugged, and of immense depth, full of still water, and over it hangs a vast mountain; and under the cave rise the springs of the Jordan. This place, already very famous, he adorned with the temple which he consecrated to Caesar.” A lofty temple of white marble, on such a high spot, contrasted with the dark rocks of the mountain and cave around, must have been a splendid object in the distance, and a place of frequent resort.
This city, along with the adjacent provinces, after the death of the first Herod, was given to his son Philip, made tetrarch of Iturea and Trachonitis. This prince, out of gratitude to the royal donor, at the same time when he rebuilt and repaired Bethsaida, as already mentioned, “also embellished Paneas, at the fountains of the Jordan, and gave it the name of Caesarea.” (Josephus Antiquities bookxviii.chapter 2, section 1, also Jewish War, bookii.chapter 9, section 1,) and to distinguish it from other Caesareas, hereafter to be mentioned, it was called from the name of its royal builder, Caesarea Philippi, that is, “the Caesarea of Philip.” By this name it was most commonly known in the time of Christ; but it did not answer the end of perpetuating the name of its builder and his patron, for it shortly afterwards recovered its former name, Paneas, which, probably, never went wholly out of use. As late as the time of Pliny, (about A. D. 70,) Paneas was a part of the name of Caesarea.Fons Paneas, qui cognomen dedit Caesareae, “the fountain Paneas, which gave to Caesarea a surname.” (Pliny Natural History bookv.chapter 15,) which shows, that at that time, the name Paneas was one, by which even foreign geographers recognized this city, in spite of the imperial dignity of its new title. Eusebius, (about A. D. 315,) speaks of “Caesarea Philippi, which the Phoenicians call Paneas, at the foot of mount Panium.” (Φιλιππου Καισαρεια ἡν Πανεαδα Θοινικες προσαγορευσι,&c.Church History bookvii.chapter 17.) Jerome, (about A. D. 392,) never mentions the name Caesarea Philippi, as belongingto this city, except in commenting on Matthewxvi.13, where he finds it necessary to explain this name, as an antiquated term, then out of use.Caesaream Philippi, quaeNUNCdicitur Paneas, “Caesarea Philippi, which isnowcalled Paneas;” and in all the other places where he has occasion to mention the place, he gives it only the name of Paneas. Thus, in commenting on Amosviii.14, he says, “Dan, on the boundary of the Jewish territory, wherenowis Paneas.” And on Jeremiahiv.15,——“The tribe Dan, near mount Lebanon, and the city which isnowcalled Paneas,”&c.——See also commentary on Danielxiii.16.
After the death of Philip, this city, along with the rest of his dominions, was presented by Cains Caligula to Agrippa, who added still farther to the improvements made by Philip, more particularly ornamenting the Panium, or famous source of the Jordan, near the city, as Josephus testifies. (Jewish War, bookiii.chapter 9, section 7.) “The natural beauty of the Panium, moreover, was still more highly adorned (προσεξησκηται) with royal magnificence, being embellished by the wealth of Agrippa.” This king also attempted to perpetuate the name of one of his imperial patrons, in connection with the city, calling itNeronias, in honor of one who is well enough known without this aid. (Josephus Antiquities bookxx.chapter 8, section 3.) The perfectly transient character of this idle appellation, is abundantly shown from the preceding copious quotations.
The city, now called Banias, (notBelinas, as Wahl erroneously says,) has been visited and examined in modern times by several travelers, of whom, none has described it more minutely than Burckhardt. His account of the mountains around the city, so finely illustrates my description of the scene of the transfiguration, that I extract largely from it here. In order to appreciate the description fully, it must be understood thatHeishis now the general Arabic name for the mountain chain, which was by ancient authors variously called Lebanon, Libanus, Anti-Libanus, Hermon, and Panium; for all these names have been given to the mountain-range, on whose slope Caesarea Philippi, or Paneas, stood.
“The district of Banias is classic ground; it is the ancientCaesarea Philippi; the lake Houle, is theLacus Samachonitis. Immediately after my arrival, I took a man of the village to shew me the way to the ruined castle of Banias, which bears East by South from it. It stands on the top of a mountain, which forms part of the mountain of Heish, at an hour and a quarter from Banias; it is now in complete ruins, but was once a very strong fortress. Its whole circumference is twenty-five minutes. It is surrounded by a wall ten feet thick, flanked with numerous round towers, built with equal blocks of stone, each about two feet square. The keep, or citadel, seems to have been on the highest summit, on the eastern side, where the walls are stronger than on the lower, or western side. The view from thence over the Houle and a part of its lake, the Djebel Safad, and the barren Heish, is magnificent. On the western side, within the precincts of the castle, are ruins of many private habitations. At both the western corners, runs a succession of dark, strongly built, low apartments, like cells, vaulted, and with small narrow loop holes, as if for musquetry. On this side also, is a well more than twenty feet square, walled in, with a vaulted roof at least twenty-five feet high; the well was, even in this dry season, full of water: there are three others in the castle. There are many apartments and recesses in the castle, which could only be exactly described by a plan of the whole building. It seems to have been erected during the period of the crusades, and must certainly have been a very strong hold to those who possessed it. I could discover no traces of a road or paved way leading up the mountain to it. In winter time, the shepherds of the Felahs of the Heish, who encamp upon the mountains, pass the night in the castle with their cattle.
“Banias is situated at the foot of the Heish, in the plain, which in the immediate vicinity of Banias is not called Ard Houle, but Ard Banias. It contains about one hundred and fifty houses, inhabited mostly by Turks: there are also Greeks, Druses, and Enzairie. It belongs to Hasbeya, whose Emir nominates the Sheikh. On the north-east side of the village, is the source of the river of Banias, which empties itself into the Jordan at the distance of an hour and a half, in the plain below. Over the source is a perpendicular rock, in which several niches have been cut to receive statues. The largest niche is above a spacious cavern, under which the river rises. This niche is six feet broad and as much in depth, and has a smaller niche in the bottom of it. Immediately above it, in the perpendicular face of the rock, is another niche, adorned with pilasters, supporting a shell ornament.
“Round the source of the river are a number of hewn stones. The stream flowson the north side of the village, where is a well built bridge, and some remains of the ancient town, the principal part of which seems, however, to have been on the opposite side of the river, where the ruins extend for a quarter of an hour from the bridge. No walls remain, but great quantities of stones and architectural fragments are scattered about.
“I went to see the ruins of the ancient city of Bostra, of which the people spoke much. Bostra must not be confounded with Boszra, in the Haouran; both places are mentioned in the Books of Moses. The way to the ruins lies for an hour and a half in the road by which I came from Rasheyat-el-Fukhar, it then ascends for three quarters of an hour a steep mountain to the right, on the top of which is the city; it is divided into two parts, the largest being upon the very summit, the smaller at ten minutes walk lower down, and resembling a suburb to the upper part. Traces are still visible of a paved way that had connected the two divisions. There is scarcely any thing in the ruins worth notice; they consist of the foundations of private habitations, built of moderate sized square stones. The lower city is about twelve minutes walk in circumference; a part of the four walls of one building only remains entire; in the midst of the ruins was a well, at this time dried up. The circuit of the upper city may be about twenty minutes; in it are the remains of several buildings. In the highest part is a heap of wrought stones, of larger dimensions than the rest, which seem to indicate that some public building had once stood on the spot. There are several columns of one foot, and of one foot and a half in diameter. In two different places, a short column was standing in the centre of a round paved area of about ten feet in diameter. There is likewise a deep well, walled in, but now dry.
“The country around these ruins is very capable of cultivation. Near the lower city are groups of olive trees.
“I descended the mountain in the direction towards the source of the Jordan, and passed, at the foot of it, the miserable village of Kerwaya. Behind the mountain of Bostra is another, still higher, called Djebel Meroura Djoubba.” [Burckhardt’s Syria,pp.37–42.]
From Conder’s Modern Traveler I also draw a sketch of other travelers’ observations on the place and the surrounding country.
“Burckhardt, in coming from Damascus, pursued the more direct route taken by the caravans, which crosses the Jordan at Jacob’s Bridge. Captains Irby and Mangles left this road at Khan Sasa, and passed to the westward for Panias, thus striking between the road to Acre, and that by Raschia and Hasbeya. The first part of the road from Sasa, led through a fine plain, watered by a pretty, winding rivulet, with numerous tributary streams, and many old ruined mills. It then ascended over a very rugged and rocky soil, quite destitute of vegetation, having in some places traces of an ancient paved way, ‘probably the Roman road from Damascus to Caesarea Philippi.’ The higher part of Djebel Sheikh was seen on the right. The road became less stony, and the shrubs increased in number, size and beauty, as they descended into a rich little plain, at the immediate foot of the mountain. ‘From this plain,’ continues captain M., ‘we ascended, and, after passing a very small village, saw on our left, close to us, a very picturesque lake, apparently perfectly circular, of little more than a mile in circumference, surrounded on all sides by sloping hills, richly wooded. On quitting Phiala, at but a short distance from it, we crossed a stream which discharges into the larger one which we first saw: the latter we followed for a considerable distance; and then, mounting a hill to the south-west, had in view the great Saracenic castle, near Panias, the town of that name, and the plain of the Jordan, as far as the Lake Houle, with the mountains on the other side of the plain, forming altogether a finecoup d’œil. As we descended towards Panias, we found the country extremely beautiful. Great quantities of wild flowers, and a variety of shrubs, just budding, together with the richness of the verdure, grass, corn and beans, showed us, all at once, the beauties of spring, (February 24,) and conducted us into a climate quite different from Damascus. In the evening we entered Panias, crossing a causeway constructed over the rivulet, which flows from the foot of Djebel Sheikh. The river here rushes over great rocks in a very picturesque manner, its banks being covered with shrubs and the ruins of ancient walls.’
“Panias, afterwards called Caesarea Philippi, has resumed its ancient name. The present town of Banias is small. Seetzen describes it as a little hamlet of about twenty miserable huts, inhabited by Mahomedans. The ‘Castle of Banias’ is situated on the summit of a lofty mountain: it was built, Seetzen says, without giving his authority, in the time of the caliphs.” [Modern TravelerVol. I.pp.353–6.]
The distance, in time, from Mount Tabor to Caesarea Philippi, may be conceived from the account given by Ebn Haukal, an Arabian geographer and traveler of the tenth century. He says “from Tibertheh (Tiberias, which is near Tabor) toSur, (Tyre,) is one day’s journey; and from that toBanias, (Paneas,) is two day’s easy journey.” [Sir W. Ouseley’s translation of Ebn Haukal’s Geography,pp.48, 49.]