Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/494

 GEOGRAPHY

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GEOGRAPHY

climate is tropical: harvesting, indeed, begins there in the first days of April. During the winter months, the temperature is warm in the daytime, and may fall at night to 40°; in summer the thermometer may rise in the day to 120° or 140°, and little relief may be expected from the night. "The vallej' concentrates the full radiance of an eastern sun rarely mitigated by any cloud, though chilled at times by the icy north winds off the snows of Lebanon and Hermon; it is parched by the south wind from the deserts of the South, yet sheltered from the moist sea breezes from the West that elsewhere so greatly temper the climate of the Holy Land" (Aids to the Bible Student). The flora and fauna of llie lowest portions are accordingly similar to those of India and Ethiopia. The coast of the Dead Sea, simken deeper than the Ghor, has a deadly equatorial climate, perhaps the hottest in the world.

These orographic, hydrographic and climatic con- ditions of the Holy Land explain the variety — won- derful, if we consider the size of the country — of its fauna and flora. It is " a good land. . . . A land of wheat, and barley, and vine3'ards, wherein fig trees, and pomegranates, and oliveyards grow: a land of oil and honey, \\here without any want thou shalt eat thy bread, and enjoy abundance of all things" (Deut., viii, 7-9). Palestine, indeed, even now, but much more so in Biblical times, may be said fairly to repay the labour of its inhabitants. The north, on both sides of the Jordan, is a most fertile region; the plains of Esdrelon and of Saron (A.V. Sharon, except in Acts, ix, 3.5), the Sephelah and the Ghor were at all times considered the granaries of the country. Even the land of Juda contains rich and pleasant dales, an ideal home for garrlens, olive-groves, vineyards, and fig trees; and the high country, with the exception of the sun-baked and wind-parched desert, affords goodly pastures. (See Animals in the Bible; Plants in the Bible.)

Palestine seems to have been inhabited about the fourth millennium B. c. by a population which may be called, without insisting upon the meaning of the word, aboriginal. This population is designated in the Bible by the general name of Nephilim, a word which, for the Hebrews, conveyed the idea of dreadful, monstrous giants (Num., xiii, 33, 34). We hear oc- casionally of them also as Rephaini, Enacim, Emim, Zuzim, Zamzovimim, and Horites, these last, whose name means "cave-dwellers", being confined to the deserts of Iduma?a. But what were the ethnological relations of these various peoples, we are not able to state. At any rate, the land must have been thinly inhabited in those early times, for about 3000 B.C. it was styled by the Egyptians "an empty land". To- wards the third millennium B.C., a first Semitic Canaan- ite element invaded Palestine, followed, about the twenty-fifth century, by a great Semitic migration of peoples coming from the marshes of the Persian Gulf, and which were to constitute the bulk of the popula- tion of Canaan before the occupation of the land by the Hebrews. From the twentieth century B.C. on- wards, Aram continued to pour on the land some of its peoples. Palestine hiiil thus, at the time of Abraham, become thickly inhabited; its many cities, united by no bond of political cohesion, were then moving in tlie wake of the rtilers of Babylon or Susa, although the influence of I'.gypt, fostered by active commercial communications, is manifest in the Canaanite civiliza- tion of lli.-il |icriocl. As a result of the battle of Megidcio, the Lund of Canaan was lost to Babylon and addefl to the possessions of Egypt; but this change had little elTect on the internal conditions of the coun- try; administrative reports continued to be written, and business transacted, in the Canana-o-Assyrian dialect, as is shown from the Tell el-Amarna and the Ta'annak discoveries. About the same epoch the Hethites came in from the North and some of their

settlements were established as far south as the valley of Juda, while the Amorrhites were taking hold of the trans-Jordanic highland. Speaking generally, when the Hebrews appeared on the banks of the Jor- dan and the Philistines on the Mediterranean shore (c. 1200 B.C.), the Amalecites held the Negeb, the Amorrhites the highlands east of t he ri ver, the Canaan- ites dwelt in the valleys and plains of the west, and some places here and there were still in possession of the aborigines. The Philistines drove the Canaanites from the coast and occupied the Sephela, whereas the Zakkala settled on the coast near Mount t'armel. We know in detail from the Bible the progress of the Hebrew conquest of the rest of the land: the renmant of the former settlers were absorbed little by little into the new race.

Needless to tell here how the different tribes, at first without any other bond of unity than that of a com- mon origin and faith, gradually were led by circum- stances to join under a common head. This political unity, however, was ephemeral and split into two rival kingdoms — that of Israel in the north, and that of Juda in the .south. The vicissitudes of these two tiny kingdoms fill several books of the Old Testament. But they were doomed to be merged into the mighty empires of the Euphrates and to share their fate. A Babylonian province in 588, a Persian satrapy after Cyrus's victories, Palestine became for a few years part of Alexander's vast dominion. At the division of his empire the Land of Israel was allotted to Seleu- cus, but for fifteen years was a bone of contention be- tween Syria and Egypt, the latter finally annexing it, until, in 198 b.c, it passed by right of conquest to King Antiochus III of Syria. A short period of inde- pendence followed the rebellion of the Machabees, but finally Rome assumed over Palestine a protectorate which in time became more and more effectual and in- trusive. Josephus narrates how Palestine was di- vided at the death of Herod; St. Luke (iii, 1) likewise describes the political conditions of the country at the beginning of Christ's public life. West of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, Palestine included Galilee, Sa- maria, Judea, and Idumtea (Edom)^east of that river, Gaulanitis corresponded to the modern Jolan ; Aura- nitis was the administrative name of the plateau of Jehel-Hauran; north-west of it, the Lejah formed the main part of Trachonitis; Iturea must have been the country south-east of Hermon ; north of Iturea, on the banks of the upper Bardda, at the foot of the Anti- Lebanon, was situated the small, but rich, tetrarchy of Abilene; south of Iturea, between Gaulanitis and Au- ranitis extended Batanea; finally, under the name of Perea was designated the land across the Jordan from Pella to Moab, and westwards to the limits of Arabia, determined by the cities of Gerasa (Jera.sh), Philadel- phia (Amm^n), and Hesebon.

It is very difficult to form an estimate of the popu- lation of Palestine, so conflicting are the indications supplied by the Bible. We are told in II Kings, xxiv, 9, that in the census undertaken at David's command, there were found 1,300,000 fighting men. These fig- ures, which may represent a total population of from 4,000,000 to 5,000,000, undoubtedly overshoot the mark. From what may be gathered in various places of Holy Writ, the figures given in II Kings might fairly represent the whole population at the best epochs.

In the foregoing portions of this article Palestine alone has been spoken of and described. However, as has been intimated above, Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, Esther, in the Old Testament, the Acts, the Epistles, and the first chapters of the Apocalyp.se, in the New, contain geographical indications of a much wider range. To attempt a description of all the countries mentioned wouM be to eng.ige in the whole geography of the Assyrian, Babylonian, lOgyptian, and Roman empires, a task which the allusions made — with the