Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/50



of Julias, in honor of Julia, daughter of Augustus Caesar. This was done during the reign of Augustus, (Josephus, in Jew. Ant. book i. chap. 2, sect. 1,) and of course long before Jesus Christ began his labors, though after his birth, because it was after the death of Herod the Great.

The question now is, whether the Bethsaida mentioned by the evangelists is by them so described as to be in any way inconsistent with the account given by Josephus, of the place to which he gives that name. The first difficulty which has presented itself to the critical commentators, on this point, is the fact, that the Bethsaida of the gospels is declared in them to have been a city of Galilee, (John xii. 21,) and those who were born and brought up in it are called Galileans, (Mark xiv. 70, Luke xxii. 59, Acts i. 7, ii. 7.) Yet Josephus expressly tells us, that Bethsaida was in Gaulanitis, which was not in Galilee, as he bounds it, but was beyond its eastern boundary, on the eastern side of the river and lake. (Jewish war, book xviii. chap. 2, sect. 1.) This is therefore considered by many, as a diversity between the two accounts, which must make it impossible to apply them both to the same place. But there is no necessity for such a conclusion. The different application of the term Galilee, in the two books, must be noticed, in order to avoid confusion. Josephus is very exact in the use of names of places and regions, defining geographical positions and boundaries with a particularity truly admirable. Thus, in mentioning the political divisions of Palestine, he gives the precise limits of each, and uses their names, not in the loose, popular way, but only in his own accurate sense. But the gospel writers are characterized by no such minute particularity, in the use of names, which they generally apply in the popular, rather than the exact sense. Thus, in this case, they use the term Galilee, in what seems to have been its common meaning in Judea, as a name for all the region north of Samaria and Peraea, on both sides of the Jordan, including, of course, Gaulanitis and all the dominions of Philip. The difference between them and Josephus, on this point, is very satisfactorily shown in another passage. In Acts v. 37, Gamaliel, speaking of several persons who had at different times disturbed the peace of the nation, mentions one Judas, the Galilean, as a famous rebel. Now this same person is very particularly described by Josephus, (Jew. Ant. book xv. chap. 1, sect. 1,) in such a manner that there can be no doubt of his identity with the previous description. Yet Josephus calls him distinctly, Judas the Gaulanite, and not Judas the Galilean; showing him to have been from the city of Gamala, in the country east of Jordan and the lake; so that the conclusion is unavoidable, that the term Galilee is used in a much wider sense in the New Testament than in Josephus, being applied indiscriminately to the region on both sides of the lake. The people of southern Palestine called the whole northern section Galilee, and all its inhabitants, Galileans, without attending to the nicer political and geographical distinctions; just as the inhabitants of the southern section of the United States, high and low, call every stranger a Yankee, who is from any part of the country north of Mason and Dixon's line, though well-informed people perfectly well know, that the classic and not despicable name of Yankee belongs fairly and truly to the ingenious sons of New England alone, who have made their long-established sectional title so synonymous with acuteness and energy, that whenever an enterprising northerner pushes his way southward, he shares in the honors of this gentile appellative. Just in the same vague and careless way, did the Jews apply the name Galilean to all the energetic, active northerners, who made themselves known in Jerusalem, either by their presence or their fame; and thus both Judas of Gaulanitis, and those apostles who were from the eastern side of the river, were called Galileans, as well as those on the west, in Galilee proper. Besides, in the case of Bethsaida, which was immediately on the line between Galilee and Gaulanitis, it was still more natural to refer it to the larger section on the west, with many of whose cities it was closely connected.

Besides, that the Jews considered Galilee as extending beyond Jordan, is most undeniably clear from Isaiah ix. 1, where the prophet plainly speaks of "Galilee of the nations, as being by the side of the sea, beyond Jordan." This was the ancient Jewish idea of the country designated by this name, and the idea of limiting it to the west of Jordan, was a mere late term introduced by the Romans, and apparently never used by the Jews of the gospel times, except when speaking of the political divisions of Palestine. The name Gaulanitis, which is the proper term for the province in which Bethsaida was, never occurs in the bible. Kuinoel, Rosenmueller, &c. give a different view, however, of "beyond Jordan," on Matt. iv. 15.

But a still more important difficulty has been suggested, in reference to the identity of the place described by Josephus, with that mentioned in the gospels. This is, the