Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/51



fact that in the gospels it is spoken of in such a connection, as would seem to require its location on the western side. A common, but very idle argument, in favor of this supposition, is, that Bethsaida is mentioned frequently along with Capernaum and other cities of Galilee proper, in such immediate connection as to make it probable that it was on the same side of the river and lake with them. But places separated merely by a river, or at most by a narrow lake, whose greatest breadth was only five miles, could not be considered distant from each other, and would very naturally be spoken of as near neighbors. The most weighty argument, however, rests on a passage in Mark vi. 45, where it is said that Jesus constrained his disciples to "get into a vessel, to go before him to the other side unto Bethsaida," after the five thousand had been fed. Now the parallel passage in John vi. 17, says that they, following this direction, "went over the sea towards Capernaum," and that when they reached the shore, "they came into the land of Gennesaret," both which are understood to be on the western side. But on the other hand, we are distinctly told, by Luke, (ix. 10,) that the five thousand were fed in "a desert place, belonging to (or near) the city which is called Bethsaida." On connecting these two passages, therefore, (in John and Mark,) according to the common version, the disciples sailed from Bethsaida on one side, to Bethsaida on the other, a construction which has been actually adopted by those who maintain the existence of two cities of the same name on different sides of the lake. But what common reader is willing to believe, that in this passage Luke refers to a place totally different from the one meant in all other passages where the name occurs, and more particularly in the very next chapter, (x. 13,) where he speaks of the Bethsaida which had been frequented before by Jesus, without a word of explanation to show that it was a different place? But in the expression, "to go before him to the other side, Bethsaida," the word "" may be shown, by a reference to the Greek, to convey an erroneous idea of the situation of the places. The preposition [Greek: pros], (pros,) may have, not merely the sense of to, with the idea of motion towards a place, but in some passages even of Mark's gospel, may be most justly translated "near," or "before," (as in ii. 2, "not even about or before" the door, and in xi. 4, "tied by" or before "the door.") This is the meaning which seems to be justified by the collocation here, and the meaning in which I am happy to find myself supported by the acute and accurate Wahl, in his Clavis Nov. Test. under [Greek: pros], which he translates in this passage by the Latin juxta, prope ad; and the German bey, that is, "by," "near to," a meaning supported by the passage in Herodotus, to which he refers, as well as by those from Mark himself, which are given above, from Schleusner's references under this word, (definition 7.) Scott, in order to reconcile the difficulties which he saw in the common version, has, in his marginal references, suggested the meaning of "over against," a rendering, which undoubtedly expresses correctly the relations of objects in this place, and one, perhaps, not wholly inconsistent with Schleusner's 7th definition, which is in Latin ante, or "before;" since what was before Bethsaida, as one looked from that place across the river, was certainly opposite to that city. I had thought of this meaning as a desirable one in this passage, but had rejected it, before I saw it in Scott, for the reason, that I could not find this exact meaning in any lexicon, nor was there any other passage in Greek, in which this could be distinctly recognized as the proper one. The propriety of the term, however, is also noticed, in the note on this passage in the great French Bible, with commentaries, harmonies, &c. (Sainte Bible en Latin et Francois avec des notes, &c. Vol. xiv. p. 263, note,) where it is expressed by "l'autre cote du lac, vis-a-vis Bethsaide: c. a. d. sur le bord occidental opposé a la ville Bethsaide que etait sur le bord oriental," a meaning undoubtedly geographically correct, but not grammatically exact, and I therefore prefer to take "near," as the sense which both reconciles the geographical difficulties, and accords with the established principles of lexicography.

After all, the sense "to" is not needed in this passage, to direct the action of the verb of motion ([Greek: proagein], proagein, "go before,") to its proper object, since that is previously done by the former preposition and substantive, [Greek: eis to peran], (eis to peran.) That is, when we read "Jesus constrained his disciples to go before him," and the question arises in regard to the object towards which the action is directed, "Whither did he constrain them to go before him?" the answer is in the words immediately succeeding, [Greek: eis to peran], "to the other side," and in these words the action is complete; but the mere general direction, "to the other side," was too vague of itself, and required some limitation to avoid error; for the place to which they commonly directed their course westward, over the lake, was Capernaum, the home of Jesus, and thither they might on this occasion be naturally expected to go, as we should have concluded