5 i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ercised in the north. Nor was it in the neighborhood of His own 

 city of Nazareth, nor equally diffused over the Galilsean provinces 

 from east to west, but was almost confined, or most largely given, 

 to the eastern district and the close neighborhood of the Galiloean 

 sea. Here and hereabouts we have the principal specific narra- 

 tives of the calling of the Apostles,* to the number, apparently, 

 of six. Here lay the chief scene of our Lord's active ministry : 

 here was delivered the Sermon on the Mount. It was not only 

 from the eastern or Galilaean side of this sea, but from Decapo- 

 lis also He was followed by great multitudes ; f and of Decapolis 

 Gadara and its district were an important, and were also the near- 

 est, part. And the fact that our Saviour selected Chorazin, Beth- 

 saida, and Capernaum for the denunciation of the woes, \ on ac- 

 count of the privileges that they had enjoyed, at once denotes the 

 scenes of His habitual preaching, and bears appalling testimony to 

 its rejection. Dr. Edersheim places a group of the miracles to the 

 east of the sea of Galilee in " a semi-heathen population," * lying 

 much beyond Gadara. But he includes the eastern shores of the 

 lake in the country which he describes as the principal seat of 

 Jewish nationalism.! This perhaps was "Galilee of the Gen- 

 tiles.'^ Nor did our Lord wholly avoid the coasts of Tyre and 

 Sidon, Q where there were Jews in considerable numbers : but the 

 contrast between these towns and those before named proves the 

 comparative rarity of His visits. If they were also rare in De- 

 capolis, " through the midst of the coasts of which " % He came, 

 we must recollect that this district, constituted under Greek au- 

 thority, included Damascus and other Gentile cities. We know 

 very well that Hebraic settlement and influence were not in our 

 Lord's time confined to the western side of the Lake of Tiberias ; 

 for the town of Gamala $ on its eastern side (see Robinson's map) 

 was sternly Jewish in the final struggle, which was also sustained 

 by multitudes, so says Josephus, from Perrea as well as other parts 

 of Palestine ; Persea being regularly reckoned as part of Palestine 

 by the Rabbis. % 



We need not doubt that there was a variable Syrian infusion 

 in the population of this country. But we have to bear in mind 

 that Gadaris and all its neighborhood formed part of the old 

 promised land, and that, accordingly, the law of Moses had been 

 in force there from a date running back fifteen hundred years ; 

 except, perhaps, at the comparatively recent period at which it 

 had been reckoned for a time as a Syrian city. The right general 



* Matt, iv, 18-22, and John i, 40-51. A Matt, iv, 15 ; Isaiah ix, 1. 



f Matt, iv, 25. v Matt - xv, 21 ; Mark vii, 24. 



% Ibid., xi, 21-24 ; Luke x, 13-15. % Mark vii, 31. 



w Life aud Times of Jesus, ch. xxxiv. $ Milman, Hist. Jews, ii, 2S0-6. 



H Ibid., ch. x, vol. i, p. 238. % Edersheim, i, 398. 



