178 THE HOLY LAND. 
CHAP, is near the Convent, and wa? formerly included 
'— . y, * within its walls ; this is now a small chapel, per- 
fectly modern, and lately whitewashed. II. The 
Synagogue, where Christ is said to have read 
the Scriptures to the Jews^; at present, a church. 
III. A Precipice without the town, where they 
say the Messiah leaped down, to escape the 
rage of the Jeius, after the offence his speech 
in the synagogue had occasioned \ Here they 
shew the impression of his hand, made as he 
sprang from the rock. From the description 
given by St. Luke, the monks affirm, that, 
antiently, Nazareth stood eastward of its present 
situation, upon a more elevated spot. The 
words of the Evangelist are, however, remark- 
ably explicit, and prove the situation of the 
antient city to have been precisely that which 
is now occupied by the modern town. Induced, 
by the words of the Gospel, to examine the 
place more attentively than we should have 
otherwise done, we went, as it is written, 
" out of the city, unto the hroiu of the hill whereon 
(1) Lukeiv. 16. 
(2) " And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, 
were filled with wrath, And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, 
and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that 
they might cast him down headlong. But he, passing through tlte 
midst of them, went his way." Luke, iv. 28, 2.9.. 30. 
