fine and coarse linen garments which were there manufactured.1 Safed was celebrated for its honey;2 Shikmonah for its pomegranates; 3 Achabara for the raising of pheasants.4 Sigona furnished the best wine.5 The region about Sepphoris was noted for the production of grain and fruit. Rabbi Jose, who lived in Galilee, said: "For sixteen miles on either side of Sepphoris there flows milk and honey." Large quantities of grain were stored in the towns of Upper Galilee, probably the tribute which belonged to the Roman emperor.8 The same was true of other places.9 Grain merchants congregated at Arabah.10 In the siege of Jotapata there was no lack "of all kinds of provisions, except salt and water." 11 Magdala boasted of three hundred shops where pigeons for the sacrifices were sold.12 About this place the indigo plant flourished then, as now, and the Talmud calls it "the city of color." 13 More literally, one portion of the city was called "the tower of dyers," and here were eighty shops where fine woollen cloth was made.14 Arbela, also, was celebrated for the manufacture of cloth.15 Abundance of flax was raised in Galilee, and the linen fabrics made here by the women were of unusual fineness and beauty.16 A peculiar kind of vessel was necessary for preserving oil, and of the manufacture of this, Galilee seems to have had a monopoly.17 Kefer Chananyah and Sichin (Asochis?) were the most noted places for earthern vessels and pots. "The pots made at

17 Neubauer, 180. As to these pots made from black clay, it is possible that certain fragments of ancient pottery recently dug up at Jerusalem have some connection with them, at least as to the kind of ware alluded to. In the Birket Israil certain curious vases were found, "all of an extremely hard, massive, black ware, coated in three instances with a dark crimson glaze, perhaps produced by cinnabar.' - Recovery of Jerusalem, 374.

Sichin, as well as those made at Kefer Chananyah, are well baked and solid." "The clay used in their manufacture is the dark, and not the white, kind." This was the principal business of the inhabitants of these two places, and the business was lucrative. "To come from selling pots in Kefer Chananyah" was a proverbial saying, equivalent to the French proverb, "To carry water to the river." 1

Galilee could not but be greatly affected by the commerce and other business interests of Phoenicia. Here the manufacture of purple and glass was extensively carried on. Tyre was crowded with glass-shops, dyeing and weaving establishments; and the food for all those citizens and laborers thus employed, as well as for the vast number of sailors which this country sent forth, must to a great extent have been drawn from Galilee.2 Galilee's own (original) shore, near the river Belus, and including the bed of the latter, furnished the sand for the glass-shops of the world. "Numerous ships" came here to carry this sand to other ports to the workshops of Sidon and Alexandria, long the most famous in the world. The supply was said to be inexhaustible.4 Here were found, also, an abundance of shells from which purple was made.5

3. Fisheries of the Sea of Galilee.

We have yet to speak of the fisheries of the Sea of Galilee. The sea abounded in fish of the choicest kinds. The southern portion of the lake, especially, was in the time of Christ one of the finest fishing-grounds in the world. Some varieties caught here were similar to those found in the Nile; while

1 Neubauer, 202, 226; Graetz, 3. 392, and refs. to Talmud in the three places here indicated. On the question of the production of wine in Galilee, see Neubauer, 82, 84, 180; compare Graetz, 3. 392. See passage in Talmud 86. b.

2 Hausrath, 1. 6; Neubauer, 295; Acts xii. 20.

3 Wars, 2. 10. 2.

4

2,

* Strabo, xvi. 2; Tac. Hist. 5. 7; Plin. Hist. Nat. 5. 19; 36. 65; Dict. Gr.

and Rom. Antiq., Art. " Vitrium"; Robinson, 3. 104.

Neubauer, 197; Kenrick, Phoenicia, 237.

VOL. XXXI. No. 121.

7

other varieties were peculiar to this lake alone.1 Tarichaea,2 both the eastern and western Bethsaida ("house of fish "), and possibly Chorazin, derived their names from this business of fishing; and all the cities about the lake sent forth their fishermen by hundreds over its surface. Tarichaea was noted for its extensive" fish-factories."5 Here fish were prepared and packed, and, it has been inferred with some reason, shipped to all parts of the world. They were sought for as luxuries in the market-places of Jerusalem. This trade in fish had enriched the citizens of Tarichaea; and people came even from Jerusalem, especially just before the great feasts, to fish in these waters, and thus provide means of support for the millions who on those occasions flocked to the Temple. This fishing-ground was free to all, so long as one by his nets or hooks or weels did not interfere with the passage of boats. By a common law of the land, dating, as was supposed, from the time of Joshua, this ground could not be monopolized. In Christ's time the Jews distinguished sharply between clean and unclean fish.10 This is, no doubt, alluded to in the phrase, "They gather the good into vessels, but cast the bad away." 11 Or, without

' Wars, 3. 10. 8; Ritter, 2. 250; fish not elsewhere met with, Wars, 3. 10. 7; Tristram, Nat. Hist. Bib. 285.

2 Ritter, 2. 250; Classical Dict. Art. "Tarichaca"; Plin. Hist. Nat. 5. 17. Keim, 1. 603.

Strabo, xvi. 2., Edit. Leipzig, 1829, vol. 3. 379, near the end: "ĥ Xíurn pèr ταριχεία: ἰχθύων ἀστείας παρέχει”; see Liddell and Scott's Gr. Lex. (6th ed., 1871), under Tapixela, "factories for salting fish."

Hausrath, 1.5; Graetz, 3. 393.

'Delitzsch, Handwerkerleben zur Zeit Jesu, 55; Delitzsch, ibid. p. 43, is certainly wrong in his statement that "wealth was not to be obtained in this business."

Bab. Bava Kama, 80. b.; see the point discussed and the facts stated in Dr. Karl Zimmermann's Theologisches Literaturblatt, No. 43, for June 1, 1869, p. 231, in an able review of Caspari's Chronologisch-geographische Einleitung in das Leben Jesu Christi, Hamburg, 1869.

9 Delitzsch, as above, p. 43; Neubauer, 25.

10 Sce Lightfoot, 1. 144.

11 Matt. xiii. 48: Tà Kaλd in this passage means those that are good and of choice quality; rà σarpά must mean the opposite, or those of inferior or poor quality.

violence to the passage, we may say that this phrase indicates that the fish merchants about the lake and in the distant markets where these fish were sent demanded the choicest kinds. And the Gospels themselves furnish evidence enough to show that this business in Christ's time was extensive and profitable.1

IX. THE SEA OF GALILEE A FOCUS OF LIFE AND ACTIVITY. A mere glance at the life of the Lake is all that we can devote to that topic, before we pass on to consider the cities lying about it and those that were scattered throughout the province. In those days the sea was covered with ships and boats, engaged either in fishing or traffic, or carrying travellers or parties of pleasure from shore to shore. "Merchants come and go from Hippos to Tiberias."2 Once when Josephus planned a certain movement against Tiberias, which was to start by water from Tarichaea, he collected for the purpose at that point, apparently in a short time, two hundred and thirty ships from the vicinity of Tarichaea alone.3 Later, when this city expected an attack from the Romans, the citizens got ready a great number of vessels, to which they might flee in case of a repulse. The day went against them, and they fled to their ships; in these they made a bold resistance, and cost the Romans a fierce and bloody struggle before they could be overcome. That is a bloody sea-fight

in which from four to six thousand are slaughtered on one 1 Matt. iv. 18, 21; Luke v. 2-10; John xxi. 1-11, and elsewhere. See Wars, 3. 10. 8; Stanley, S. and P. 366, 367; Graetz, 3. 392; Hausrath, 1. 5.

NOTE.- Probably it is next to impossible for us at the present day to appre ciate the extent of the fish business of the Sea of Galilee in Christ's time. The same may be said of this business in Egypt in ancient times. The following facts are interesting, and in a sense illustrative of our subject. Wilkinson, partly on the statements of Herodotus and Diodorus, reports the annual income of the fisheries of Lake Mocris and its sluices which led to the Nile as £70,700, while at present the annual revenue from the fish of Lake Moeris is only about £210.- Ancient Egyptians (2d ed., London, 1842), Vol. iii. p. 64.

2 Neubauer, 238, 239, and refs.

3 Wars, 2. 21. 8; Life, 32: "The sight of the lake covered with these vessels struck the Tiberians with terror," Life, 33. See note in Whiston's Josephus on Life, 32.

side alone, as was the case here, and not a "sharp skirmish," as one has termed this event. As all could hardly have been killed, the number of Jews killed is a hint, at least, that the number of ships on the side of the Tarichaeans was very large. We are speaking of Tarichaea alone; but when we think of all the cities and towns by which the lake was surrounded, we can easily understand that in Christ's time it was covered with ships and boats. And as to the appearance of the lake then, "when we add to the fishermen the crowd of ship-builders, the many boats of traffic, pleasure, and passage, we see that the whole basin must have been a focus of life and energy; the surface of the lake constantly dotted with the white sails of vessels flying before the mountain gusts, as the beach sparkled with the houses and palaces, the synagogues and the temples of the Jewish or Roman inhabitants." 3

X. THE NOTED CITIES AND TOWNS OF GALILEE.

If we turn now to the cities and inhabitants of this province, we shall find a country whose surface was dotted with flourishing towns, and covered with a dense population. From the Gospels themselves, we should expect to find here numerous "cities and villages," swarms of people, activity and energy, much wealth, and in some cases even luxury.4

Beginning with the Sea of Galilee, we find upon its shores no less than nine cities, while numerous large villages dotted the plains and hill-sides around.5 Not far from Tiberias

1 In the land and sea fight together six thousand five hundred were killed; Wars, 3. 10. 1; Graetz, 3. 392; Hausrath, 1. 5; Weber und Holtzmann, 2. 480; Josephus describes this sea fight as terrible; see all of chapter 10, Wars, 3. We make the statement in the text, notwithstanding Josephus says, Wars, 3. 10. 9, that "not one escaped." For "sharp fight on the plain outside" the city, "and a day or two afterwards a sea-fight," see Recovery of Jerusalem, 283.

2 The difference between ships and the small boats which are always attached to them is clearly brought out in the Greek of John xxi. 3, 6, 8. The phrase in Josephus, Wars, 3. 10. 5, "climbing up into their ships," is a significant hint as to the size of some of their vessels.

8 Stanley, S. and P. 367.

Hausrath, 1. 8, gives some refs.

Porter's Hand-book, 424.