XI. JOSEPHUS'S STATEMENT AS TO THE NUMBER OF TOWNS AND INHABITANTS PROBABLY CORRECT.

We are fully justified in saying that the country at that time was dotted with flourishing cities and villages, and densely settled with an industrious and enterprising people. Josephus's statement that Galilee contained two hundred and four cities and villages, the smallest of which numbered above fifteen thousand inhabitants, which would raise the it, Wars, 3. 7. 7; how built, ibid. Gadara, six or more miles from the shore of the lake, was taken, burned, and people massacred by Vespasian, Wars, 3. 7. 1; "its ruins testify to its ancient splendor; see Smith's Bib. Dict. (Am. ed.), Art. "Gadara "; its citizens fight at Tarichaea, Wars, 3. 10. 10; Life, 10. Cana, perhaps "Cana of Galilee," where Josephus once was when summoned to Tiberias, Life, 16. 17. Tabor, Wars, 4. 1. 8; see note on this passage in Whiston's Josephus; fortress, see Ritter, 2. 311, 313, 3!7; size and height of, ibid. In 55 B.c. Alexander, son of Aristobulus and rival of Antipater, the father of Herod the Great, rallies at Mount Tabor, and is defeated by Gabinius, and ten thousand of his men (Jews) slain, Ant. 14. 6. 3. Mount Tabor with its walls and towers and roofs may well have been the "city set upon a hill," Hausrath, 1. 397. Safed, Tristram, Land of Israel, 581. Kadesh, ibid. 581, 582; Sacred cities of Jews, Ritter, 2. 260. Sepphoris, Life, 9; Ant. 18. 2. 1. Seat of one of the five councils which Gabinius established to govern the nation, Ant. 14. 5. 4; Wars, 1. 8. 5; arsenal, Wars, 2. 4. 1; its strength, Wars, 2. 18. 11. The Talmud mentions an "upper," and a "lower" town, Neubauer, 193; Bab. Erubin, 54. b. Cesarea Philippi: Temple of Herod the Great, Hausrath, 1. 421; scenery, Ritter, 2. 195, 197; Wars, 1. 21. 3; "idol worship," Neubauer, 237 the Talmud reckons it to Galilee, ibid. See Ant. 18. 2. 1; Wars, 2. 9. 1; "the snow-fields of Hermon gleaming in the sun above the dark, giant masses of Lebanon," Hausrath, 1. 421; Ps. xlii. 7, 8, is located here by some, Hausrath, 1. 421; "tower of Lebanon," Song Sol. vii. 5; "birds on lofty nests;" see Graetz, 3. 393, Neubauer, 192; notice position of Safed, Sepphoris, Tabor, and other cities. Scythopolis, Arnaud, 216; after Jotapata surrendered, Scythopolis wintered the 15th legion, Wars, 3. 9. 1; Josephus makes it belong to Decapolis of which "it was the largest city," Wars, 3. 9. 7; but commercially, and in some other regards, it belonged to the region of the Sea of Galilee; both the Talmud and Josephus agree in this, Neubauer, 175, Life, 65; see Lightfoot, 1. 126. Scythopolis, and certain places east of the Sea of Galilee, which one usually reckoned to Peraea, the Talmud counts to Galilee. But even if we had not this authority, the fact that they lay on or near the shore of the lake, and would therefore add very much to its life and business, is sufficient reason for mentioning them in our estimate of Galilee.

1 Life, 45. Dr. Schaff in note to Lange on Luke, p. 49, col. 1, says, “four hundred and four cities and villages; " McClintock and Strong, Cyclopaedia, vol. iii. 717, col. 2. Art. "Galilee," say, "two hundred and forty cities and

population to upwards of three million, has been often quoted; but the truth of it has been almost universally denied, or at least doubted. We propose to give several reasons, never before presented, why the statement of Josephus should be regarded as probably correct.

1. Josephus, as the military governor of Galilee, was intelligent, shrewd, and capable; and he would be likely to know thoroughly the resources of his own province.

2. This statement of his was made in letter which he wrote to his enemies or rivals, who had been sent from Jerusalem to supersede him in his command, and who would have detected him in any misstatement of that kind.1

3. Josephus raised, without difficulty, an army "of above a hundred thousand young men." It appears, from the same passage that, in addition to these troops, there were garrisons in the various fortresses which the general had repaired and strengthened. Then he is particular to say "young men," showing that the supply of men was so great as to make it unnecessary, even in this extreme national. emergency, to call upon boys or old men, or others still, who were unfit for military duty. Without doing any violence to the language of Josephus, we might conclude from it that, in addition to the men under arms, there was another body equal in number to these, who were "detained at home to provide supplies" for those in the field.2

villages"; Graetz, 3. 392, says, “smallest city has fifteen thousand inhabitants," which Josephus does not say; Hausrath, 1. 7, says, "two hundred and four cities and villages, and fifteen fortresses," which is not what Josephus says; "according to Josephus's incredible statement," Keim, 1. 311. How does Jahn, Bib. Arch. p. 25 (Eng. trans.), read "two hundred and four cities and towns, the largest of which had one hundred and fifty thousand and the smallest fifteen thousand inhabitants,” as if from Josephus ? which is not in Josephus at all. See Wars, 3. 3. 2, 4; Tac. Hist. 5. 8; Plin. Hist. Nat. 5. 15.

1 This fact is of great importance, and we may quote here Josephus's own words used on another occasion, "to publish a falsehood among such as could at once detect it, would be to insure disgrace." - Preface to Jewish Wars, vs. 5.

2 Wars, 2. 20. 6-8; Jost, Geschichte der Israeliten, 2. 73 (Berlin ed., 1821), makes the number of men enrolled to be 200,000, which the language of Joseplus seems to justify, and which certainly cannot be disproved; nineteen places

4. In the affair of the robbery of the steward of Agrippa and Berenice, when the people of the towns near Tarichaea were greatly incensed against Josephus for his part in the matter," one hundred thousand assembled in a single night. to oppose him." 1

5. When, after the conquest under Joshua, the four tribes settled in that country which afterwards became Galilee, they numbered within their limits sixty-nine cities, "with their villages." Many of these cities were at that time. fortified.

6. By a census of that date, the tribes occupying this territory mustered 223,600 fighting men.2

7. The slabs from Nineveh say that in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, Sennacherib "took from him fortysix strong fenced cities, and of smaller towns a countless number," besides carrying off "more than two hundred thousand captives." 3

8. In the year A.D. 39, when Herod Antipas was on trial at Rome, charged with preparing to levy war against the Romans, it was developed in the evidence that in a single armory he had armor collected for seventy thousand men. This was in a time of comparative peace. What might have been its resources in this respect when the whole province was rallying to defend the common country? 4

9. If we look forward a few years, we shall find a very significant hint. One would suppose that the Jewish nation in the terrible war of 66-70 A.D., so far as Palestine was concerned, had become almost entirely extinct, the towns. destroyed, and the people slaughtered. Yet only sixty-three years later, an army of two hundred thousand men rallied are mentioned as having been fortified by Josephus, or by his orders, Wars, 2. 20. 6; Life, 37.

1 Wars, 2. 21. 3.

2 Josh. xix. 10-40; Ritter, 4. 334 et seq.; Arnaud, 178-183, where the number of cities is shown to be larger than we have given in our text; it should be noticed that the cities of Naphtali were, i.e. fortresses, or cities with high strong walls, Josh. xix. 35.

3 Rawlinson, Monarchies, 2.161; Smith's Bib. Dict., Art. "Sennacherib." * Ant. 18. 7. 2; Keim, 1. 205; Hausrath, 1. 295.

under the banner of Bar Chochab in rebellion against Rome. Julius Severus, the best general of the empire, was sent to crush this rebellion. He reported back to the emperor that the rebels were in possession of fifty of the strongest castles and nine hundred and eighty-five villages. This struggle, which lasted probably three years, cost the Jews upwards of five hundred and eighty thousand lives. The loss on the part of the Romans was also terrible, insomuch that Hadrian, in his despatches to the Senate announcing the conclusion of the war, refrained from the usual congratulatory phrases. If the rebels had fifty strongholds and nine hundred and eighty-five villages in their possession in all Judea, Galilee, in the prosperous years before 66 A.D., may well have had two hundred and four cities and villages.1

10. Captain Burton, in his "Unexplored Syria," — a country which was full of life in Christ's time, but of which very little is known from history,-speaking of the abundance of ruins with which the region just north of Galilee is covered, says, that to one standing on a certain Lebanon peak which overlooks that section, "the land must in many places have appeared to be one continuous town." 2

11. Still further north in the 'Alah, i.e. the "highland,” of Syria, northeast and southeast of Hamah, there are three hundred and sixty-five ruined towns. The Arabs declare "that a man might formerly have travelled for a year in this district, and never have slept twice in the same village." 3

12. A remark similar to that of Captain Burton just quoted, has been made in regard to the Phoenician coast, which lay west of Galilee, and with which Galilee was in such close connection, namely: "It was so thickly covered with towns

1 Milman, Jews, 2. 431-438; length of the war, ibid. 433, note; terrible losses of the Romans, ibid. 432, 433 note; Jost, Judenthum, 2. 79; Madden, Jewish Coinage, 201; Dion Cassíus, 69. 15 "Hadrian"; Smith's Bib. Dict. Art. "Census."

21. 79; fine description of the view from this peak, 76–79.

* Ibid. 2. 160; Capt. Drake, judging from the ruins which he saw, does not believe the report to be exaggerated.

and villages that it must have given the appearance of being one unbroken city."1

13. It should also be remembered that in those times the cities were usually packed with people. In our day we are hardly able to appreciate this fact, and certainly we do not make allowance enough for it in judging of the number of inhabitants of any given Eastern city or country as reported in the old histories. For instance, no modern city of the size of ancient Jerusalem would have held, much less accommodated, the number of people which often flocked there to attend the feasts. A few years before the siege under Titus, an estimate was made, and the official return was 2,565,000 persons present at the passover. Josephus says 2,700,000, which did not include many sick and defiled persons, and many foreigners who had come for religious worship.2

14. Perhaps a hint may be obtained by noticing the number killed in the various battles and sieges of Galilee, so far as these were reported. We have made a careful estimate, and find the whole number to be about 155,630. This includes the prisoners, which, however, except in the case of Tarichaca, were a mere fraction. Several fights are reported where the number of killed is not given. Further, a large number of people would be destroyed in various ways in such a terrible war and never reported. If we put the whole number killed at one huudred and seventy-five or two hundred thousand, the statement cannot be regarded as an exaggeration.

In the face of such illustrative facts, the statement of Josephus in regard to the cities and villages of Galilee can no longer seem improbable.

XII. CHARACTER OF THE GALILEANS.

1. Thoroughly a Jewish People.

It is by no means an easy task to describe minutely the

Dr. Schröder, Die Phönizische Sprache, 1869, Einleitung, p. 3.

2 Wars, 6. 9. 3; Williams, Holy City, 1. 481; Besant and Palmer, Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin, note on pp. 23, 24. The “2,700,000" of Josephus will be seen to be probably correct by referring to the passage cited.