Dementia and Hunger in Decapolis
Gverywhere that Jesus went the multitudes followed Him. If He escaped the crowds of one city, His reappearance in another was a signal for a new gathering; -but was it not one of the wise providences that it should be so? If we follow Him now in faith, how much stronger must have been the temptations to follow Him in person. Nor is it supposable that He desired that it should be otherwise. His friends used all their persuasive influence to induce Him to cease His labors for a while, and He may have sought retirement out of deference to their anxious requests, but though faint from weariness, Jesus was ever overflowing with mercy and must have found the greatest unrest when separated from the crowds that needed His gracious ministrations.
Having probably passed through several towns of Phoenicia, and certainly visiting Tyre and Sidon, the two largest cities on the Mediterranean coast, Jesus left the latter place and traveled southeast wardly along the Mountains and over the natural archway that bridges the Leontes, through the upper Jordan valley, under the Hermon range, and by Caesarea Philippi, on to the uplands of Gaulonitis, and thence down the Jordan valley to the east coast of Gennesaret, in Decapolis. How long He was in making this circuit from Capernaum on the west bank of the lake, or what were the works that He performed, none of the Gospel writers inform us, but so great were His deeds everywhere, that the full importance of them all seems to have been overlooked, for which reason a very small part of our labors is recorded.
The first visit Jesus made to Decapolis was accompanied by a merciful act in healing a demoniac, but His reception by the Gadarenes was so inhospitable that He scarcely more than stood upon the coast of the country. Decapolis was a part of Palestine, but ten of its principal cities had resisted theefibrtsof the Jews who tried repeatedly to capture them after their return from Babylonish captivity. These were called the ten allied free cities, from whence the name Decapolis is derived. These cities, Pliny tells us, were Scythopolis, Raphana, Gadara, Gerosa, Hippos, Philadelphia, Damascus, Pella, Canatha and Dion. They all lay east of the Jordan. The region was immensely populous in the time of Christ, but much of it to-day is a deserted wilderness which even wild animals refuse to inhabit. On account of the sturdy resistance of the ten cities, which were joined
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together by defensive and offensive alliances, the Jews held the Decapolitans in great contempt and called them heathen; but the inhabitants were chiefly J Romans, with a mixture of Syrians and Babylonians, and the religion there practiced was that of paganism.
Healing the Blind and Feeding the Multitude.
In this country Jesus may have hoped to find some quiet that was denied 3Iim elsewhere, though it is quite as reasonable to believe that His visit there was made in pursuance of the divine purpose to preach salvation to the heathen. But if He sought rest here His expectation was not fulfilled, for His fame had preceded Him and almost immediately He found Himself surrounded by a multitude as great as that which besieged Him in Galilee. The people, it would seem, came not so much to hear Him as to seek His aid as the omnipotent physician, for His audiences were largely composed of sick, dumb, blind and crippled, until the mountain top on which He sat, overlooking the sea of Galilee, was fairly covered with afflicted humanity. The gospel account of the miracles which He performed here are very limited; of the great number brought to Him seeking restoration from their misfortune, only one is mentioned: that of a man who was not only deaf but also had an impediment in his speech. When the unfortunate came for healing, Jesus took him aside from the crowd and putting His fingers into the patient’s ears, and then moistening His finger-tip and applying it to the man’s tongue. He uttered the words “Be opened,” when lo! the gates of his ears swung open to let in the hearing so long shut out, and the tongue found its cunning that had so long been bridled with paralysis. Not only could the recovered man now hear the teachings of his benefactor, but his tongue was loosed to give praise for the blessing bestowed.
Following this miracle, Jesus performed many others equally wonderful, “insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see; and they glorified the God of Israel.”
Every day the fame of these remarkable healings spread farther and farther, and the great gathering of the people continued increasing until the region about could not supply provisions to feed so large an assemblage. But hunger could not drive them away from the Teacher, Master and Saviour. The situation became at length so critical that Jesus called His disciples to Him and said, “I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now been with Me three days, and have nothing to eat: and if I send them away. fasting to their own houses, they will faint by the way, for divers of them came from far.” But to this the disciples replied, “Why, Lord, how shall so great a multitude as four thousand men, besides women and children, be fed here in the wilderness, when we have but seven loaves and a few little fishes?” Jesus therefore commanded the gathering to sit down on the ground, while He took up the loaves and giving thanks He broke them into pieces and gave the broken portions to His disciples whom He conunanded to feed the people. Likewise did Jesus bless the fishes and these He also ordered His disciples to set before the hungry concourse. Wonderful miracle! The broken pieces nuiltiplied themselves more than a thousand fold, and the few little fishes increased in number until however appetizing they were, and however famished was that great crowd after a fast
of three days, p — — — -
yet there was
more than all
that vast multitude could
eat. What a
great picnic
was there held
on the mountain-side, what
a delightful basket-dinner, in
which hunger
was not only
appeased but
opportunity extended to enjoy
the presence of
Jesus, who gave the feast, and when all had eaten, and every hungry mouth had been filled to satiety, the more provident in the crowd gathered up the fragments of the dinner and found that they filled seven baskets.
Jesus Refuses to give a Sign.
After miraculously feeding the people, Jesus and His disciples took boat and crossed over to the west side of the lake, landing at or near the town of Magdala, or properly Magdalan. This place derives its chief notoriety from having been the residence of the penitent woman who anointed Jesus at the feast given by Simon. She was therefore called Mary Magdalene. But the word which applies to the place is very similar to a Jewish term, viegaddela, used to designate a person wearing plaited hair, which was a custom especially common among women of evil morals; so that it is by an association of term and place that Mary Magdalene has been regarded as a fallen woman, and with no better reason. The village
TOMB OF KING HIRAM, NEAR TYRE.
of Magdalan is now about the most indecent place in Palestine. Apparel is for the most part discarded.
Jesus may have expected to meet here the penitent woman whom He so graciously absolved, or He may have sought rest in one of the villages thereabout, but if either was His purpose He must have been disappointed, for almost as His foot touched shore a crowd gathered about Him, among the number being many Sadducees, who began at once to open a controversy by asking Him to show them a sign from heaven whereby to prove His Messiahship. They no doubt reminded Him of the current beliefs respecting good and bad spirits that peopled the air, by whose aid those in league with them were able to perform many surprising things, and laid great force on the miracles which Moses, Elijah, Elisha and Samuel had done, proving them to have been instruments of God. “Now,” said they, “if you are the Messiah, or one sent before to prepare His way, give us a sign from heaven as a testimony to Your pretentions.” But Jesus would not be tempted; besides. He knew that if works and merciful deeds and teachings failed to convince them, signs, of whatever character, would be equally unavailing. With a touch of ridicule He therefore turned upon His critics and accused them of professing great knowledge respecting the weather, which they predicted by signs in the sky, and yet they disregarded the more striking signs of the times, the portents of a coming Messiah and the evidences so overwhelming of His manifestation and presence.
The Leaven of the Pharisees.
The prejudices against Him were here so strong that Jesus went again into a boat with His disciples and sailed for the opposite shore, in the province of Philip, where He would be safer than in the Galilean district. In departing, His disciples neglected to lay in any provisions, so that they had with them only a single loaf of bread. When they reached the other side, at Bethsaida, but probably before debarking, Jesus charged them to “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees, and of the leaven of Herod.” But they did not understand Him, thinking that He intended to reprove them for neglecting to provide bread for their journey. Seeing their confusion over the false interpretation of His words, Jesus denounced with indignation their obtuseness and lack of faith, and asked how they could be doubtful of His ability and disposition to provide bread for their needs after having witnessed the feeding of the multitude on two occasions from a few loaves of bread and fishes. It was. not the leaven of material bread that they were to beware of,” but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.” Jesus had seen how, under the revilings and carpings of the Pharisees and scribes, some of His disciples had turned away from Him at Capernaum, and He thus gave warning against attempts which would no doubt be made to alienate His followers in the land to which they had now come for they must expect that His enemies would beset them wherever they went.
Sight for the Blind Man.
As Jesus stepped out of the boat at Bethsaida, He was surrounded by a
crowd of people, for wherever He went great numbers flocked about Him craving
His divine aid.
Among those
who sought His
assistance was a
blind man that
was brought to
Him by some
friends who
begged Christ to
touch the unfortunate. It thus
appears clear
that the people
had associated
the touch of Jesus
with a marvelous
virtue, and that
they believed
His healing was
performed rather
through the potentiality of a gift
of healing than
by the Divine
power that was
in Him; others
thought that He
restored the afflicted by the emp 1 o y m e n t of
magic art and in- Jksus leading the blind man out ok the town.
cantation, as many had pretended to do before Him. To destroy this impression, Jesus proceeded to effect His cures by the use of different outward means to show that no prescribed forms governed His actions. Therefore, when the blind man was brought to Him, instead of immediately opening His eyes, as He might have done, Jesus led the afflicted one out of the town, probably to the better arouse His spiritual insight, and when alone He spat upon the sealed eyes and then putting His hands upon him asked the blind man if he could see. The restoration was only partial, for the afflicted one looked up and said, /’I see men as trees walking.” But Jesus certainly had a purpose in employing two efforts to complete the miracle; He no doubt gave him according to the measure of his faith. If at first the man had hope, Jesus did enough for him to excite his faith, and when faith took the place of hope Jesus touched his eyes and the man saw clearly, so that belief superseded faith. But instead of working these beneficent deeds to procure the applause and gratitude of the world, Jesus did them purely as acts of mercy, with no desire for reward or popularity. Thus when He restored the blind man He sent him away to his house saying, “Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any one in the town.”
CsEsarea. Philippi arid its Beauteous Situation.
From Bethsaida Jesus and His disciples journe5’ed northward to Csesarea Philippi, which was located not far from the northeastern boundary of Decapolis, The city had been rebuilt, three years before the birth of Christ, by Philip, upon the site of a very ancient town called, in honor of the Canaanitish god, Baal- Gad, and was renamed out of flattery for Augustus Caesar, and to which his own name was added to distinguish the city from Coesarea on the Mediterranean coast. Immediately before its reconstruction in a style of great splendor, the place was known as Panais (now Banais), which was given it in honor of the shepherd god Pan, worshiped by the Greeks, to whom a cave near by, and out of which the head waters of the Jordan gush, was sacred. In this sylvan district the first. Grecian immigrants settled, and finding a cave at the base of Mount Hermon, in the extremity of the Jordan valley, with the most romantic and picturesque surroundings, they dedicated it as a sanctuary to their sylvan deity, which Herod recognized by erecting there a magnificent temple of white marble in deification of his emperor, thus uniting Roman with the Greek admiration and glorification of the place. On one of the fallen pillars of that Herodic temple we sat and lunched our last day in Palestine. Hanno says: “This cave lies immediately behind a raised yet retired nook or hollow among the hills, and immediately beneath a conical height of more than looo feet, rising between two of those deep ravines which run up into the great mountain, upon the summit of which there now stand the noblest ruins that the whole country around exhibits, equal in extent, if not in grandeur to those of Heidelberg — the ruins of the castle of Zubeibeh. Immediately beneath the entrance into the cave — along a breadth of more than loo feet — there gush forth from among the stones a thousand bubbling
CAVE DEDICATED TO THE WORSHIP OF PAN.
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rills, coming from some hidden fountain-head, and from their long dark subterranean journey springing all joyously together into the light of day, forming at once by their union a stream which is one of ttie chief sources of the Jordan.” The district is one of the most fruitful in all Palestine, as well as affording the grandest view of mountain, hill, valley, canon, caves, rivers, fountains and fertile fields of pomegranates, olives, vines, fig-trees, and grain, that human eye
ever rested upon.
Jesus at Caesarea Philippi.
To this magnificent region Jesus directed His footsteps, followed by His disciples, who, like Himself, had become objects of popular hatred through the imputations, accusations and revilings of the Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes and rabbis, who had suppressed their differences to make common war on Christ. As they journeyed northward Jesus became reflective, pondering upon the hatreds and mad ambitions of the world, of the suffering which He had relieved, the truths which He hd declared, the salvation which He had promised, the fulfilment of prophecies upon which the hopes, the aspirations, the faith of the nation had for ages been concentrated, and of His rejection, His calumniation. His peril. The people knew Him as a worker of wonders, a just man, a living example of humility and mercy, but they knew Him not as God. In this mood He turned to His heavenly Father and prayed, as was His practice whenever the burdens of depression from realization of the wrongs He suffered were heaviest, and while thus seeking solace from God He was interrupted by the disciples coming to Him. From prayer He turned to questioning them, asking, “Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” and they answered, “Some say that Thou art John the Baptist; some say Elias, and others say Jeremias, or one of the old prophets risen again.” All this Jesus well knew, but He desired to test the faith of His followers, and therefore He asked again, “But whom say ye that I am?” Whereupon Peter, as spokesman for all the disciples, with a burst of faith and devotion, replied, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Up to this time, while frequently intimating His Messiahship, He had not directly declared His divinity except to the Samaritan woman, and once by assent to the Apostles, but now He spoke clearly by open announcement, saying, “Blessed art thou Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” And as a reward for the faithfulness displayed, Jesus told Peter that He would make His faith the foundation of His church which shall endure forever, and that His disciples should also be the foundation stones, and their works its superstructure, but He charged them to tell no one that He was the Christ.
Jesus Rebukes Peter.
Having received expressions of their devout faith, Jesus became more confidential with his disciples and now took occasion to reveal not only the full purpose of His mission on earth but explained to them what a sacrifice, in expiatory offering for the sins of the world, He would at last have to make: plainly telling them that He must go to Jerusalem, where He would not only be rejected as the Messiah, but be subjected to abuse and in the end to execution by His enemies, though on the third day thereafter He would be raised firom the dead.
Peter, who was an impetuous, impulsive and emotional man, whose devotion would lead him to any extremity at the call of distress, could not withhold expression of his fervor as a friend and follower of the lyord,” and he therefore threatened to interpose his efforts to prevent the fulfillment of Christ’s rueful prophecy: “Then Peter took Him, and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘Be it far from Thee, Lord: this shall not be unto Thee.’” He had not yet understood Jesus, nor His purpose, looking always to the material rather than the spiritual salvation of Israel, and regarded Jesus as that power which was not only able to circumvent the plans of dangerous enemies but which would, as a last resource, humble Israel before its final triumph as a nation by compelling a recognition of His Messiahship. His conceptions were therefore of a kingdom of this earth instead of a heavenly kingdom. For this sordid belief Jesus reproached him, saying, “Get thee behind Me, Satan (tempter); thou art an offence unto Me; for thou savourest not of the things that be of God, but those that be of men.”
To give a more apt illustration of His meaning, and to disabuse the minds of His followers of such illusions as Peter had given creation to. He called His disciples and the people to Him and said to them, “Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shail lose it;. but whosoever will lose his life for My sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?.. Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of Me and My words, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed; for He shall come in His own glory, and in the glory of His Father with the holy angels, and then He shall reward every man according to his works. And He said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that there be some of them that stand here who shall not taste of death till they have seen the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom.”