Introductory

Birthplace, birth, parentage, and calling. Remarks on contemporary jewish hi8tort.

“Judea now, and all the promised land,
Reduced a province under Roman yoke,
Obeys Tiberius: nor is always ruled
With temperate sway. Oft have they violated
The Temple, oft the Law with foul affronts,
Abominations rather, as did once
Antiochus.”

—Paradise Regained, Book III.

“It is fit men should be taught who they were, who were willing at so dear a rate to plant Christianity in the world; what was that piety and that patience, that charity and that zeal, which made them to be reverenced while they lived, and their memories, ever since, to be honourably celebrated through the world; infinitely beyond the glories of Alexander and the triumphs of Pompey and Caesar.” — Br Cave’s Lives of the Apostles, 1662.

“The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; the people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.”

-Matt. iv. 15, 16.

in the mind of the writer, as pleasant anniversaries of a visit to the Lake op Gennesaret: of the many hallowed memories of a pilgrimage to Palestine perhaps the most hallowed. Above all other sacred localities (not even Jerusalem excepted) this now lonely inland sea possesses the undying interest of being the most frequent and familiar resort of the Divine Redeemer during the period of His earthly ministry. Every green hill and valley and thorny brake — every spire of grass and lily of the field — every sheltered nook of its winding shore — every tributary stream and fountain — every wave that ripples and murmurs on its pearly beach — either recall His words or are suggestive of His presence. If there be inspiration in dumb scenery, it is surely here. No region on earth lifts one so near all that is great and holy. I felt gigantic Baalbec or Egyptian Pyramid, Athenian Parthenon or Roman Coliseum, to be piles of cold magnificence compared with the sanctuaries of sacred thought which crowd in imagination these now desolate shores. In other famous spots in the land of Israel, the solemnity of feeling is often rudely disturbed by the guesses and uncertainties of traditionary “holy places.” On the shores of Tiberias doubt gives way to assurance. You can traverse the ruined courts of this Great Temple of Nature with the cherished conviction, * Here lived and walked and taught the Son of the Eternal God! Words and deeds which have lived and will live for ages, were here first spoken and performed. These are the waters which bore Him in calm and in storm. These mountains are the midnight oratories from which moon and stars listened to their Maker’s voice: and where, as the Great Intercessor, He pled for a perishing world.”

It may truthfully be added, that with the exception of thus tracing the footsteps of Him who gave to that region its highest consecration, no place was looked for with greater interest than the supposed site of Bethsaida — the village home of Peter and his fellow-disciples, — the special eyewitnesses of that Incarnate Glory. Although the locality of “the House of Fish,” as Bethsaida means,1 cannot positively be identified, it does not at all events share the same amount of doubt which surrounds many others sacred in Gospel Story. It

l The lake, probably from the numerous streams, including the Jordan Itself, which discharge their produce into its waters, abounds in fish of all kinds, which there increase and multiply, as certainly as in the Salt 8ea they are cast up dead upon the shore. From the earliest times — so said the Rabbinical legends — the lake had been so renowned in this respect, that might be enough, indeed, to know that somewhere on that north-west shore, the child first saw the light whose manhood and history are to occupy our attention in the succeeding pages. But in pointing to the modern village of El-Tabijah as possessing the strongest claim to the honour, I am fortified by having the warrant and authority of nearly all the most reliable of Eastern travellers.

It was on a Monday morning when, after resting on the Sabbath “according to commandment,” we sailed from Tiberias in company with two Jewish boatmen across the northern portion of the lake, to explore the ruins of Tel Hum.” Roman galleys and pleasure barges had, in former days, floated on these waters; but even could they have been still procured, more pleasing far was the thought that we were sailing on Gennesaret in a rude fishing-boat, similar probably to the craft of Zebedee and his fishermen sons; similar rather, to that in which, with the omnipotence of Godhead, He who rules the raging of the sea rebuked the winds and waves; or when, stretched on the bare planks, exhausted nature asserted its claims on repose, and yielding to the innocent infirmities and needs of a common humanity, He fell asleep.’1 2 In returning to meet our horses and dragoman at Khan Minyeh on the Damascus road, we skirted the shore, and had a

one of the ten fundamen*al laws laid down by Joshua on the dirision of the country was that any one might fish with a hook in the Sea of Galilee, so that they did not interfere with the free passage of boats. * — Sinaiond Palesttiu, p. Jj70. We partook of the fish as we “dined on the shore “where our tent was pitched They seemed to resemble oar M perch” in appearance and flavour.

l The reader is referred among other authorities to Dr Robinson and Dr Porter.

s Preface to “Memories of Gennesaret.” full view of the hills behind, rising in a succession ot swells which may be said to terminate only with the heights of Safed, the latter perched like an eagle on its lofty rocky nest, — the reputed “City set on an hill, The land which at Tel Hum is comparatively flat, here becomes bold and even mountainous. The home of the apostle fishermen, if we can thus speak confidently of El-Tabijah,1 nestles in a natural recess or bay of fine pearly sand and shells, formed by the encircling hills, — a natural breakwater; “just such a place,” as has been well observed, *’ where fishermen would like to ground their boats.’1 2 Had time permitted us to land we might have explored the ruins of an aqueduct or aqueducts, as well as some remarkable streams, some of them hot and brackish, which burst frem the hill above amid thickets of nabk and agnus cast us. Closer to the shore is a water basin enclosed with a circular stone wall, and bearing the name of ‘Ain Eyub, “Job’s fountain.” s An enterprising traveller 4 who moored his slender craft in the bay, while he describes it as “admirably suited for boats, shelving gradually, the anchorage good, and where boats can be safely beached;” speaks also of “boulders of great rocks projecting from the shore into the waves; while verdure most profuse teems over them, and long streamers of maidenhair and richest grasses and ferns and briers and moss wave in the breeze and pendant trail upon the water;” adding, that “the place soon asserted its right to the name Bethsaida by the exceeding abundance of the fish seen tumbling about.” Amid a fringe of oleanders and

l See the frontispiece sketched from the boat on the lake, the moonlight effect added by the artist.

* Porter s Hand-Book in Palestine, ii. 4& * lb., U. 429. brambles we saw the combined streams rushing down by a mill erected near the beach, and which gives a picturesqueness, perhaps I should rather say a home look, to the scene: “the sound of rivulets and cascades and the musical dripping of water from the long pointed stalactites in the caverns beside us, and the low, rumbling, splashing, tremulous beat of the mill wheels working unseen, blend a mixed harmony round the sunny little cove.” 1 In early spring (the season we visited it), here and there the black goats-hair tent of the wandering Arab may be noted occupying the spot where the old fishermen of Galilee spread their nets or reared their huts.2

Though the birthplace can be thus fixed with tolerable certainty, we can only approximate the precise year in which the infant fisherman was born. We cannot be far wrong in making his nativity ten years preceding that of the more illustrious Child of Bethlehem. So that we may afterwards think of him, when he became an apostle, as about forty years of age: a decade the senior of his divine Lord, perhaps, too, the senior of most of his brother apostles.

Before farther describing his childhood and its surroundings, it may be well to note the era of his birth in Hebrew history, in connection with any contemporary events that would be more likely to leave their impress * The most competent and reliable of recent authorities, from the advantage alike of scholarship and long residence, asks, “What do you make of this Tabijah? It was the grand manufacturing suburb of Capernaum, and hence the fountains took their name from the city. Here were the mills, not only for it, but for all the neighbourhood, as is now the case. So also the potteries, tanneries, and other operations of that sort, would be clustered round the great fountains.’’ — Dr Thomson’s Land and Book, in loc on his youthful feelings and imagination. Daring these years of his infancy and boyhood, Herod (falsely distinguished as the Great) ruled with almost despotic power in Palestine. In him and his family “a kingdom of the world was established, which in its external splendour recalled the traditional magnificence of Solomon.” 1 He had reared for himself a new palace on Mount Zion. He had strengthened the city with gates, walls, and towers. The large importation of skilled artisans from Greece had enabled him to replace the baser architecture of Hebrew craftsmen with piles of surpassing beauty and costliness. More especially was this true in the case of the latest and grandest monument of his munificence, one so flattering also to the pride of those whom he ruled — the wonderful Temple, of which in a subsequent chapter we shall come more appropriately to speak — with its successive terraces and colonnades crowned by the Holy fane; its walls of white marble, its gilded roof and costly wrought gates; above all, its succession of cloisters with which even the boasted Loggie of the Roman Vatican, or the noble porticoes of Bernini in the Piazza of St Peter’s, can hold no comparison. It has been remarked as “scarcely a figure of speech to say, that he rebuilt Zion, as Nero after him rebuilt Rome, leaving a city of marble where he had found one of mud and lime.” Herod’s jurisdiction extended to Galilee as well as to Judea. The young boatmairs imagination, therefore, could not fail to be filled and awed with the stories of those cruelties, unlike Solomon’s reign of peace, which had rendered the present sovereign’s name a terror throughout the land. He had done all he could to render his rule hated and

1 Smith s Bib. Die, art. “Herod.” himself obnoxious. He offended the religions scruples of the Jews by offering, on his elevation to the throne, sacrifices to Capitoline Jupiter, and afterwards by placing a large golden eagle over the gate of the Temple. The massacre of the Innocents in Bethlehem, though the best known and remembered, was only one of many incidents in his “reign of terror.” He committed a series of savageries almost unparalleled in the annals of human crime. Neither youth, nor sex, nor old age, nor relationship were proof against his passionate thirst for blood. His pastime was the shriek of tortured victims. His own favourite wife, Mariamne, with her two sons, Alexander and Aristobulus, and their aged grandmother Alexandra, were put to a violent death; the last act of his life was when, on the verge of seventy, the dreams of ambition were fading away and the tiger ferocity of his nature was goaded and stimulated by his own bodily sufferings, he commanded his attendants to raise him in bed in order to sign the mandate for the execution of another son. This, it was said, had been preceded by an injunction to his sister Salome, to make his death the signal for a butchery of the chief families in Judea. They were to be shut up in the Hippodrome among the palm groves and balsam gardens of Jericho, and murdered by his guards in cold blood; so that a universal mourning might, by this horrible artifice, be secured throughout the land. He must have ended his infamous career during Peter’s early years; and his son Herod- Antipas — who, with greater weakness and cunning, inherited much of the wicked and wanton cruelty and ambition of his father — succeeded as Tetrarch of Galilee.

1 See Milman’s History of the Jewa.

Another political occurrence during the period of Simon’s youth, and one which agitated the entire nation, took place immediately after Herod’s death, and could not fail, as any such stirring event among ourselves would have done, to form an absorbing theme, of conversation in the fishermen’s homes on shore, or in their boats on the lonely sea, as well as in Greek villas or Roman barracks. An insurrection was originated and headed by a warlike spirit, who made in the first instance the district round Bethsaida and Tiberias the main scene of his exploits. Although, indeed, called “Judas of Galilee,” his birthplace, according to Josephus, seems to have been in Gamala, on the other side of Jordan; the same wild district — the “Palestine Highlands * — which had reared more than one hero- Prophet and warrior in earlier ages, such as Jephthah the Gileadite and Elijah the Tishbite. This man combined the frenzy of the Jewish devotee and zealot, the austerity of the ascetic, and the rigid sectarianism of the Pharisee, with the wild, brigand, freebooter life and nature of the Arab. Stung to the quick with the wrongs of his country under Roman subjugation, he roused the people to a religious crusade, espousing as their watchword, in x imitation of the war-cry of the Maccabee3, “We have no lord nor master but God.” With the fiery eloquence with which Peter the Martyr stirred the religious enthusiasm of the Middle Ages, Judas, according to Origen, drew thousands around his standard, who welcomed him as an inspired deliverer, or rather as the predicted Messiah of his race. He had communicated his own reckless daring to his followers. They carried fire and sword first through the province, and then through the entire land, laying waste indiscriminately cities and homesteads, vineyards and corn-fields. Iconoclasts of their day, they specially let loose unsparing vengeance on groves and images. Every imported symbol of Pagan idolatry, whether of Greece, Phoenicia, or Home, was hurled from niche and pedestal They regarded with stoical indifference individual torture and suffering, animated with the one mastering thought of vindicating their God-given national rights, driving the usurping Csesar from the theocratic soil, and restoring the sceptre of Judah to its legitimate owners. The shepherds and vinedressers on the hills of Galilee, the fishermen and craftsmen on the lake and from the adjacent towns, caught the general infection. Perhaps if Peter had reached the maturity of youth, he might have been among the first to be carried away with the popular enthusiasm, thus forfeiting his future place under a far different Master, and in a more noble cause: probably he might have perished in battle. The number as well as trained discipline of the Roman troops proved too much for the rudely-armed insurrectionists. On a bloody field they encountered the soldiers of Cyrenius. After a desperate engagement the rebellious bands were utterly routed; Judas was slain, and the villages of Galilee — probably Bethsaida among the number — were either made receptacles for the wounded, or echoed with wailing for the dead. Could the son of Jonas, with a nature such as we shall find his to have been, have listened unmoved to the story of these wild, ruthless adventurers? or rather, could he have seen unmoved the visible traces, all around, of the greatest Holy War since the days of Judas Maccabeus? He may even have shared in the deep sympathies which we know not only were kindled, but which survived in the bosoms of thousands on thousands for a cause apparently lost, but which had struck its roots deep among the masses of the nation, and was only extirpated with the destruction of Jerusalem itself.

The true secret of the popularity and partial success of Judas and his followers suggests yet one other grand national “idea; n or rather, a great expectation and pervading thought, which could not fail to have its marvellous influence on these ripening years of the future apostle, as well as on every true Israelite whether old or young on the shores of Galilee. I allude to the universal, the growing conviction, inspired by their ancient prophets and deepened by the signs of the times, — a conviction, moreover, which we are told by Tacitus had spread over the entire East among the astrologers of Persia and disciples of Zoroaster, — that the Great Messiah Deliverer, the Conqueror of Judea and ef the world, was about to appear. True, the Jews had entirely misread their holy books. The intolerant despotism of their foreign rulers had goaded them on to a purely carnal interpretation. The spiritual element in Messiah’s reign was lost in the thought of the great warrior who was” to gird His sword upon His thigh whose “arrows were to be sharp in the heart of His enemies,” and whose “right hand was to teach Him terrible things.” With the death of Judas of Gamala on that fated field, the wild, extravagant hopes of many may have been dashed to the ground for the moment; but the hope itself of a Messiah yet to come, and soon to come, remained unextinguished. Can we

- l To the »>me effect Suetonius says, “There had been circulating throughout the East an ancient and constant opinion, that a petvon or persons were destined to appear at this time in Judea, who should obtain the government of the world.’* suppose that the fishermen of Bethsaida were exceptions to the bright dream which haunted and inflamed the waking and sleeping thoughts of their countrymen? — of One clothed in ‘raiment of byssus, “glorious in His apparel,,, travelling in the greatness of His strength, “mighty to save,” heading a victorious army on the way to the Throne of David and the Palace of Zion? Rather, can we suppose that they failed to share the truer and nobler aspiration of others; that the long-drawn sigh and prayer of humanity, wearied with the atrocities and crimes of the darkest of ages, was soon to be answered: — that the Great Physician would ere long appear to heal all wounds and redress all wrongs; that the Great Sun of Righteousness would speedily arise on a benighted world?

Ere we pass from the political and religious “situation” of Peter’s early days, a few words may be needful to put the reader in possession of the complex social influences which surrounded him, and which, so far also, must have moulded his mind and character. Galilee, far more than Southern Palestine, was no longer exclusively or even mainly a Jewish province. The old Hebrew race, indeed, still preponderated among the agricultural and sea-faring population. Jewish husbandmen tilled the land and tended the vineyards and oliveyards. Jewish fishermen moored their boats on the beach where teemed the fishing hamlets of the Sea of Tiberias. Jewish artisans still swarmed in the unwalled cities of the province. But a vast crowd of foreigners were & und, mingling with the children of Abraham, from the shores of Greece and Phoenicia — from Antioch and Alexandria — from the banks of the Nile and the Ganges — the Euphrates and Barrada — u from Crete and Cyprus; and above all, from Imperial Rome: — a strange medley of material that refused in any shape to fuse or coalesce with the Jewish element, retaining their separate national customs — speaking their own languages — and worshipping their own divinities. The Roman had imported his riches — his luxuries — his vices — his pride of power and dominion — his love of pomp and sh pw: he had his baths and theatres — his chariot races and gladiatorial c jmbats — his athletes and actors — his slaves and courtesans. The Athenian and Macedonian craftsmen — cunning workmen in gold and silver, brass and stone, bronze and marble — were attracted in thousands to minister to the tastes of these Imperial rulers and their retainers. From the shores of Attica they had transplanted the worship of temple and grove into the region of Palestiue which, in natural configuration and wealth of production, most nearly resembled their own climate and soil Crowds of other foreigners had not missed the golden opportunity thus presented. The wharfs and bazaars of the walled towns were crowded with costly merchandise. Wares and dried fruits from the manufactories and orchards of Damascus — bales of embroidery from the looms of India and Persia — cosmetics and unguents from the forests and balsam groves of Arabia. While in strange contrast with these children of civilisation, were to be found the roving sons of the desert, marauding Arabs from beyond Jordan, in dress and bearing much as they were in the old days of Gideon, much as they are seen at the present hour on Sharon and Esdraelon, with gay, brilliant-coloured caftan and fillet, sword and lance. “Men who still dwelt under their black tents, driving their flocks and herds from valley to valley, coming with the verdure, going with the dearth, and owning no allegiance to either Caesar or to his tributary kings.” 1

But to return. Of Peter’s father we know nothing, save that his name was Jonah or Jonas: while tsadition tells us his mother was called Johanna.2 He himself received the appellation common among the Jews of Simeon or Simon, a word which means “hearing,” and which was frequently bestowed, as has been supposed, by grateful parents in acknowledgment of their prayers being heard in the birth of a son. He had at all events one brother Andrew. We are permitted to think in imagination of a fisherman’s home; parents and children members of that sturdy, fearless, independent race which, whether on the shores of Tiberias or of Britain, have a character peculiarly their own; moulded much by the life of peril and adventure to which they are habituated. A fisherman occupying one of the adjoining hamlets, and doubtless a familiar acquaintance of Jonas or partner in the same craft, was Zebedee, and his wife Salome. They also had two children. One of these would be but an infant when Peter was already a sturdy boy able to handle the tackle or to ply the oar. This infant of the neighbouring cottage was in a distant future to become the most intimate friend and companion of the son of Jonas, and to be known to the end of time, by the endearing name,” The disciple whom Jesus loved/

‘* Some, says an interesting writer,8” have been disl See the entire description in Mr Hepworth Dixon’s Holy Land, p. 120.

See note. Smith’s Bib. Die.

3 Life and Writings of St Peter, by author of “Essays on the Church,* p. So. An excellent and suggestive volume, to which I am under frequent obligation in future pages. posed to regard Peter as one raised above the indigence which is commonly the lot of an ordinary fisherman. We are told, it is said, of his house, of his wife and his wife’s mother; of his * partners ’ and of their ’ hired servants; ’ and Peter’s own language in Matt. xix. 27, seems to imply, that he had made some sacrifice in resolving to follow a Master who ’ had not where to lay His head.’ But all these circumstances, when examined, will be found to do little towards elevating Peter, before his call, to any position differing from that of the ordinary fisherman, who is, and who always has been, a man whose life is one of severe toil, and poverty, and privation. Wherever a seashore is found, and a population exists, there we are sure to find fishermeu. They have dwellings and neighbours, wivea and children, like other men; and they employ boys as learners, as apprentices, or hired servants, to help them in their labour.’ Also as a fishing boat in rough weather often needs three or four hands, they form partnerships or agreements. ‘Do you go with me to-day, and I will go with you to-morrow.’ All these are the ordinary surroundings and daily events of a fisherman’s life. He builds, or rents, a cottage or hut, hear the shore. He owns a boat, often old and patched, descending from father to son. This, with its sails and fishing-nets, constitutes his chief worldly possession. In this boat, if the weather permits, he puts forth, each evening, and often ’ toils all the night, taking nothing ’ (Luke v. 5; John xxi. 3). Then, returning home empty, he subsists on the remains of yesterday’s food, takes some sleep, and returns to the boat to mend his nets (Mark i. 19). Sometimes success atteiuls him, and a good night’s work gives him a supply for several, following days. The sale of the best of the fish replenishes his store of bread, and enables him to purchase some article of clothing. Such is a fisherman’s life everywhere. A thriving neighbourhood and a good market (as in England) help to raise his condition; just as a scanty and poor population lowers it.” 1

We have no reason, therefore, to picture Jonas and his young boys otherwise than as hardy, rough, bronzed toilers, accustomed to the capricious storms that swept their lake: — night after night out at their often unsuccessful labour — waited for in the morning, at times, by anxious inmates of their homes, who had listened to the roar of the hurricane coming down the gorges of the hills behind, and converting what was a placid surface the night before, into a sheet of crested foam2 —

“For not upon a tranquil lake
Our pleasant task we ply.
Where all along our glistening wake
The softest moonbeams lie:

M When rippling wave and dashing oar
Our midnight chant attend,
Or whispering palm-leaves from the shore
With midnight silence bend.

“Full many a dreary, anxious hour
We watch our nets alone,
In drenching spray, and driving shower,
And hear the night-bird’s moan.” 8

1 “They were of the lower, though perhaps not quite the lowest, class of Galilean peasants.” — Milman’s History of Christianity.

2 The name Gerinesaret is supposed by some to be derived from the - Hebrew word signifying “harp “— and to have been called so from its harp-like shape. “Sure the high winds,” says quaint Fuller, sometimes made but bad music to the ear of the mariners when playing thereupon.”

3 The converse, however, is an equally truthful delineation given by one who understands well how to describe pictorially the surroundings of this gospel picture, however inadequately and unworthily he deals with its nobler inner meaning. 11 The beautiful climate of Galilee,” says M. Renan, “made the life of these honest fishermen a perpetual delight. They truly preluded the kingdom of God, — simple, good, happy, rocked gently on their delightful little sea, or at night sleeping on its shores. We do not realise to ourselves the intoxication of a life which thus glides away in the face of heaven; the sweet, yet strong love which this perpetual contact with nature gives, and the dreams of these nights passed in the brightness of the stars, under an a sure dome of infinite expanse.”