Boyhood

His education. Thh surroundings and occupations of his

EARLY HOME.

“Now upon Syria’s land of rosea
Softly the light of eve reposes,
And, like a glory, the broad sun
Hangs over sainted Lebanon;
Whose head in wintry grandeur towers,
And whitens with eternal sleet,
While Summer, in a vale of flowers,
Is sleeping rosy at his feet.”

“It was on the shores of the Lake of Gennesareth, under the humble roof of poor, ignorant fishermen, that the expectation of the Messiah had been preserved in greatest purity. There the voice of ancient prophets retained its power in the midst of that grand serenity of nature; there the piety of mothers kindled that of sons; there grew up those who were to become subsequently St Peter and St Paul.” — PrwentL adhere for the present to his original name) would receive the elementary education common in his time and humble position, and which by legal enactment was compulsory on all Jewish youths. Schools in great towns had been founded seventy years before by Simon Ben Shelach, one of the great leaders of the Pharisees under the Asmonean princes. A school was generally connected, too, with every synagogue; and if Bethsaida was not of such importance as to be possessed of either of these, we can picture the fisherman boy, in company with a group of Bethsaidans of similar age, pursuing the road by the lake-side to the adjoining city of Capernaum attired in red caftan or cloak, with perhaps the striped abba

1 See Joet, quoted in Bib. Die. either girded or ungirded, and the white keffieh piotecting his head. The chazzan of the synagogue, an official corresponding to the Christian deacon or. sub-deacon, was often employed during the week as schoolmaster of the town or village where the synagogue was. We have good reason, however, to infer that Peter’s early education was more than elementary. From the conversation he held with Cornelius at a long subsequent period, it is evident he must have mastered the Greek language, and the same conclusion must be drawn from the style of his Epistles.2 Nor must we adopt a different impression from the phrase afterwards applied to Peter and John, that they were “unlearned and ignorant men.” In the words of Dr Kitto, “This simply means that they had not received what was considered a high theological education, which added to the common education a critical knowledge of Hebrew, an acquaintance with the law and the traditions of the Fathers: and whoever had not received this education in the schools was regarded as an uneducated man by the arrogant Pharisees of that day, whatever other knowledge he might possess.” 3

If the child be the father of the man, we can with

i 8ee art. “Synagogue,’* Smith’s Die.
See art. “Peter,” Bib. Die.,

3 Taily Readings,” vol. i. p. 280. Similarly, also, it will be remembered, the question was asked by the hostile Pharisees regarding our blessed Lord, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned V (John vii. 15,) by which they did not mean to insinuate that He was devoid of the usual education of the mass of the people, which was considerably above the standard of other nations; but how comes He to have this erudition, qualifying Him to speak so authoritatively on religious subjects, when He has sat at the feet of no learned Rabbi or been initiated into what formed the great test of Jewish culture — a knowledge of the oral law and oral traditions. Those who had not made these oral laws and traditions their study were considered by these “wise” (as they deemed and called themselves), “unlearned and ignorant men.”

BOYJIOOD.

safety venture to draw a mental portrait of the son of Jonas in these youthful years, as open, artless, impulsive, rash, ambitious. Very probably, if we may use a modern phrase, the leader of the playground; tempted at times, perhaps, to lord it over his playmates; though with a strange mixture, too, of pusillanimity and courage: involved ever and anon in boyhood troubles with his Hebrew pedagogue, who, however, in his turn, would not be severe on the ardent nature of his young charge, when he saw that his rashness and outspokenness were counterbalanced by openness and frankness, generosity and gratitude. May we not think of him as foremost in every perilous adventure that had a charm to boynature then, as now; whether with his father out amid the familiar waves,” launching forth into the deep 99 under the stars of an Eastern heaven; or when a longer day’s holiday beguiled him to daring deeds in the Valley of Pigeons, rising at early morn and brushing the dew from the spangled carpet of poppies, daisies, and anemones spread on his way; ascending among the rocky retreats of the conies, half hid with the caper plant; climbing to the nests perched on the top of pine and terebinth; or penetrating the robber haunts which had only a few years previously been cleared of their ruffian tenants by Herod, and still bore evidence of the perilous struggle. At another time his expertness in swimming (with which we are familiar at a later date), prompting him to some rash feat under the bluff gorges

1 Thig Valley of Doves or Pigeons — Wady Haym&n or Hamam — roust have oeen a familiar one to Peter in after years, during the Saviour’s ministry.

We are just entering the throat of this tremendous gorge. It is called Hamam from the clouds of pigeons which flock to their windows in these rocks. Look up now to that cliff on the left. It is more than a thousand fret high, and a large part is absolutely perpendicular. It is perforated by a multitude of caverns, holes, and narrow passages, the chosen resort of of Gadara, to the east of the lake. Or yet again, venturing, it may be, amid the shouting and wrangling of the caravans in the public thoroughfare, — Axabstrom the desert on their swift horses, Egyptian traders with their camel-loads of spices and balm, Phoenician merchants with earrings and bracelets, caftans and abbas from the bazaars of Damascus; may we not picture young Simon, thus mingling, close to his home, with the motley multitude around the immemorial halting-place of the modern Ain et Tin, the perennial “spring of the fig;w for, though its present rim of mossy verdure, aquatic plants, and noble guardian tree may have been then unknown, the precious fountain itself must have been a frequent and familiar resort. Or, yet once more, if we picture these early years of boyhood under the domestic roof, we can think of him as aiding his mother in her smaller household cares — trimming the lamps of red clay, bruising the parched corn, watching the boiling pottage of lentiles, or preparing the fish of the lake on the: glowing charcoal embers; sweeping the floor, and readjusting the mats for the frugal meal alongside the baked bread or oil and honey cakes, the earthen jara of leban and occasional wine-flagons of fig sherbet. At other times shaking the olives, carrying water from the stream that tumbled into the lake; or, it may be, spreading the maize and hemp to dry on the roof-top in the summer sun, ready for the distaff to beguile the long autumn and winter hours, while the seafarers

robbers in former days Josephus has a graphic description of the

capture of these caves by Herod the Gr-at. After various expeditions to expel them had failed, he let boxes filled with soldiers down the face of the precipice, and landed them at the entrance of the caverns. By fire and sword the robbers were exterminated.’ — Dr Thornton?* Land and Book, p. 423. were still out at their precarious and protracted toils on the lake.

“Fair boy! the wanderings of thy way
It is not mine to trace,
Through buoyant youth’s exulting day,
Or manhood’s bolder race.

“What discipline thy heart may need,
What clouds may veil thy sun,
The eye of God alone can read,
And let His will be done.” 1

We have just spoken of Simon’s ordinary education: the religious knowledge imparted to him, like that of all Jewish youths, would, in accordance with the strict injunctions of the Mosaic law, be communicated by his parents, saving perhaps some simple instruction by the Sopherim, or other attendants of the synagogue. We may transfer to the Galilean boy what has been so well said regarding the early life of one who will come often to be associated with him in future chapters — young Saul of Tarsus: —” The rules respecting the diligent education

1 The following recent description of a modern home at Nazareth may be appropriated with, equal fidelity to one of the old lake hornet) of Bethsaida. It is all the more graphic and interesting as having been seen by the narrator: 44 Nothing can be plainer than those houses, with the doves sunning themselves on the white roofs, and the vines wreathing about them. The mats or carpets are laid loose along the walls; shoes and sandals are taken off at the threshold; from the Centre hangs a lamp, which forms the only ornament of the room; in some recess in the wall is placed the wooder chest, paiuted with bright colours, which contains the books or other possessions of the family; on a ledge that ruus round the wall, within easy reach, are neatly rolled up the gay-coloured quilts, which serve as beds, an<* on the same ledge are ranged the earthen vessels for daily use; near th* door stand the large common water jars of red clay with a few twigs ana green leaves, often of aromatic shrubs, thrust into their orifice* to keep thf water cool. At meal-time a painted wooden stool is placed in the centre of the apartment, a large tray is put upon it, and in the middle of the tray stands the dish of rice and meat, or libbftn, or stewed fruits, from which al’ help themselves in common. Both before and after the meal, the servant or the youngest member of the family, pours water over the hands from a brazen ewer into a brass bowl.” — Dr FarrarsLtfe of Christ, vol. i. 61, 62. of children, which were laid down by Moses in the 6th and 1 1th chapters of Deuteronomy, were doubtless carefully observed; and he was trained in that peculiarly historical instruction spoken of in the 78th Psalm, which implies the continuance of a chosen people, with glorious recollections of the past, and great anticipations for the future: ‘The Lord made a covenant with Jacob, and gave Israel a law, which He commanded our forefathers pto teach their children; that their posterity might know it, and the children which were yet unborn; to the intent that when they came up, they might show their children the same: that they might put their trust in God, and not to forget the works of the Lord, but to keep His commandments’ (vers. 5-7). The histories of Abraham and Isaac, of Jacob and his twelve sons, of Moses among the bulrushes, of Joshua and Samuel, Elijah, Daniel, and the Maccabees, were the stories of his childhood. The destruction of Pharaoh in the Bed Sea, the thunders of Mount Sinai, the dreary journeys in the wilderness, the land that flowed with milk and honey — this was the earliest imagery presented to his opening mind. The triumphant songs of Zion, the lamentations by the waters of Babylon, the prophetic praises of the Messiah, were the songs around his cradle.” 1 Besides this, he would hear the law read and expounded on the Sabbath-day in the synagogue probably of Capernaum. He was doubtless devoid of the culture of his great contemporary just mentioned, who had been brought up at the feet of the learned Gamaliel. It must be remembered, that the native peasantry of Galilee, compared even with the other inhabitants of Palestine, were reputed boorish and half civilised — a

1 Howson and Conybeare’s St Paul, p. 46. turbulent race — inhabiting a frontier land on which heathen shadows rested — “Galilee of the Gentiles.” Far removed from the intellectual influences of the capital, their language was a coarse patois, “a harsh and guttural dialect of the Syro-Chaldaic;” 1 the old Hebrew language being only spoken, and that in a corrupted form, by learned Pharisees and doctors of the law. We shall find afterwards, in the case of Peter, that this very harshness of speech (what we should call “vulgar pronunciation “), perhaps mingled with a burr, betrayed his origin. It convicted him in the palace of Caiaphas of being a Galilean accomplice of his Lord — “Thou art a Galilean;” “Thy speech bewrayeth thee.”2

But if Peter was deficient in high intellectual training, and in the refinement which accompanies it, yet, judging from his subsequent powers as a preacher and writer,8

* Milman, p. 122.

* Mark xiv. 70; Matt xxri. 78.

B Peter’s pictorial power — in other words, his virid perception of the details of outer Nature — which escape the other Evangelists, is conspicuous in various places in St Mark’s Gospel. And it may be well in this note, without cumbering the narrative, to advert shortly to the certain connection which he had in the composition of this record of the second Evangelist. The latter is spoken of as the £pfir)V€VT’jjs or Interpreter of the former, writing down at his dictation (” Secretnry”). Tertullian’s words regarding this connection are “Cujus interpres Marcus.” Irenseus and Papias spenk of Mark, the one as “Interpres,” the other as “Interpres et Sectator Petri.” Jerome still more explicitly affirms the relation of the two: “Petro nar. rante et illo scribente.” Eusebius to the same effect represents Mark, on the authority of Clement of Alexandria, as writing his Gospel with Peter’s express sanction, and that Gospel, as the Apostle’s narrative, being recog. nised and read in the churches. Many commentators have noted these pictorial touches above referred to. I may give a few of them in the words of a recent discriminating writer f” In Mark iv. 38 the description given of the storm and the Saviour asleep differs from that given by St Matthew (viii. 24), and that given by St Luke (viii. 23), by the introduction of such a little detail as only an eyewitness, and an eyewitness who was apt to regard Buch details, could have suggested. St Mark says (in contrast to the other Evangelists, who merely mention that lie was sleeping), ‘And He was in Ike we can imagine that, as he passed from youth to manhood, his natural gifts made him abundantly capable of appreciating the varied loveliness of that wondrous picture in outer Nature which was constantly unfolded -to

hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow.’ In the description of the feeding of the Ave thousand, St Matthew says (xir. 19), ‘And He commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass,’ Ac. St Luke (ix. 15) remarks, 4 And they made them all sit down.’ St Mark’s words are (vi. 39% And He commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass.’ Surely that is the description of one on whom the actual sight of those groups, clad in white and variegated garments, dotted over the bright green grass, had made an impression from the picturesqueness of the scene. St Matthew and St Luke both narrate at length the details of our Lord’s temptation, but St Mark alone (with the appreciation of ooe who regarded intensely the natural aspects of a scene) adds (i. 13), 4 And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan, and was with the wild beasts.’ This is the more remarkable, as St Mark does not give — beyond the mere mention of it — any record of the Temptation; and yet he gives that one suggestion which an appreciator of Nature would be struck with, of the complete loneliness and awfulness of those forty days. St Murk, in describing the finding of the colt, on which Christ was to make His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, gives a little detail unnoticed by the other Evangelists — that the animal was found ‘without, in a place where two ways met.* * And they said among themselves, Who shall roll away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And when they looked, they saw the stone was rolled away, fur it was very (treat,’ Ac. Ac.” See the entire article in “Bible Educator,” “Contrasts of Scripture.” p. 161. Among other examples, there has also been noted the minute description of the demoniac of Gadara. A most discerning eyewitness, with the natural aptitude of a pre- Raphaelite painter for grasping minute details, must have either penned or dictated the following: “Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him. no, not with chains; been use that he had been often bound with fetters and chains and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. And always, night and day. he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped Him” (Mark v. 3-6). Bishop Wordsworth further observes, that ,4The author of this Gospel makes use of the present tense more frequently than any of the Evangelists, and appears to realise the transactions described, as actually before his own eyes He recites more often than any of the Evangelists the very words of Christ, not in Greek, the language in which he was writing, but in the original Syro-Chaldaic uttered by Christ, as if the sound of that Divine voice was still ringing in his ears; and he notices more frequently the expression of hrist’s aspect an 1 look, as if the features of that blessed countenance were indelib’y engraven on his memory.” — Words wort U’s Greek Test, p. 113. “Is it not to him,” remarks his eye. An eloquent writer has said: “If Christianity was to be the offspring of mere beauty of Nature, it might assuredly have found a more enchanting birthplace, such as the golden shores of Ionia, or those magic isles which rise out of a sea of azure on the shores of Asia Minor.” 1 And yet, at the age in which Peter lived — not certainly in Palestine — we question if in many places out of it, could a scene alike more unique and diversified be witnessed than around the Sea of Galilee. Gennesaret — almost unknown in” Old Testament times — (the Chinnereth of Joshua) (xii. 3), or memorable only as the spot where the first Amorite shepherds pitched their tents, had become, in the reign and mainly through the

munificence and luxury of the Herodian Court, the most populous and fashionable district of the kingdom. The lake was girdled with at all events nine proud cities and their varied palatial homes, recalling to many a Roman the sumptuous villas, temples,

Bishop Hlicott, “that we owe the last touch, as it were, to that affecting pic tore of oar Lord’s tenderness and lore, when He took up the young children in His arms, and put His hands upon them, and blessed them”? (p. 25X Nor is it unworthy of (note in confirmation of the opinion of the early Fathers of the Church referred to at the commencement of this note) that the sacred art of the Middle Ages has in the same way associated St Mark and Peter as apostle and amanuensis. The authoress of 14 Sacred and Legendary Art” mentions, that in the Treasury of the Duomo of St Mark s, Venice, is preserved a golden reliquary of a square form, containing, it is said, a fragment of the original Gospel in the handwriting of St Mark. A figure of Peter is on the chased cover, while the Evangelist is in a kneeling attitude at his feet writing from his dictation. The same authority refers, among other examples, to two beautiful pictures, one in the Florentine Gallery, by Angelico da Fiesole, in which St Peter is represented in a pulpit, and St Mark below, similarly occupied as his disciple and scribe; another, by Bonvicino, in the Brera Gallery of Milan, in which the two apostles are standing together, St Mark holding a scroll and inkhorn; while St Peter is reading the Gospel he has just submitted to him for his approval and confirmation. (See ‘’Sacred and Legendary Art,” p. 149, 195.) We shall in a subsequent chapter advert more particularly to St Mark’s personal relation to Peter, i Pressensl’s Life of Christ. baths, and theatres which crowded their favourite Lucrine lake or the shores of Baiae. Nigh to Peter’s native hamlet, unchanged to this hour, was the great thoroughfare from the East to. the South, paved like the Roman Via Sacra. As we have already noted, often doubtless must he have seen the long file of camels and horses, caravan on caravan, on the road from Damascus to the markets and bazaars of Tiberias and Jerusalem, Caesarea and Alexandria.

We may try for a moment to embody in word-painting the view, which, day after day, would meet the gaze of the youthful .fisherman, either as he was preparing his nets on the beach for the night of toil, or, shall we rather say (realising in thought the season when all secular work was suspended), on the Jewish Sabbath-eve, when, seated with his parents and companion brother in the green alcove on the top of his flat-roofed dwelling, he had leisure in Nature’s “still, golden hour” to drink in the wonders of the prospect. Nigh at hand, though possibly half-hidden by a rugged promontory to the J eft, the waves of the lake would lave what are now piles of ruin, but which were then the edifices of proud Capernaum, with its barracks and wharfs, — the gleaming marble of its white synagogue doubly luminous under such a sky: — a city with which Simon was afterwards to be sacredly associated, not only as his own adopted home, where he lived with his wife’s mother, but where most of the miracles of his Divine Master, of which he himself was most generally spectator, were performed. It was, moreover, the only settled residence which the Homeless One claimed, —

See accompanying Ideal view of “Gennesaret Restored,” from the hiUf abore Bethsaida.

“His own city.” 1 On the disputed question of its site it would be out of place here to enter. In wandering, not many years ago, among the marble fragments which stud the desolate jungle at Tel Hum, I have elsewhere stated the grounds for the very strong belief that we were treading the relics and memorials of that city of the Gospel age; and that in the columns and entablatures which strew the ground were beheld fragments (probably) of that old monument of the munificence of a Roman soldier, who, stranger as he was to Jewish customs, and an alien to the Jewish race, still J€ loved their nation, and built them a synagogue “(Luke viL 5). Vain, I need not say, was the question, Where, in this voiceless desolation, was the dwelling of Peter, “the Home of Jesus “? Enough to feel, that somewhere near, that hallowed habitation, in all likelihood, had been; that, from its vine-festooned lattice or open roof, the Eye of Incarnate Godhead must have gazed on the very scene spread before us, blighted and blasted truly, yet, like the skeleton leaves of a flower, “beautiful in death,”2

But, to return to our ideal picture, farther east would rise before the eye of the young spectator the edifices of Chorazin, all the brighter, too, in the setting of black basalt rocks around. In front, to the right, where now is a miserable, battered village with a solitary palm, he would have before him the town of Magdala, which

l Matthew lac. 1.

* I was struck with what Dr Thomson specially mentions, “heaps of lava which encumber the shores and the fields.” The marble of the white synagogue was, according to the same, “cut from the mountains to the north-west, where it is seen in place and rery abundant” (p. 350). The name Capernaum indicates a humbler commencement to the great city of apostolic times, meaning, as it does, “The village of comfort,” or 14 The lovely Tillage.” See Milman’s History of Christianity. in future he would associate with a touching story of Divine goodness and grace; while other two miles in advance, and occupying the more commanding situation, were fast rising, if not already built, the stately towers and imperial edifices of Tiberias, “flinging far into the lake the reflections of its marble lions and sculptured architraves; “a city built by Herod Antipas in honour of his master, on the site whereon Jerome tells us once stood a city called Chinneroth. Humbler fishing huts fringed the lake, and teeming, villages climbed the mountain-sides. Nor had Nature left what was attractive to art and man. The setting, in this case, was beautiful as the jewel. Not inaptly has it been called” The Zug of Palestine, wrapped in the arms of a circle

1 This principal city of the region, at all events in the days of Peter’s early manhood, and with whose outer magnificence he must have been very familiar, may merit fuller description. I give it in the words of a vivid writer: “Herod’s plan was laid at the base of a steep hill, around the waters of a hot spring, among the ruins of a nameless town and the graves of a forgotten race. A great builder, like all the princes of his line, Antipas could now indulge his taste for temples, palaces, and public baths, conceived in a Roman spirit and executed on a Roman scale, while flattering that capricious master wl o might any day send him to die, as his brother was dying, in a distant land. The new city grew apace. A castle crowned the hilL High walls ran down from the heights into the sea. Streets and templp s covered the low ground which lay between these walls. A gorgeous palace rose high above the rest of the public works; a palace for the prince and court, having a roof of gofd, from which circumstance it came to bo known as ’ the golden house.’ A port was formed; a pier thrown out; a water-gate built; and a fleet of war-ships and pleasure-boats danced on the sparkling wave. Towers protected and gates adorned a city which Antipas dedicated to his master, inscribed on his coins, and made the capital of his province, the residence of his court. This new city, though ruled by a Jewish prince, and seated in the midst of Pharisaic hamlets, was in no sense a Jewish town. It was a Syrian Syracuse; a city of pleasure, a refuge of intelligence, of toleration, and of force; in which all the strangers of the earth could assemble in peace and safety, bringing with them, as into an open market and a common forum, their speech, their customs, and their idols. In fact, under the Herod ian prince, the city of Tiberias was a Roman fortress, held by a Syro-Macedonian army, and governed by an Asiatic court.” — Dixon t Holy Land, pp. 268-270. of tiny Alps,” and yet with greater truth has another said, “The features of the scene are neither gorgeous nor colossal; there is nothing here of the mountain gloom or the mountain glory; nothing of that ‘dread magnificence ’ which overawes us as we gaze on the fiery dome of tropical volcanoes or the icy precipices of northern hills.“1 It is a well-known saying of the Talmud,” Of all the seven seas God created, He made choice of none but the Lake of Gennesaret.” That remarkable basin, 650 feet below the level of the Mediterranean, enjoyed a tropical climate. Flowers and shrubs that would have drooped on Olivet, Bethlehem, or Samaria, grew in exuberant luxuriance there, and made it — what it was called — a terrestrial Paradise. As Josephus says, “Nature brought thither trees of all climates.” The oleander, with its luscious blossoms,2 the vine, the pomegranate, the orange, the tamarisk, the lotus, the fig, the agnus cast us, not forgetting the now unfamiliar palm — all had a home in this clime of the sun. Well may “the smiling district n be designated by a well-known French author as “the true home of the Song of Songs.” The extreme edge of some of the upper portions of the lake would be fringed, as they are now, with colossal reeds, meadow grass, and rushes, — a safe retreat alike for the pelican, the blue-and-white-winged jay, the little bright-eyed tortoise, or for the stately heron that more rarely made a solitary excursion from the Jordan jungle and the sedges of Lake Meroin. The same picturesque writer, just referred to, adds to the

Dr Farrar*s Life of Christ, rol. 1. p. 174.

* “Nowhere else will you see such magnificent oleanders as at the head of this lake. I saw clumps of them here twenty feet high and a hundred <n circumference — one mass of rosy-red flowers -a blushing pyramid of exquitite loveliness,” — Land and Book, p. 351. number “delicate and lively turtle-doves, blue birds so light that they rest on a blade of grass without bending it, crested larks which venture almost under the feet of the traveller, storks with grave and modest mien, which, laying aside all timidity, allow man to come quite near them, and seem almost to invite his approach.” The blue lupin and salvia, the purple hyacinth, the yellow and white crocus, would combine their modest tints with the louder tones of the scarlet poppy and gladiolus, or the luscious masses of the flowering almond; while the crimson and pink anemone, the “lilies of the field,” familiar still at every turn, which were afterwards pointed to as excelling the glories of Solomon — weaving a richer mantle than any Syrian loom — would mingle their brilliant hues with the green turf, and the ebbing and flowing waves lapping this silver, shell-strewn strand.

“What went ye out to see

O’er the rude, sandy lea,
Where stately Jordan flows by many a palm,

Or where Gennesaret’s wave

Delights the flowers to lave, That o’er her western slope breathe airs of balm?

All through the summer night, These blossoms red and white Spread their soft breasts unheeding to the breeze, Like hermits watching still, Around the sacred hill, Where erst our Saviour watched upon His knees.*

—Keble.

The wide “Plain of Gennesaret “— the” El-Ghuweir,” or Little Ghor, as the Arabs now call it — formed by a recess in the limestone crags, would be seen almost close by, teeming with vegetable life, and irrigated by plenteous streams. In this richest portion of the lake-side, familiar to the eye of young Simon would be s the sower ’ in early spring scattering his handfuls of grain on the bounteous soil, birds from lake and mountain screaming around his head, and picking up the stray grains which the harrow had missed, or which had been tossed on the hardened footroad: — a future fertile text for Divine lips, “Behold, a sower went forth to sow.“1 The Horns of Hattin, already alluded to, near which the crusaders under the Great Saladin of a future age sustained their last fatal defeat, but which was to have a different association to the future Apostle as” the Mount of Beatitudes,” formed, along with the Beth-arbel of Hosea and its fortified caverns, the prominent object in the right of this panorama; while rugged cliffs of limestone, more varied in outline than the othei hills of the district, terminated above the houses of Magdala.” Nature had invited man by her own true signs to dwell on the western banks of this lake, where she had smoothed her gentle slopes and hidden her refreshing springs; bright little towns and villages crowded upon each other, as in our own day villas and hamlets sparkle around the shores of Como and Geneva. On every patch of loam, in every rift of rock, on every gentle knoll, sprung a cluster of stone sheds, the homes of reapers and fishermen, each hamlet having its bit of uneven cornfield, its narrow ledge of vines, and its tiny beach of sand. Some of the neighbouring peaks being

1 1 can attest from personal recollection the truth of Dr Thomson’s observation: Gennesaret is now pre-eminently fruitful in thorns. They grow up among the grain, or the grain among them, and the reaper must pick the harvest out of the thorns* (Job v. 1); the same prickly shrub common in Palestine, which is said to have formed the Redeemer’s crown of thorns (tiziphu* spina ChrittC), ‘armed with small, sharp spines.’” volcanic, huge masses of basaltic rock lay tumbled along the shore.“1 In the distance, as far as the eye could reach, the gleaming waters of the lake itself contracted to a point. From one of the higher eminences behind his native village, the beholder would be able to note where the Jordan issued forth in a sheet of foam from this great northern basin on its way through the Ghor, hastening down its rocky gorges to lose itself in the Sea of Death. If we imagine him climbing higher still, he would obtain in that clear atmosphere towards the right a view of the wooded crest of Tabor, and the green top of Gilboa: while far north the prospect was bounded by what gave peerless glory to the whole scene — the crest of Hermon, Jebel-es-Sheikh, the “kingly mountain,” with its crown of everlasting snows. Even the hills around his native village would seem (from the near view I obtained) not to be without their own interest and beauty. Too steep and undulating to admit well of human habitations, his eye would ramble over grassy plateaus and slopes, interlaced with hollows and “becks,” studded with the grisly nalbk; while the scene familiar now, might have been as familiar then, the shepherd, followed by his flock, coming down from the hills to fold them for the night, and water them at the copious fountains, — occasionally perhaps returning

1 Dixon’s Holy Land. pp. 26, 27. I have thus elsewhere recorded my own impressions in relation to familiar scenery at home. 14 They reminded one less of the northern Highlands of Scotland than of the peculiar pastoral hills in Ettrick and Yarrow in the South, or in Cumberland and Westmoreland; while in the upper end of the lake, as they recede to girdle in the fertile ‘Plain of Gennesaret,’ they display here and there bold, rocky cliffs, beginning above the now ruined Magdala; more broken and not so continuous, yet those who are familiar with Salisbury Craps at Edinburgh may have a tolerable impression conveyed to them of their peculiar character and costour.” from a distance bearing in his arms some truant from the thorny brake. “Far higher above the lake than Ain et-Tin and Mudawara,” says Mr Macgregor, describing the heights behind El-Tabijah, “a perennial stream comes from a great round fountain, also girded by walls which are at least twenty feet high. Some part of the masonry is very ancient; and fig-trees, bursting through it, clamber down the sides, and hang their white-barked, hoary limbs over a hot, sullen pool below, 1 A similar observant traveller, with a keen eye for the picturesque, thus describes those higher hills behind Betbsaida on which the youthful feet of Simon must have wandered: “The path wound down a steep ravine, with ever-changing views of the lake; while from every crevice between the broken rocks bloomed an infinite number

of giant pink cyclamens and purple auriculas

Turning round the west hill, we looked down upon a Bedoueen encampment of black tents, with large herds of cattle; and further on we found a delicious valley of n&bk trees, where scores of graceful camels with their young ones were feeding. A lovely scene it was, increasing in beauty as we reached the shores of that lake.“2 Nor to the youthful fisherman would the eastern shore — the inheritance of Manasseh, doubtless in every way less interesting and picturesque than the western side — be without its weird grandeur, at all events in evening light, the last flush of sunset. As the purple shadows fell, there would be brought out in bold relief the blue cliffs and seamed crevasses of the Gadara mountains, some of the latter rising 900 feet above the lake, the last ramparts and outliers of Hermon, guarding t Miss Beaufort’s Syrian Shrines, p. 37. the ancient kingdom of Bashan. This ideal picture would be incomplete without including the bosom of the lake itself, spoken of enthusiastically by Jewish writers as “beloved of God above all the waters of Canaan.” Simon and his fellow-adventurers would have it, doubtless, much to themselves in the lonely night watches, only now and then would they note the glistening wake of some friendly craft in the clear moonlight or starlight. But by day, or in the cool of the evening, the whole expanse would be alive and furrowed with pleasure-boats, sumptuous barges, galleys, and pinnaces, gay as the Venetian gondolas of a later age; while vessels of heavier tonnage would be seen plying between the ports of Bethsaida- Julias and Capernaum, or moored in the busy wharves filled with merchandise, where officials, like the future Apostle Matthew, would be seen sitting at the receipt of custom to collect the impost.

Amid, then, such surroundings as these, the Fisherman boy was trained for the great work of the future; a befitting school surely for his subsequent varied labours. The rough life of adventurous toil, the heats of summer and storms of winter, which braced his physical frame, would nerve and inure him to cope with sterner difficulties. He had doubtless no thought in these his earlier years, save of living an unobtrusive life, and of dying an unnoted death by the Galilean lake. But the God of his fathers had a nobler destiny in store for him. Like his spiritual brother of Tarsus, he was yet to be made a “chosen vessel. 99 Nets and toils and buffeting elements undreamt of by the sailor of Bethsaida, were to supersede his homely occupations. The modest name of the village on the Sea of Tiberias was ere long to take its place among the memorable spots of earth; as memorable, though for a very different reason, as either Rome or Athens. In a sense which the great prophet of the nation never imagined his words to convey, it might be said of that whole region, alike with regard to the bounties of Nature and of grace, “O Naphthali, satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of the Lord.”1

One other reflection occurs in connection with the early life of Simon. While he was plying his oar in the midnight sea, or mending his nets by day on the shore, there was growing up in a remote village in Galilee, not many miles from Bethsaida, a mysterious Child, his junior in years, but whom he was by-and-by to feel honoured in calling Lord and Master. When the youth of the Gennesaret villager had merged into early manhood, he would probably, in the lovely spring season of Palestine, as was the general wont, form one of the caravan of pilgrims to the Paschal feast of Jerusalem. We have in a passage in St John’s Gospel an indirect intimation that Capernaum formed a rendezvous for those coming from North Galilee. If they took — as we know they frequently did — the western itinerary rather than that of the Jordan valley, who knows but possibly in passing Nazareth, with its circuit of green hills, they may have been joined, before crossing the plain of Esdraelon, by a lowly carpenter, his wife and Son, “twelve years of age,” — the latter going up for the first time to the city of solemnities with the multitude that kept holiday; who knows but these two youths, afterwards to be linked in so holy a relation,

l Dent, xxxiii. 23.

might have pitched their tents together in that sacred cavalcade 1 — sometimes travelling in company in early morning and cool evening — sometimes, as was the custom, by night, to avoid the sultry heat of day. Who knows but that, under these clear, starlit heavens, the Master and the subsequent disciple may have, unknown to each other, blended lip and voice in singing the songs of Zion? the young boatman little dreaming that many of these were to the praise of the wondrous Being who in human form walked by his side! “The pilgrimage was a sweet solemnity for the provincial Jews. Entire series of psalms were consecrated to celebrate the happiness of thus journeying in family companionship during several days in the spring across the hills and valleys, each one having in prospect the splendours of Jerusalem, the solemnities of the sacred courts, and the joy of brethren dwelling together in unity. The route in these journeys was that which is followed to this day, through Ginaea and Shechem. Ain-el-Haramie, the last halting- place, is a charming and melancholy spot, and few impressions equal that experienced on encamping there for the night. The valley is narrow and sombre, and a dark stream issues from the rocks, full of tombs, which form its bank. It is, I think, 4 the Valley of tears, or of dropping waters, which is described as one of the stations on the way in the delightful 84th Psalm, and which became the emblem of life for the sad and sweet mysticism of the Middle Ages.” 1 The imaginary journey, in relation to the divine, youthful Pilgrim of Nazareth, has thus been beautifully sketched but, with hardly the change of a word, we may apply it with equal truth, so far as regards the localities, to His future

1 Benan, p 77. apostle, “As the Passover fails at the end of April and the beginning of May, the country would be wearing its brightest, greenest, loveliest aspect, and the edges of the vast corn-fields on either side of the road through the vast plain would be woven, like the high-priest’s robe, with the blue and purple and scarlet of innumerable flowers. Over the streams of that ancient river — the river Kishon — past Shunem, recalling memories of Elisha as it lay nestling on the southern slopes of Little Hennon — past royal Jezreel, with the sculptured sarcophagi that alone bore witness to its departed splendour — past the picturesque outline of bare and dewless Gilboa — past sandy Taanach, with its memories of Sisera and Barak — past Megiddo, .... the road would lie to En-Gannim, where, beside the fountains and amid the shady and lovely gardens which still mark the spot, they would probably have halted for their first night’s rest. Next day they would begin to ascend the mountains of Manasseh, and crossing the ‘Drowning Meadows, as it is now called, and winding through the rich fig-yards and olive-groves that fill the valleys round Ei-Jib, they would leave upon the right the hills which, in their glorious beauty, formed the s crown of pride ’ of which Samaria boasted, but which, as the prophet foretold, should be as a ‘fading flower.’ Their second encampment would probably be near Jacob’s well, in the beautiful and fertile valley between Ebal and Gerizim, and not far from the ancient Shechem. A third day’s journay would take them past Shiloh and Gibeab of Saul and Bethel to Beeroth; and from the pleasant springs by which they would then encamp, a short and easy stage would bring them in sight of the towers of Jerusalem. The profane plumage of the eagle- wings of Rome was already overshadowing the city; but, towering above its walls, still glittered the great temple, with its gilded roofs and marble colonnades, and it was stili the Jerusalem of which royal David sang, and for which the exiles by the waters of Babylon had yearned with such deep emotion, when they took their harps from the willows to wail the remorseful dirge that they would remember her until their right hand* forgot their cunning. Who shall fathom the unspeakable emotion with which the boy Jesus” (and we may add, the young man Simon) “gazed on that memorable and never-to-be-forgotten scene 1” 1

It may not be out of place, in closing this chapter, to note, that if we may believe the description which Nicephorus gives of his outer appearance, the apostlefisherman was “of middle size, his complexion pale, his hair thick and curled, his eyes black, his eyebrows thin, his nose large but not sharp.” And though in this we are anticipating, yet, to complete these references to the youth and opening manhood of the son of Jonas, we may add, that it is specially mentioned by a reliable authority (Clement of Alexandria), in recording very ancient traditions, that in early life Simon was married to one called Perpetua. Her name was not inappropriate, as the same authority accredits her with the willing abandonment of her earthly all, for the sake of the common Master they came to serve.

1 Dr Farrar’s Life of Christ, vol. i. pp. 70, 7L