the Baptist's imprisonment and martyrdom. The Julias, or Livias, of Peraea must be distinguished from another city of that name (also called Bethsaida) in the North (east of the Jordan), and within the dominions of the Tetrarch Philip. The Julias of Peraea represented the ancient Beth Haram in the tribe of Gad, [d Numb, xxxii. 36; Josh. xiii. 27.] a name for which Josephus gives [e Ant. xviii. 2. 1.] Betharamphtha, and the Rabbis Beth Ramthah. [f Jerus. Shev. 38 d.] [3 Comp. the references in Bottger, Lex. zu Jos. p. 58.] It still survives in the modern Beit-haran. But of the fortress and palace which Herod had built, and named after the Empress, 'all that remains' are 'a few traces of walls and foundations.' [4 See the description of the site in Tristram, Land of Moab, p. 348.]
Supposing Antipas to have been at the Peraean Julias, he would have been in the closest proximity to the scene of the Baptist's last recorded labours at AEnon. We can now understand, not only how John was imprisoned by Antipas, but also the threefold motives which influenced it. According to Josephus, [g Ant. xviii. 5, 2.] the Tetrarch was afraid that his absolute influence over the people, who seemed disposed to carry out whatever he advised, might lead to a rebellion. This circumstance is also indicated in the remark of St. Matthew, [h St. Matt. xiv. 5.] that Herod was afraid to put the Baptist to death on account of the people's opinion of him. On the other hand, the Evangelic statement, [i St. Matt. xiv. 3, 4; St. Mark vi 17, 18.] that Herod had imprisoned John on account of his declaring his marriage with Herodias unlawful, is in no way inconsistent with the reason assigned by Josephus. Not only might both motives have influenced Herod, but there is an obvious connection between them. For, John's open declaration of the unlawfulness of Herod's marriage, as unlike incestuous and adulterous, might, in view of the influence which the Baptist exercised, have easily led to a rebellion. In our view, the sacred text gives indication of yet a third cause which led to John's imprisonment, and which indeed, may have given final weight to the other two grounds of enmity against him. It has been suggested, that Herod must have been attached to the Sadducees, if to any religious party, because such a man would not have connected himself
with the Pharisees. The reasoning is singularly inconclusive. On political grounds, a Herod would scarcely have lent his weight to the Sadducean or aristocratic priest-party in Jerusalem; while, religiously, only too many instances are on record of what the Talmud itself calls 'painted ones, who are like the Pharisees, and who act like Zimri, but expect the reward of Phinehas.' [a Sot. 22 b.] Besides, the Pharisees may have used Antipas as their tool, and worked upon his wretched superstition to effect their own purposes. And this is what we suppose to have been the case. The reference to the Pharisaic spying and to their comparisons between the influence of Jesus and John, [b St. John iv. 1, 2.] which led to the withdrawal of Christ into Galilee, seems to imply that the Pharisees had something to do with the imprisonment of John. Their connection with Herod appears even more clearly in the attempt to induce Christ's departure from Galilee, on pretext of Herod's machinations. It will be remembered that the Lord unmasked their hypocrisy by bidding them go back to Herod, showing that He fully knew that real danger threatened Him, not from the Tetrarch, but from the leaders of the party in Jerusalem, [c St. Luke xiii. 31-33.] Our inference therefore is, that Pharisaic intrigue had a very large share in giving effect to Herod's fear of the Baptist and of his reproofs.
3. We suppose, then, that Herod Antipas was at Julias, in the immediate neighbourhood of AEnon, at the time of John's imprisonment. But, according to Josephus, whose testimony there is no reason to question, the Baptist was committed to the strong fortress of Machaerus. [d Ant. xviii. 5, 2.] [1 A little before that it seems belonged to Aretas. We know not, how it again passed into the hands of Antipas, if, indeed, it ever was fully ceded by him to the Arabs. Comp. Schurer, u.s. p. 239, and Wieseler, Chron. Syn. p. 244, Beitr, pp. 5, &c, whose positions are, however, not always quite reliable.] If Julias lay where the Wady of the Heshban debouches into the Jordan, east of that river, and a little north of the Dead Sea, Machaerus is straight south of it, about two and a half hours north-west of the ancient Kiriathaim (the modern Kureiyat), the site of Chedorlaomer's victory, [a Gen. xiv. 5.] Machaerus(the modern M'Khaur) marked the extreme point south, as Pella that north, in Peraea. As the boundary fortress in the south-east (towards Arabia), its safety was of the greatest importance, and everything was done to make a place, exceedingly strongly by nature, impregnable. It had been built by Alexander Jannaeus, but destroyed by Gabinius in the wars of Pompey. [b Jewish War i. 8.5.] It was not only restored, but greatly enlarged, by Herod the Great, who surrounded it with the best defences known at that time. In fact, Herod the Great built a town along the shoulder of the hill, and surrounded it by walls, fortified by towers. From this town a farther height had to be climbed, on which the castle stood, surrounded by walls, and flanked by towers one hundred and sixty cubits high. Within the inclosure of the castle Herod had built a magnificent palace. A large number of cisterns, storehouses, and arsenals, containing every weapon of attack or defence, had been provided to enable the garrison to stand a prolonged siege. Josephus describes even its natural position as unassailable. The highest point of the fort was on the west, where it looked sheer down into a valley. North and south the fort was equally cut off by valleys, which could not be filled up for siege purposes. On the east there was, indeed, a valley one hundred cubits deep, but it terminated in a mountain opposite to Machaerus. This was evidently the weak point of the situation. [1 Here Bassus made his attack in the fast Jewish war (Jos. Warvii. 6. 1-4).]
A late and very trustworthy traveller [2 Canon Tristram Land of Moab, pp. 255-265; comp. Baedeker (Socin) Palastina, p. 195 and, for the various passages in Josephus referring to Machaerus, Bottger, u.s. pp. 165-167.] has pronounced the description of Josephus [c War vii. 6
1,2.] as sufficiently accurate, although exaggerated, and as probably not derived from personal observation. He has also furnished such pictorial details, that we can transport ourselves to that rocky keep of the Baptist, perhaps the more vividly that, as we wander over the vast field of stones, upturned foundations, and broken walls around, we seem to view the scene in the lurid sunset of judgment. 'A rugged line of upturned squared stones' shows the old Roman paved road to Machaerus. Ruins covering quite a square mile, on a group of undulating hills, mark the site of the ancient town of Machaerus. Although surrounded by a wall and towers, its position is supposed not to have been strategically defensible. Only a mass of ruins here, with traces of a temple to the Syrian Sun-God, broken cisterns, and desolateness all around. Crossing a narrow deep valley, about a mile wide, we climb up to the ancient fortress on a conical hill. Altogether it covered a ridge of more than a mile. The key of the position was a citadel to the extreme east of the fortress. It occupied the summit of the cone, was isolated, and almost impregnable, but very small. We shall return to examine it. Meanwhile, descending a steep slope about 150 yards towards the west, we reach the oblong flat plateau that formed the fortress, containing Herod's magnificent palace. Here, carefully collected, are piled up the stones of which the citadel was built. These immense heaps look like a terrible monument of judgment.
We pass on among the ruins. No traces of the royal palace are left, save foundations and enormous stones upturned. Quite at the end of this long fortress in the west, and looking southwards, is a square fort. We return, through what we regard as the ruins of the magnificent castle-palace of Herod, to the highest and strongest part of the defences, the eastern keep or the citadel, on the steep slope 150 yards up. The foundations of the walls all around, to the height of a yard or two above the ground, are still standing. As we clamber over them to examine the interior, we notice how small this keep is: exactly 100 yards in diameter. There are scarcely any remains of it left. A well of great depth, and a deep cemented cistern with the vaulting of the roof still complete, and, of most terrible interest to us, two dungeons, one of them deep down, its sides scarcely broken in, 'with small holes still visible in the masonry where staples of wood and iron had once been fixed'! As we look down into its hot darkness, we shudder in realising that this terrible keep had for nigh ten months been the prison of that son of the free 'wilderness,' the bold herald of the coming Kingdom, the humble, earnest, self-denying John the Baptist. Is this the man whose testimony about the Christ may be treated as a falsehood?
We withdraw our gaze from trying to pierce this gloom and to call up in it the figure of the camel-hair-clad and leather-girt preacher, and look over the ruins at the scene around. We are standing on a height not less than 3,800 feet above the Dead Sea. In a straight line it seems not more than four or five miles; and the road down to it leads, as it were, by a series of ledges and steps. We can see the whole extent of this Sea of Judgment, and its western shores from north to south. We can almost imagine the Baptist, as he stands surveying this noble prospect. Far to the south stretches the rugged wilderness of Judaea, bounded by the hills of Hebron. Here nestles Bethlehem, there is Jerusalem. Or, turning another way, and looking into the deep cleft of the Jordan valley: this oasis of beauty is Jericho; beyond it, like a silver thread, Jordan winds through a burnt, desolate-looking country, till it is lost to view in the haze which lies upon the edge of the horizon. As the eye of the Baptist travelled over it, he could follow all the scenes of His life and labours, from the home of his childhood in the hill-country of Judaea, to those many years of solitude and communing with God in the wilderness, and then to the first place of his preaching and Baptism, and onwards to that where he had last spoken of the Christ, just before his own
captivity. And now the deep dungeon in the citadel on the one side, and, on the other, down that slope, the luxurious palace of Herod and his adulterous, murderous wife, while the shouts of wild revelry and drunken
