the soil most rich, the wheat crops being quite ripe in the beginning of May. Half an hour more, and we cross a bridge over the bright blue waters of the Jordan, or rather of the Hasbany, which, under a very wilderness of oleanders, honeysuckle, clematis, and wild rose, rush among huge boulders, between walls of basalt. We leave aside, at a distance of about half an hour to the east, the ancient Dan (the modern Tell-Kady), even more glorious in its beauty and richness than what we have passed. Dan lies on a hill above the plain. On the western side of it, under overhanging thickets of oleander and other trees, and amidst masses of basalt boulders, rise what are called 'the lower springs' of Jordan, issuing as a stream from a basin sixty paces wide, and from a smaller source close by. The 'lower springs' supply the largest proportion of what forms the Jordan. And from Dan olivegroves and oak- glades slope up to Banias, or Caesarea Philippi.
The situation of the ancient Caesarea Philippi (1,147 feet above the sea) is, indeed, magnificent. Nestling amid three valleys on a terrace in the angle of Hermon, it is almost shut out from view by cliffs and woods. 'Everywhere there is a wild medley of cascades, mulberry trees, fig-trees, dashing torrents, festoons of vines, bubbling fountains, reeds, and ruins, and the mingled music of birds and waters.' [1 Tristram, Land of Israel, p. 586.] The vegetation and fertility all around are extraordinary. The modern village of Banias is within the walls of the old fortifications, and the ruins show that it must anciently have extended far southwards. But the most remarkable points remain to be described. The western side of a steep mountain, crowned by the ruins of an ancient castle, forms an abrupt rock-wall. Here, from out an immense cavern, bursts a river. These are 'the upper sources' of the Jordan. This cave, an ancient heathen sanctuary of Pan,
gave its earliest name of Paneas to the town. Here Herod, when receiving the tetrarchy from Augustus, built a temple in his honour. On the rocky wall close by, votive niches may still be traced, one of them bearing the Greek inscription, 'Priest of Pan.' When Herod's son, Philip, received the tetrarchy, he enlarged and greatly beautified the ancient Paneas, and called it in honour of the Emperor, Caesarea Philippi. The castle-mount (about 1,000 feet above Paneas), takes nearly an hour to ascend, and is separated by a deep valley from the flank of Mount Hermon. The castle itself (about two miles from Banias) is one of the best preserved ruins, its immense bevelled structure resembling the ancient forts of Jerusalem, and showing its age. It followed the irregularities of the mountain, and was about 1,000 feet long by 200 wide. The eastern and higher part formed, as in Machaerus, a citadel within the castle. In some parts the rock rises higher than the walls. The views, sheer down the precipitous sides of the mountain, into the valleys and far away, are magnificent.
It seems worth while, even at such length, to describe the scenery along this journey, and the look and situation of Caesarea, when we recall the importance of the events enacted there, or in the immediate neighbourhood. It was into this chiefly Gentile district, that the Lord now withdrew with His disciples after that last and decisive question of the Pharisees. It was here that, as His question, like Moses' rod, struck their hearts, there leaped from the lips of Peter the living, life-spreading waters of his confession. It may have been, that this rock-wall below the castle, from under which sprang Jordan, or the rock on which the castle stood, supplied the material suggestion for Christ's words: 'Thou art Peter, and on this rock will I build My Church.' [1 So Dean Stanley, with his usual charm of language, though topographically not quite correctly (Sinai and Palestine, p. 395).] In Caesarea, or its immediate neighbourhood, [2 Nothing in the above obliges us to infer, that the words of Peter's confession were spoken in Caesarea itself. The place might have been in view or in the memory.] did the Lord spend, with His disciples, six days after this confession; and here, close by, on one of the heights of snowy Hermon, was the scene of the Transfiguration, the light of which shone for ever into the hearts of the disciples on their dark and tangled path; [a 2 Pet. i. 19.] nay, far beyond that, beyond life and death, beyond the grave and the judgment, to the perfect brightness of the Resurrection-day.
As we think of it, there seems nothing strange in it, but all most wise and most gracious, that such events should have taken place far away from Galilee and Israel, in the lonely grandeur of the shadows of Hermon, and even amongst a chiefly Gentile population. Not in Judaea, nor even in Galilee, but far away from the Temple, the Synagogue, the Priests, Pharisees and Scribes, was the first confession of the Church made, and on this confession its first foundations laid. Even this spoke of near judgment and doom to what had once been God's chosen congregation. And all that happened, though Divinely shaped as regards the end, followed in a natural and orderly succession of events. Let us briefly recall the circumstances, which in the previous chapters have been described in detail.
It had been needful to leave Capernaum. The Galilean Ministry of the Christ was ended, and, alike the active persecutions of the Pharisees from Jerusalem, the inquiries of Herod, whose hands, stained with the blood of the Baptist, were tremblingly searching for his greater Successor, and the growing indecision and unfitness of the people, as well as the state of the disciples, pointed to the need for leaving Galilee. Then followed 'the Last Supper' to Israel on the eastern shore of Lake Gennesaret, when they would have made Him a King. He must now withdraw quite
away, out of the boundaries of Israel. Then came that miraculous night-journey, the brief Sabbath-stay at Capernaum by the way, the journey through Tyrian and Sidonian territory, and round to the Decapolis, the teaching and healing there, the gathering of the multitude to Him, together with that 'Supper,' which closed His Ministry there, and, finally, the withdrawal to Tarichaea, where His Apostles, as fishermen of the Lake, may have had business-connections, since the place was the great central depot for selling and preparing the fish for export.
In that distant and obscure corner, on the boundary-line between Jew and Gentile, had that greatest crisis in the history of the world occurred, which sealed the doom of Israel, and in their place substituted the Gentiles as citizens of the Kingdom. And, in this respect also, it is most significant, that the confession of the Church likewise took place in territory chiefly inhabited by Gentiles, and the Transfiguration on Mount Hermon. That crisis had been the public challenge of the Pharisees and Sadducees, that Jesus should legitimate His claims to the Messiahship by a sign from heaven. It is not too much to assert, that neither His questioners, nor even His disciples, understood the answer of Jesus, nor yet perceived the meaning of His 'sign.' To the Pharisees Jesus would seem to have been defeated, and to stand self-convicted of having made Divine claims which, when challenged, He could not substantiate. He had hitherto elected(as they, who understood not His teaching, would judge) to prove Himself the Messiah by the miracles which He had wrought, and now, when met on His own ground, He had publicly declined, or at least evaded, the challenge. He had conspicuously, almost self-confessedly, failed! At least, so it would appear to those who could not understand His reply and 'sigh.' We note that a similar final challenge was addressed to Jesus by the High-Priest, when he adjured Him to say, whether He was what He claimed. His answer then was an assertion, not a proof; and, unsupported as it seemed, His questioners would only regard it as blasphemy.
But what of the disciples, who (as we have seen) would probably understand 'the sign' of Christ little better than the Pharisees? That what might seem Christ's failure, in not daring to meet the challenge of His questioners, must have left some impression on them, is not only natural, but appears even from Christ's warning of the leaven, that is, of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Indeed, that this unmet challenge and virtual defeat of Jesus did make lasting and deepest impression in His disfavour, is evident from the later challenge of His own relatives to go and meet the Pharisees at headquarters in Judaea, and to show openly, if He could, by His works, that He was the Messiah, [a St. John vii. 1-5.] All the more remarkable appears Christ's dealing with His disciples, His demand on, and training of their faith. It must be remembered, that His last 'hard' sayings at Capernaum had led to the defection of many, who till then had been His disciples, [b St. John vi. 60-66; comp. St. Matt. xv. 12.] Undoubtedly this had already tried their faith, as appears from the question of Christ: 'Will ye also go away? [c St. John vi. 67.] It was this wise and gracious dealing with them, this putting the one disappointment of doubt, engendered by what they could not understand, against their whole past experience in following Him, which enabled them to overcome. And it is this which also enables us to answer the doubt, perhaps engendered by inability to understand seemingly unintelligible, hard sayings of Christ, such as that to the disciples about giving them His Flesh to eat, or about His being the Living Bread from heaven. And, this alternative being put to them: would they, could they, after their experience of Him, go away from Him, they overcame, as we overcome, through what almost sounds like a cry of despair, yet is a shout of victory: 'Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.'
And all that followed only renewed and deepened the trial of faith, which had commenced at Capernaum. We shall, perhaps, best understand it when following the progress of this trial in him who, at last, made shipwreck of his faith: Judas Iscariot. Without attempting to gaze into the mysterious abyss of the Satanic element in his apostasy, we may trace his course in its psychological development. We must not regard Judas as a monster, but as one with passions like ourselves. True, there was one terrible master-passion in his soul, covetousness; but that was only the downward, lower aspect of what seems, and to many really is, that which leads to the higher and
