Cæsarea. the tribe of Dan; but it was better known as the furthest southern settlement' of the Canaanites, joining on to that line of seaport towns which extends henceforth in regular succession along the coast as far as Aradus, or Arvad. Its situation, with its little harbour enclosed within the wild rocks rising over the shell-strewn beach, and covered by the fragments of the later city of Tantûra, is still a striking feature on the lonely shore. But it was the fate of Sharon, as of some other parts of Palestine, after centuries of obscurity to receive a new life under the Roman Empire. From being the least distinguished tract it rose in the reign of Herod almost to the first importance. On a rocky ledge, somewhat resembling that of Ascalon on the south, and Dor on the north, rise the ruins of Cæsarea, now the most desolate site in Palestine. Like the vast fragments of St. Andrew's in Scotland, they run out into the waves of the Mediterranean sea, which dashes over the prostrate columns and huge masses of masonry; but, unlike St. Andrew's-unlike in this respect to most Eastern ruins-no sign of human habitation is to be found within the circuit of its deserted walls, no village or even hovel remains on the site of what was once the capital of Palestine. With his usual magnificence of conception, Herod the Great determined to relieve the inhospitable barrier which the coast of his country opposed to the Western world, by making an artificial port, and attaching to it the chief city of his kingdom. The divergence of Eastern and Western ideas is well illustrated by the contrast between this Roman metropolis and those native capitals of Hebron, Jerusalem, Shechem, and Samaria, which we have already examined. Whatever differences distinguished those older cities from each other, they had this in common, that they were all completely inland. To have planted the centres of national and religious life on the sea-shore was a thought which never seems to have entered even into the imperial mind of Solomon. Far away at Ezion-Geber on the Gulf of Akaba, was the chief emporium of his trade. Even Jaffa only received the rafts which floated down the coast from Tyre. To describe the capital as a place "where shall go no 1 See Note C. 21 Kings ix. 27. v. 9. galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass by '," is not, as according to Western notions it would be, an expression of weakness and danger, but of prosperity and security. But in Herod this ancient Oriental dread of the sea had no existence. He had himself been across the Mediterranean to Rome, and on his alliance with Rome his own power depended; and when, after his death, his kingdom became a Roman province, the city which he had called by the name of his Imperial patron, was still continued as the seat of the Roman governor, for the same reason as that which induced him to select the site-its maritime situation. From that sea-girt city, Pontius Pilate came yearly across the plain of Sharon, and up the hills, to keep guard on the Festivals at Jerusalem. In the theatre, built by his father,-looking out, doubtless, after the manner of all Greek theatres, over the wide expanse of sea, Herod Agrippa was struck with his mortal disease". Connection of Sharon and Cæsarea with The chief, indeed the only important link which Cæsarea possesses with Sacred history, is that which is at once explained by the fact of its being the seat of government. Of all the regions of Palestine there is none which is so closely connected with the Apostolic history as this tract of coast between Gaza and Acre, and especially the Apostolic neighbourhood of Cæsarea. After the first few years history. or months of the Church of the Apostles, the scene of their labours was removed from the ancient sanctuaries of their race “in Judæa and Samaria" to "the uttermost parts of the land." Partly, no doubt, the half Gentile cities of the coast were more secure than the centres of national fanaticism in the interior; partly in the growing consciousness of the greatness of their mission, these vast Gentile populations had for them an increasing attraction, powerful enough to break through the old associations which had at first bound them to the scenes of their country's past history and of their Lord's ministrations. Philip, after his interview with the Ethiopian pilgrim on the road to Gaza, "was found at Ashdod, and passing through preached in all the cities till he came to Cæsarea"," and there 1 Isaiah xxxiii. 21. 2 Acts xii. 21; Josephus, Ant. XIX. vii. 2. 3 Acts viii. 26, 40. with his four daughters he made his home'. Peter "came down" from the mountains of Samaria "to the saints which dwelt at Lydda; and all they that dwelt at Lydda and Saron saw him and turned to the Lord:" and "forasmuch as Lydda was nigh to Joppa"," he "arose and went" thither to comfort the disciples mourning for the loss of Dorcas; and there "he tarried many days" with the tanner, Simon, whose "house was by the sea-side." On the flat roof of that house-overlooking the waves of the western sea, as they dash against the emerging rocks of the shallow and narrow harbour,-the vision appeared which opened to the nations far beyond the horizon of that sea "the gates of the kingdom of Heaven," and which called the Apostle to make the memorable journey along the sandy ridge of the coast, to find on the morrow the first Gentile convert in the Roman garrison at Cæsarea. And lastly, it was in the castle of Cæsarea that Paul spent his two last years in the Holy Land, before he finally left the East for Rome and Spain. He was brought thither from Jerusalem, down the pass, already described, of Beth-horon, under cover of the night, with the double escort of spearmen and of horsemen. They reached Antipatris at dawn,-on the edge of the plain; and then the spearmen, needed for defence in the pass, and useless in the passage through the plain, returned to Jerusalem, leaving the mounted guard to gallop with their prisoner across the level ground to Cæsarea'. These movements of the Apostles, no doubt, are connected only by the slightest thread with the ground over which they pass. The sight of the places throws but a very faint light on the history of the primitive advance of Christianity. Yet it is not without importance to see the reason why they so turned around this hitherto unknown spot, and thus to trace back to its origin the first contact of the religion of the East with the power of the West. It is as, if Christianity already felt its European destiny strong within it, and by a sort of prophetic anticipation, gathered its early energies round those regions of the Holy Land which were most European and least Asiatic. 1 Acts xxi. 8. 2 Ib. ix. 32, 35, 38. 5 Ib. xxiii. 22, 31, 32. I owe this local illustration to my friend Mr. Meade. who followed this route in 1861. PLAIN AND III. The plain of Sharon contracts beyond Dor, and there now appears rising at its extremity the long ridge of Carmel closing up its northern horizon. Round the promontory of Carmel, runs a broad beach, which, uninterrupted by the advance of tides, must always have afforded an easy outlet for the Philistine armies, for the kings of Egypt, for the forces of the Crusaders, to the bay of Accho or Acre. This bay with its adjacent plain, opening between Carmel and the hills of Galilee, and forming the embouchure, so to speak, of the great plain of Esdraelon, may be regarded in some respects as a continuation of the maritime tract which we have been hitherto following. There is still the same tract of white sand-hills, through which the two short streams of the Kishon and the Belus fall into the sea; and, beyond, a rich soil, perhaps the best cultivated and producing the most luxuriant crops, both of corn and weeds, of any in Palestine. On the south of the plain rises the long ridge of Carmel, its western end crowned by the French convent; on the north, the bluff promontory of the Ladder of the Tyrians, the modern Râs-enNåkûra, differs from Carmel in that it leaves no beach between itself and the sea, and thus by cutting off all communication round its base, acts as the natural barrier between the bay of Acre and the maritime plain to the north-in other words, between Palestine and Phoenicia. Acre, therefore, is the northernmost city of the Holy Land, on the western coast; and gathers round it whatever interest attaches to this corner of the country. As in the case of Cæsarea, and for a similar reason, that interest is of a recent date, and thus, reversing the fate of all the other cities of Palestine, has grown and not decayed with the lapse of years. It is indeed of far older origin than Cæsarea, being one of the Canaanitish settlements, from which the Israelites had been unable to expel the old inhabitants'; and it is a remarkable instance of the tenacity with. which a Semitic name has outlived the foreign appellation impressed upon it. Ptolemais,-the title which it bore for the many centuries of Greek and Roman sway,-dropped off the moment that sway was broken, and in the modern name of Acre, the ancient Accho', derived from the "heated sandy" 2 See Gesenius in voce, p. 1020. Judges i. 31. tract on which the town was built, re-asserted its rights. But with the single exception of St. Paul's landing there when he commenced his last land journey to Jerusalem', it has no connection with the course of the Sacred History. Asher was the tribe to whose lot the rich plain of Acre fell,-he "dipped his foot in oil;" his "bread was fat, and he yielded Tribe of royal dainties." But he dwelt among the Canaan- Asher. ites; he could not drive out the inhabitants of Accho, or of Achzib; he gave no judge or warrior to Israel. One name only of the tribe of Asher shines out of the general obscurity,— the aged widow', who in the very close of the Jewish history "departed not from the Temple at Jerusalem, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day." With this one exception, the contemptuous allusion in the Song of Deborah sums up the whole history of Asher, when in the great gathering of the tribes against Sisera, "Asher continued on the sea-shore and abode in his creeks.'" So insignificant was the tribe to which was assigned the fortress which Napoleon called the key of Palestine; so slight is the only allusion, the only word that the Old Testament contains for that deep indentation of the coast, which to our eyes forms so remarkable a feature in the map of Palestine, a feature in the nomenclature of which the languages of the West are so prolific. Thither ACRE. however, as to a natural and familiar haven, the European navigators of a later time eagerly came. Bad as the harbour was, yet the mere fact of a recess in that long coast invited them; and Caipha, at the opposite corner of the bay under the shelter of Mount Carmel, served as a.roadstead. And when, as in later times, foreign rice became the staple food of the country, the importance of Acre, the only avenue by which it could regularly enter, was carried to the highest pitch. "The lord of Acre may, if it so please him, cause a famine to be felt even over all Syria. The possession of Acre extended the influence of the famous Djezzar Pacha even to Jerusalem." The peculiarity therefore of the story of Acre lies in its many sieges, by Baldwin, by Saladin, by Richard, by Khalil, in the middle ages; by Napoleon, by Ibrahim Pacha, and by Sir 1 Acts xxi. 7. 2 Deut. xxxiii. 24; Gen. xlix. 20. 3 46 the tribe of Aser." Luke ii. 36. 4 Clarke's Travels, iv. 89. |