23. Comp. Job xxi. 9, both in the original and the Targum.
24. St. Luke x. 7, 8.
25. Canon Cook (ad loc.) regards this as evidence that the Seventy were also sent to the
Samaritans; and as implying permission to eat of their food, which the Jews held to be
forbidden. To me it conveys the opposite, since so fundamental an alteration would not
have been introduced in such an indirect manner. Besides, the direction is not to eat their
food, but any kind of food. Lastly, if Christ had introduced so vital a change, the later
difficulty of St. Peter, and the vision on the subject, would not be intelligible.
26. St. Matt. xi. 16-42.
In St. Luke's Gospel, the address to the Seventy is followed by a denunciation of
Chorazin and Bethsaida.27 This is evidently in its right place there, after the Ministry of
Christ in Galilee had been completed and finally rejected. In St. Matthew's Gospel, it
stands (for a reason already indicated) immediately after the Lord's rebuke of the
popular rejection of the Baptist's message.28 The 'woe' pronounced on those cities, in
which 'most of His mighty works were done,' is in proportion to the greatness of their
privileges. The denunciation of Chorazin and Bethsaida is the more remarkable, that
Chorazin is not otherwise mentioned in the Gospels, nor yet any miracles recorded as
having taken place in (the western) Bethsaida. From this two inferences seem
inevitable. First, this history must be real. If the whole were legendary, Jesus would not
be represented as selecting the names of places, which the writer had not connected
with the legend. Again, apparently no record has been preserved in the Gospels of most
of Christ's miracles - only those being narrated which were necessary in order to
present Jesus as the Christ, in accordance with the respective plans on which each of
the Gospels was constructed.29
27. St. Luke x. 13-16.
28. St. Matt. xi. 20-24.
29. St. John xxi. 25.
As already stated, the denunciations were in proportion to the p rivileges, and hence to
the guilt, of the unbelieving cities. Chorazin and Bethsaida are compared with Tyre and
Sidon, which under similar admonitions would have repented,30 while Capernaum,
which, as for so long the home of Jesus, had truly 'been exalted to heaven,'31 is
compared with Sodom. And such guilt involved greater punishment. The very site of
Bethsaida and Chorazin cannot be fixed with certainty. The former probably represents
the 'Fisherton' of Capernaum,32 the latter seems to have almost disappeared from the
shore of the Lake. St. Jerome places it two miles from Capernaum. If so, it may be
represented by the modern Kerâzeh, somewhat to the north-west of Capernaum. The
site would correspond with the name. For Kerâzeh is at present 'a spring with a n
insignificant ruin above it,'33 and the name Chorazin may well be derived from Keroz
(zwrk@:) a water-jar - Cherozin, or 'Chorazin,' the water-jars. If so, we can readily
understand that the 'Fisherton' on the south side of Capernaum, and the well-known
springs, 'Chorazin,' on the other side of it, may have been the frequent scene of Christ's
miracles. This explains also, in part, why the miracles there wrought had not been told
as well as those done in Capernaum itself. In the Talmud a Chorazin, or rathe r Chorzim,
is mentioned as celebrated for its wheat.34 But as for Capernaum itself - standing on
that vast field of ruins and upturned stones which marks the site of the modern Tell
Hûm , we feel that no description of it could be more pictorially true than that in which