school, presided over by some of the leaders of Jewish thought. It was this school

which boldly laid it down, that, to avoid death, every ordinance of the Law might be

broken, except those in regard to idolatry, incest, and murder. It was in Lydda, also, that

two brothers voluntarily offered themselves victims to save their co-religionists from

slaughter, threatened because a body had been found, whose death was imputed to the

Jews. It sounds like a sad echo of the taunts addressed by "chief priests," "scribes and

elders," to Jesus on the cross (Matt 27:41-43) when, on the occasion just mentioned, the

Roman thus addressed the martyrs: "If you are of the people of Ananias, Mishael, and

Azarias, let your God come, and save you from my hand!" (Taan. 18, 6).

But a much more interesting chain of evidence connects Lydda with the history of the

founding of the Church. It is in connection with Lydda and its tribunal, which is

declared to have been capable of pronouncing sentence of death, that our blessed Lord

and the Virgin Mother are introduced in certain Talmudical passages, though with

studiously and blasphemously altered names. The statements are, in their present form,

whether from ignorance, design, or in consequence of successive alterations, confused,

and they mix up different events and persons in Gospel history; among other things

representing our Lord as condemned at Lydda.21

But there can be no reasonable question that they refer to our blessed Lord and His

condemnation for supposed blasphemy and seduction of the people, and that they at

least indicate a close connection between Lydda and the founding of Christianity. It is a

curious confirmation of the gospel history, that the death of Christ is there described as

having taken place "on the eve of the Passover," remarkably bearing out not only the

date of that event as gathered from the synoptical gospels, but showing that the Rabbis

at least knew nothing of those Jewish scruples and difficulties, by which modern Gentile

writers have tried to prove the impossibility of Christ's condemnation on the Paschal

night. It has already been stated that, after the destruction of Jerusalem, many and most

celebrated Rabbis chose Lydda for their residence. But the second century witnessed a

great change. The inhabitants of Lydda are now charged with pride, ignorance, and

neglect of their religion. The Midrash (Esther 1:3) has it, that there were "ten measures

of wretchedness in the world. Nine of those belong to Lod, the tenth to all the rest of the

world." Lydda was the last place in Judaea to which, after their migration into Galilee, the

Rabbis resorted to fix the commencement of the month. Jewish legend has it, that they

were met by the "evil eye," which caused their death. There may, perhaps, be an

allegorical allusion in this. Certain it is, that, at the time, Lydda was the seat of a most

flourishing Christian Church, and had its bishop. Indeed, a learned Jewish writer has

connected the changed Jewish feeling towards Lod with the spread of Christianity.

Lydda must have been a very beautiful and a very busy place. The Talmud speaks in

exaggerated terms of the honey of its dates (Cheth. iii. a), and the Mishnah (Baba M. iv.

3) refers to its merchants as a numerous class, although their honesty is not extolled.22

Near Lydda, eastwards, was the village of Chephar Tabi. We might be tempted to derive

from it the name of Tabitha (Acts 9:36), if it were not that the names Tabi and Tabitha

had been so common at the time in Palestine. There can be no question of the situation

of Joppa, the modern Jaffa, where Peter saw the vision which opened the door of the

Church to the Gentiles. Many Rabbis are mentioned in connection with Joppa. The town

was destroyed by Vespasian. There is a curious legend in the Midrash to the effect that

Joppa was not overwhelmed by the deluge. Could this have been an attempt to

insinuate the preservation and migration of men to distant parts of the earth? The exact

location of Emmaus, for ever sacred to us by the manifestation of the Saviour to the two

disciples (Luke 24:13), is matter of controversy. On the whole, the weight of evidence

still inclines to the traditional site.23

If so, it had a considerable Jewish population, although it was also occupied by a

Roman garrison. Its climate and waters were celebrated, as also its market-place. It is

specially interesting to find that among the patrician Jewish families belonging to the

laity, who took part in the instrumental music of the Temple, two --those of Pegarim and