The other writer is the grammarian Suidas; whose work perhaps belongs rather to ecclesiastical history. Writing not earlier than the close of the tenth century, from sources now lost, he mentions circumstances which formerly took place in Eleutheropolis. These are wholly unimportant, relating merely to the unsuccessful attempt of Eutocius, a Thracian soldier, to become a citizen and senator of the city; and also to Marianus, a late poet at Rome, whose father removed to Eleutheropolis, and who acquired honours under the reign of the emperor Anastasius, A. D. 493-518.1

This is the amount of all we know of Eleutheropolis before the Muhammedan conquest of Palestine, which was completed in A. D. 636. After that time the city is mentioned only once by a cotemporary writer; and that, in monastic annals, in order to record its fall. In the year 796, the cities of Gaza, Askelon, and Sariphæa are said to have been laid waste, and Eleutheropolis converted into a desert, during a civil war among the various tribes of Saracens in Palestine. Whether it recovered in any degree from this desolation, we are nowhere informed.

During the Muhammedan dominion and the prevalence of the Arabic tongue, it would be natural to expect, that the ancient name of Betogabra, (later Heb. Beth Gabriel or Beth Gebrin,) which had doubtless remained among the common people, would again become current; and cause the Greek name which so long had usurped its place, to be forgotten. And here, as in so many other instances, this seems actually to have been the case; the ancient name revived, and assumed the Arabic form in which we find it at the present day. In two Latin Notitiæ, the date of which is uncertain, but which were obviously first compiled in reference to the centuries preceding the crusades, the name of Eleutheropolis is no longer found; but in its place appears, in one the name Beigeberin, and in the other Beit Gerbein. Not improbably both these notices are to be referred to 1 Suidas Lexicon art. Euróкios, Mapiavós. Reland Palæst. pp. 753, 754. That the reign of Anastasius I. is intended, is apparent; for the short sway of the second emperor of that name (A. D. 713-715), falls nearly a century after Palestine was in the hands of the Muhammedans.

2

3

Διαφόρους γὰρ πολυανθρώπους πόλεις ἠρήμωσαν· καὶ γὰρ Ελευθερόπολιν παντε λῶς ἀεὶ ἀοίκητον ἔθηκαν, πᾶσαν ἐκπορθήσαντες· ἀλλὰ καὶ ̓Ασκάλωνα καὶ Γάζαν καὶ Σαρεφαίαν καὶ ἑτέρας πόλεις δεινῶς ειλκύσavro. "Depopulati sunt frequentissimas urbes non paucas; Eleutheropolim, abductis in captivitatem universis, desertam fecere. Ascalonem, Gazam, et Sariphæam, aliasque civitates, violenter diripuerant." So Ste

phen a cotemporary monk of Mâr Sâba, Acta Sanctor. Mart. Tom. III. p. 167 sq. Reland Pal. p. 987. Le Quien Oriens Christ. III. p. 313. Comp. Vol. I. p. 391.

3 Reland ib. pp. 222, 227. The latter Notitia is found appended to the History of William of Tyre; Gesta Dei per Francos p. 1044.-A comparison of this last Latin Notitia with the Greek one of Nilus (Reland p. 220) shows that in the seventh place of each, the Greek has Eleutheropolis, and the Latin Beit Gerbein. This affords a strong corroborative testimony to the identity of the two; but is not of itself decisive. See Raumer's Pal. ed. 3, p. 168. Biblioth. Sac. 1844, p. 218, 219.

the eighth century, before the destruction of the city. At any rate, the crusaders found the place in ruins; and if not wholly deserted, yet at least it had long ceased to be an episcopal see. They rebuilt the fortress; and its subsequent history I have already recounted.1 At that time the name and position of Eleutheropolis were so thoroughly forgotten, that Cedrenus, in the last half of the eleventh century, held it to have been the same with Hebron.2

:

On comparing the preceding notices, it is to be observed, that, with one apparent exception hereafter to be considered, all the writers who mention Betogabra, make no allusion to Eleutheropolis; while all those who so often speak of the latter, are silent as to Betogabra. Indeed, the latter name is found only quite early in Ptolemy and the Peutinger Tables, or again quite late in the two Latin Notitiæ. The Greek name, as appears from the coins, had been adopted before A. D. 202; but the subsequent mention of Betogabra in the Tables, shows that this more ancient appellation was still generally current. In the fourth century, when Constantine had adorned Jerusalem with splendid churches, and Palestine became the abode of thousands of foreign monks and ecclesiastics, all using the Greek language, it was natural that the Greek name of this episcopal city should obtain the ascendency. Accordingly we hear no more of Betogabra until this ecclesiastical authority had been crushed by the Muhammedan conquest, and the ancient name found a more ready utterance upon the lips of a people speaking a kindred tongue. The case, as already suggested, is entirely parallel to those of Diospolis, Nicopolis, and Elia or Jerusalem itself.

The exception above alluded to, where the names of Betogabra and Eleutheropolis appear to be once mentioned by the same writer, is the expression "Betogabra of Eleutheropolis," to which reference has already been made.3 This expression, in view of the evidence which has since come to light, can only be regarded as originally a gloss, transferred afterwards from the margin into the text. In this way, the expression which at first probably meant nothing more than "Betogabra or Eleutheropolis," assumed its present form "Betogabra of Eleutheropolis." The examples of various readings arising from like glosses in the manuscripts of the New Testament and other ancient writings, are too numerous and well known, to admit a question as to the propriety of applying the same principle for the solution of this case; and further, this gloss appears to be 1 Pages 27, 28.

2 Geo. Cedreni Historiar. Compend. Paris 1647, Tom. I. p. 33, dáπTera (ἡ Σάββα) ἐν Χεβρὼν, ἥτις νῦν Ἐλευθερόπο

λις καλείται.

* Εν Βηθογαυρῇ τῆς Ἐλευθεροπόλεως. See p. 28, above. The Latin version of Hervetus has "Betagabre Exeutheropolis;" Acta Sanctor. Jan. Tom. II. p. 614, Note b.

the only shadow of historical testimony, which might tend to excite a doubt as to the identity of Eleutheropolis with the present Beit Jibrîn."

3

2

Another ancient tradition connects itself also, in some degree, with the position of Eleutheropolis; I mean that respecting the miraculous fountain, springing out of the jaw-bone of an ass with which Samson smote the Philistines. Josephus, in relating the same event, says the fountain sprang out of a rock, and the place in his day still bore the name of the "Jaw-bone; though it may be doubtful whether he does anything more than merely copy the words of Scripture. All this has no connection with Eleutheropolis. Nor is the language of Jerome much more definite, who in tracing the journey of Paula from Jerusalem or Bethlehem to Egypt, makes her pass by way of Socoh to the fountain of Samson; around which he then loosely mentions the Horites and Gittites, and the names of several other cities. By the Horites he probably meant Eleutheropolis,5 and the tradition appears to have been current in his day, that this fountain of Samson was in that region. Somewhat more definite is the testimony of Antoninus Martyr, not long before the Muhammedan conquest; in travelling from Jerusalem to Askelon and Gaza, he came to Eleutheropolis, where the fountain of Samson was still pointed out." All this however only shows that the fountain was held to be in the vicinity of that city.

4

No further mention of this fountain occurs before the age of the crusades; nor do any of the Frank or Arabian historians of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, appear ever to have heard of the fountain of Samson, or of Eleutheropolis. Yet a wandering tradition respecting both the fountain and city, would seem to have maintained itself in the Greek church even out of Palestine; for in the twelfth century the historian Glycas relates, that Samson's fountain was to be seen in his day in the suburbs of Eleutheropolis. But the value of this tradition is shown by the fact, that a century earlier, Cedrenus had declared

1 For the "vicus Betagabæorum" which has been supposed to be the same with Betogabra, see Note XXXIV, at the end of the volume.

2 Judg. 15, 18. 19.

refocillatus videam Morasthim, sepulchrum quondam Michææ Prophetæ, nunc Ecclesiam. Et ex latere derelinquam Chorreos, et Gettheos, Maresa, Idumæam, et Lachis," etc. Hieron. Ep. 86, Epitaph. Paulæ,

3 Antiq. 5. 8. 9, ó ☺eds πnyǹv kaтά TI- Opp. Tom. IV. ii. p. 677. ed. Mart. νος πέτρας ἀνίησιν ἡδεῖαν καὶ πολλήν· ὅθεν ὁ Σαμψὼν ἐκάλει τὸ χωρίον Σιαγόνα, και μέχρι τοῦ δεῦρο τοῦτο λέγεται. So the Heb. ", Lehi, i. q. Jaw-bone, Judg. 15,

19.

4 "Transibo ad Ægyptum; et in Sochoth atque apud fontem Samson, quem de molari maxillæ dente produxit, subsistam parumper; et arentia ora colluam, ut

5 He elsewhere speaks of the Horites as inhabiting Eleutheropolis. Comm. in Obad. vs. 1. See pp. 68, 69, below.

6 Antonini Martyr. Itin. 30, 32, "Venimus in civitatem quæ dicitur Eliotropolis (al. Heliopolis) in loco ubi Sampson, etc.Qui fons usque in hodiernum dinem loca illa irrigat; nam in loco ubi surgit fui

mus.

2

1

Eleutheropolis to be the same with Hebron. From the same legendary source apparently, Marinus Sanutus in the fourteenth century derived a notice of the same fountain, but not of the city. He makes a water run from Bethsur first west and then south; where, after being joined by a stream from the north from the fountain of the Jaw-bone, it flows west to the sea near Askelon. Now the Bethsur of that day was at the present fountain of St. Philip in Wady el-Werd;3 which indeed flows west to the great Wady es-Surâr. This again runs in a southwesterly direction to the plain; entering the sea, however, not at Askelon, but near Yebna. Hence whatever position be assigned to the fountain on the testimony of Sanutus, it lying north of Wady es-Sărâr, can never have been less than ten Roman miles distant from Eleutheropolis.

Thus the testimony to the existence of Samson's fountain in the immediate vicinity of Eleutheropolis, which at first sight seemed so explicit, becomes on a nearer view quite indefinite. Of this however we were not aware at the time, and therefore inquired the more diligently after the fountains throughout the whole region, in the hope of being thus able to discover a trace of Eleutheropolis. But we could neither find, nor hear of, a single living spring or running brook throughout the district in which that city must have lain. The nearest and only approach to it, was in the large well called Um Judei'a, half way between Beit Jibrîn and the ruined church of Santa Hanneh, which, according to the tradition of the inhabitants, was once a running fountain. This testimony is at least as definite and good, as that on which rests the proximity of the ancient fountain to Eleutheropolis; and furnishes, so far as it goes, another proof of the identity of that city with Beit Jibrîn.

I have now done with Eleutheropolis; and if the reader (as I fear) shall regard the investigation as prolix and tedious, I beg him to bear in mind, that the subject is one of some historical importance, and has never before been discussed by any one who had visited the spot.

Such was the evidence on the strength of which I formerly ventured to assume the identity of Eleutheropolis with Beit Jibrîn; a conclusion as to which I have yet to learn, that any scholar has ever taken exception. Yet there was still wanting some decisive historical testimony, to show that the two names

1 Mich. Glyce Annales, Par. 1660, p. 164, ἡ τοιαύτη πηγὴ μέχρι και τήμερον ἐν τοῖς προαστείοις Ελευθεροπόλεως φαίνεται; Σιαγόνος επονομαζομένα πηγή. Zlayóvos érovoμaCoμéva τnyń. For Cedrenus, see above, p. 63. n. 2.

2

* Marin. Sanut. p. 252, "De prope Bethsura descendit aqua, primo fluens versus occidens, deinde prope meridiem, et tunc VOL. II-6*

were applied to one and the same place. This last absent link of testimony was discovered by Prof. Roediger of Halle in 1842.1 In the Acta Sanctorum Martyrum, published by Assemani in Syriac, Greek, and Latin, the martyr Peter Abselama is said to have been born at Anea; which lay, according to the Syriac account, in the district of Beth Gubrin; while both the Greek and Latin accounts read, in the district of Eleutheropolis.2 This evidence is decisive.

Having thus presented the evidence which goes to fix the site of Eleutheropolis itself, it may be worth while to look for a moment at two or three other ancient places, the situation of which is only known from their relative position to that city.

The first of these is Gath, one of the five cities of the Philistines, whither the ark was carried from Ashdod; it is also celebrated as the residence of Goliath, and was afterwards fortified by Rehoboam. It appears early to have been destroyed, or at least to have lost its importance; the prophet Amos alludes to such an event, and Gath is not enumerated by the later prophets along with the other four cities of the Philistines. Tradition seems also to have been already at fault in the days of Eusebius, who enumerates two places of this name; one five miles from Eleutheropolis towards Diospolis; and the other, a large village, between Antipatris and Jamnia, which he held to be the Gath whither the ark was carried.5 Yet Jerome, who in the Onomasticon merely translates the words of Eusebius, gives us in another work the definite specification, that Gath, one of the five cities of Philistia, was situated near the borders of Judea, on the way from Eleutheropolis to Gaza, and was then a very large village. He does not mention the distance at which it lay from either of these cities; nor whether it still bore the name of Gath; thus leaving it uncertain, after all, whether this specification is anything more than a conjecture of his own. No subsequent mention of Gath or its position occurs in history or in the accounts of Palestine; and we sought in vain for any present trace of the name throughout the whole region. On 1 Allgem. Lit. Zeitung, 1842, No. 72. Biblioth. Sacra. 1844, p. 218.

6

2 Assemani Acta Sanctor. Mart. Oriental. Tom. II. p. 209, coll. p. 207.

3

11, 8.

saders held Gath to be in this quarter, or rather at Jamnia itself; and erected upon the supposed site the castle of Ibelin or Hibelin, which Benjamin of Tudela identi

1 Sam. 5, 7. 8. 17, 4. 23. 2 Chr. fies with Jabneh, now Yebna. Will. Tyr. 15. 24, 25. Wilken Gesch. der Kr. II. 615. Benj. of Tud. p. 79.

* Jer. 25, 20. Amos 6, 2. 1, 7. 8. Zeph. 2, 4. Zech. 9, 5. Reland supposes this to have taken place about the time of the destruction of the first temple; Palæst. p. 786.

5 Onomast. art. Geth, Getha.-The cru

P.

6 Hieron. Comm. in Mich. i. 11, "Geth una est de quinque urbibus Palæstinæ, vicina Judææ confino, et de Eleutheropoli euntibus Gazam nunc usque vicus vel maximus."