תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

form, which is about a thousand feet long by three hundred feet broad, includes the remains of two temples; of which the larger seems never to have been completed, and the smaller (small only relatively) had received the last finish. There is no doubt, I suppose, that these were Roman. This whole area was afterwards converted into a fortress, with towers and parapets, by the Saracens. Doors and porticos were walled up, and the unfinished walls were carried higher. The huge blocks of which you have read in the western wall, were the last course which was laid of the original work on that side. The similar block in the quarry, which can be measured,-sixty-eight feet long by fifteen feet square, would have faced another side, and the place is obvious where it was designed to rest, contiguous to its fellow monsters. With a clear idea of the plan, it is easy to distinguish, throughout the pile, the original work from the modern additions.

"Now it is an interesting fact, that the bevelled stones are nowhere found in the Roman work. Nothing which exists as a part of its original design, has a trace in it of this peculiar architecture. These stones have been built into the massive Saracenic walls, intermingled with other stones and with immense pedestals and capitals taken from the temple ruins. There is one wall, within the foundations of the outer wall of the great temple, in which they are laid regularly as if in their original position. Now as no one will be likely to attribute this architecture to a later age than that of the emperors to whom these immense temples are commonly ascribed, it seems a natural inference that they belong to an earlier period, and that the Saracens made use of the ruins of a previous structure.'

"I had heard of similar architecture at Jebeil, the ancient Gebal, on the coast; and we took that place on our route. We found there an old castle, built with stones of the same description, with claims perhaps to as high an antiquity as those of the tower of Hippicus.2

Ba'albek is the ancient Heliopo-p valley of Aven (or of the lis of Syria, so called from the worship of the sun. It enjoyed the rights of a Roman colony. See Cellarius Not. Orb. II. pp. 370, 371. It seems not to be mentioned in Scripture, unless perhaps it may be the

idol) Am. i. 5; this name Aven (8)
being also sometimes applied in-
stead of On (%) to the Egyptian
Heliopolis, e. g. Éz. xxx. 17.—ED.
2 In Ezek. xxvii. 9, and 1 Kings

Antiquities. The route of the travellers from Ba'albek to the coast was first to the cedars; and thence by the most feasible route to el-Batrûn, the ancient Botrys, passing through the villages of Bsherrah, Hasrôn, el-Hadith, Kesba, Amyûn, and by Kŭl'at Museilihah on the shore, all which are marked on the map. The letter proceeds as follows:

"Near the village of Kesba, my companions visited the ruined temples of Nâûs or Namûs, described by Burckhardt,' which bear a general resemblance to those in Ba'albek. Of the same class, though inferior, are the remains of Deir el-Kul'ah on the mountain near Beirût, which I have recently examined. There would seem to be little question, that they were all built by the Romans, and dedicated to their pagan deities.

"At Jebeil we found a large number of granite columns, some of them the red Egyptian, built into the modern walls or lying upon the ground. At the Nahr el-Kelb we noticed the famous tablets on the rock, with Roman and more ancient sculptures; and, at the summit of the road cut by the emperor Antoninus, a pedestal, and near it a prostrate column with a Latin inscription, which seems not to have been noticed by travellers. Between this place and Beirût are traces of the Roman paved road; but less marked than the remains of similar pavement between the latter place and Sidon. The modern quay of Beirût, you remember, is constructed of the columns of its ancient edifices; of which others remain by their original sites. These columns, wherever found in the country, both marble and granite, were imported from abroad; and the number and extent of the remains in which I have met with them, though but a small portion of those in existence, have much impressed me with the colossal greatness of the empire, which multiplied such monuments of its power and skill in a single and distant province.

The Cedars. "We visited the celebrated grove of cedars, near the summit of Lebanon. The patriarchs, of which there are about a dozen, formed each by the union of three or four trunks, are remarkable only for the'r immense size and venerable age. Of the

v. 18 [32], the inhabitants of Gebal are spoken of as builders; they also assisted the builders of Solomon and Hiram. This architecture

therefore may easily have been
adopted from the Jews.-ED.
Travels in Syria p. 173.
2 See Bibl. Res. III. p. 441.

1

growth which has shot up around them, consisting of about three hundred single trees, some of which are very large, there are many that would be admired in any place for their beauty. Their straight stem and spreading branches, and the graceful symmetry of the whole, fairly entitle them to the appellation: the glory of Lebanon." The cones, beautifully pendant from the bottom of the branches, and of which we plucked a number green, exude a kind of balsam, highly fragrant, and which fully explains the smell of Lebanon."2

"The existence of this clump here, a remnant of the primeval forest, seems to be owing to the race not having been wholly eradicated from the spot, and new generations having sprung up from the seeds. The locality does not appear particularly favourable for them; and their flourishing condition here is an evidence that they would grow over all the mountain."

CONCLUSION.

993

Such is the amount of information on the geography and antiquities of Palestine, which I am enabled to present to the reader, up to the present time;-certainly no mean ingathering for a single year, and that too from a friend before unknown to me, but whom I cordially welcome as a fellow labourer in this interesting field. I look forward also to the time, when the Rev. E. Smith will be able to make further investigations in parts of the country not visited by us; and this work become the medium through which his observations may be laid before the public.

In justice to Mr. Wolcott, it may not be improper to introduce here the following extract from one of his letters to me, dated Beirût, July 5, 1842.

"Permit me to say, that I went to Jerusalem last winter without the remotest thought of being a gleaner in a field which had been swept by your sickle. All that I purposed, and most that I did, was to make those personal observations which came within my range, and would secure to me the fullest benefit of your own remarks. I had always a fondness for antiquities; and my studies

1 Is. lx. 13.

2 Cant. iv. 11.

See Bibl. Res. III. p. 440. It appears from the statements there

given, especially that of Prof. Ehrenberg, that the cedars are still found growing abundantly on the more northern parts of Lebanon.-ED.

have naturally awakened the highest interest in those which are sacred and biblical. The inquiries suggested by your work drew me into congenial pursuits; and some of the results being unexpectedly interesting to myself, I naturally communicated them to Mr. Smith. In this way I drew up for him the four documents, which he has transmitted to you.

"When I tell you, that the only copy of your Researches to which I had access during my investigations, belonged to a friend; and that I had but an occasional and often furtive use of it; you will give me the credit of having made a diligent improvement of my opportunities. You will not, I trust, discover many mistakes; none certainly which an extreme vigilance on my part could have guarded against. In every estimate, particularly, I kept on the safe side. The compass I used was constructed for taking bearings, and traversed finely. I might have taken the bearings to the quarter of a degree; but thought it here a needless refinement."

II.

SKETCHES OF ANGELOLOGY IN THE OLD AND NEW

TESTAMENT.

By MOSES STUART, Prof. in the Theol. Sem. Andover.

I. REALITY OF ANGELIC BEINGS.

THE question has not unfrequently been asked: Of what importance can the doctrine respecting good or evil angels be to us? We owe them, it is said, no duty of homage or worship; and as they are invisible beings, if they exist at all, we can never decide with any certainty, whether or when they interpose in our behalf, or interfere for the sake of injuring us. We have, therefore, no practical interest in this matter. If it be worth an inquiry, it belongs rather to the province of speculative than to that of practical theology.

I cannot accede to such a view of this subject. The Scriptures have taught us, that the original holy and happy condition of our race was essentially changed by the interference and crafty malignity of Satan. The necessity of redemption by the Son of God stands inseparably connected with this. The atonement-the nucleus and centre of Christianity proper-is in some important respects a consequence of Satan's interference; or, in other words, it was rendered necessary by the success of the tempter, when he assailed our first parents.

Nor is this all which may be truly and properly said, in regard to this subject. If there are good angels, the voluntary ministers of God's will; or evil ones, who are either the executioners of his justice or examples in their sufferings of the proper desert of sin; then these facts are important to us, inasmuch as they cast light upon God's providential government of the world,—a subject of deep interest to all moral and accountable beings.

There is still another point of view in which we may contemplate this subject. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are filled with passages that have respect to angels good or evil. Some of these passages are involved in not a little of obscurity, as presented to us, because we are not sufficiently familiar with the Hebrew modes of expression and thought, to apprehend at once the full meaning of the sacred writers. If now it be true, that a proper attention to the angelology of the Scriptures will help to explain these, and especially in case it will render most of the obscure passages in question altogether intelligible, then attention to this subject cannot be fairly deemed unimportant.

What I design to suggest, on the present occasion, has special relation to this last topic of consideration. I might say, in order to explain more fully my design, that I intend to handle this subject exegetically, rather than theologically. Were I writing a chapter for a system of theology, I should cast the whole piece in a mould somewhat diverse from the present, and make the theological to predominate over the exegetical. Still, I do not intend altogether to neglect the theological, on the present occasion. But in respect to this, where no peculiar difficulties of exegesis are concerned, I shall be very brief, stating both my propositions and the proof of them only in the most summary way.

« הקודםהמשך »