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.'

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 Sariphaea 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

lis, than it does to Neapolis, Askelon, and Gaza; in respect to all which, if understood to imply that they were then first built, it is notoriously false. To say nothing of the antiquity of Gaza and Askelon, I need only remark of Neapolis, that this name is already mentioned by Josephus; B. J. IV. 8. 1.

1) Suidas Lexicon art. ErózIOS, Magiaris. Reland Palaest. 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. 713–15), falls nearly a century after Palestine was in the hands of the Muhammedans.

3) Διαφόρους γὰρ πολυανθρώ πους πόλεις ἠρήμωσαν· καὶ γὰρ Ἐλευθερόπολιν παντελῶς ἀεὶ ἀοίκη τον ἔθηκαν, πᾶσαν ἐκπορθήσαντες· ἀλλὰ καὶ ̓Ασκάλωνα καὶ Γάζαν καὶ Σαρεφαίαν καὶ ἑτέρας πόλεις δεινῶς εἱλκύσαντο. “ Depopulati sunt frequentissimas urbes non paucas; Eleutheropolim, abductis in captivitatem universis, desertam fecere. Ascalonem, Gazam, et Sariphaeam, aliasque civitates, violenter diripuerant." So Stephen a contemporary monk of Mar Sâba, Acta Sanctor. Mart. Tom. III. p. 167, seq. Reland Pal. p. 987. Le Quien Oriens Christ. III. p. 313. Comp. pp. 39, 40, above.

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 Notitiae, 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.1 Not improbably both these notices are to be referred to 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. 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.3

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 Notitiae. The Greek name, as appears from the coins, had been adopted

1) Reland ib. pp. 222, 227. The latter Notitia is found appended to the History of William of Tyre; Gesta Dei per Francos p. 1044. 2) Pages 360-362.

3) Geo. Cedreni Historiar. Compend. Paris 1647. Tom. I. p. 33, θάπτεται (ή Σαύρα) ἐν Χε βρών, ἥτις νῦν Ελευθερόπολις και λεῖται.

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 Ælia 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. This occurs in a professed life of Ananias, an alleged saint and martyr of the first century, whose merits and martyrdom are set forth in all the Greek and Roman Calendars (Menologia and Martyrologia) and Lives of the Saints; chiefly under the first of October, but in some of the latter under the twenty-fifth of January. The whole account, even as found in the earliest calendars, is entirely legendary. It makes Ananias to have been first one of the seventy disciples; then to have become bishop of Damascus, where he restored sight to Paul; and at last, after long preaching the gospel and performing

1) Ἐν Βηθογαυρῇ τῆς Ἐλευθε gonolos. See p. 360, above. The Latin version of Hervetus has "Betagabre Exeutheropolis;" Acta Sanctor. Jan. Tom. II. p. 614, Note b.

2) Acta Sanctor. Jan. Tom II. p. 613. See the many extracts which Bolland has there collected from various Calendars and Lives of Saints.

many miracles at Damascus and Eleutheropolis, it represents him as suffering death in the former city by order of a Roman governor Licinius or Lucianus.

In recounting these circumstances, the various calendars are in general at least consistent with each other; most of them, though not all, mentioning Eleutheropolis as one of the places where Ananias laboured, and Damascus as the scene of his martyrdom. It is not necessary here to waste words in showing that the whole story can be only a fable; and I would simply remark, that neither in Palestine nor Syria, down to the destruction of Jerusalem, and apparently quite to the end of the first century, was there any Roman governor, whether proconsul, procurator, or military chief, bearing the name either of Licinius or Lucianus.'

The biography in question gives the same general account of Ananias, with more of detail; and dwells particularly on the circumstances of his trial and martyrdom. But instead of making Eleutheropolis merely the scene of Ananias' labours, it transfers the seat of the Roman governor himself to that region, and makes him institute a severe persecution against the Christians at "Betogabra of Eleutheropolis." It leaves however the matter somewhat uncertain, whether the trial and death of Ananias took place there or at Damascus; though as he is said to have laboured only at Damascus, and to have been buried in that region,

1) Josephus enumerates all the proconsuls and procurators of Syria and Palestine down to the time of Titus. See the names of the former collected by Noris, Cenotaphia Pisana p. 267, seq. E. Spanheim Chronol. Josephi, in Havercamp's Edition, Tom. II. Append. p. 409. For the procurators, see Spanheim 1. c. p. 410, and the Chronol. Tables at the end of Winer's Bibl. Realwörterb. Also for

both, American Bibl. Repos. Vol. II. pp. 381, 382.-After the destruction of Jerusalem, the Roman general Lucilius Bassus was sent to subdue the remaining fortresses of Judea; and a Spanish tradition is said to attribute to him the death of Ananias in A. D. 70. Joseph. B. J. VII. 6. 1, 6. Dextri Chronicon A. D. 70, quoted by Bolland Acta Sanctor. Jan. Tom. II. p. 614, Note a.

it would seem to be implied that he also suffered in

that city.1

Upon this whole legend of Ananias, it is to be remarked, that the simplest account, and that least remote from Scripture, is doubtless the earliest; and this is that which speaks only of his labours and death at Damascus. In process of time, when Eleutheropolis became a chief city in the South of Palestine, as Damascus was in the North, it was easy for monkish invention to extend his labours over the whole country from Damascus to Eleutheropolis; which thus corresponded in a sense to the ancient phrase " from Dan to Beersheba." The regular biography goes still further; it extends the labours of the saint to Antioch on the North, and changes the seat of the Roman government from Damascus to the district of Eleutheropolis. All this seems to mark a still later origin; and it is hardly necessary to remark, that the lower it descends in the succession of centuries, so much the more is detracted from its authority, in respect even to incidental notices in history or topography.

Whence then comes the mention of Betogabra in this document? What is its purport, and to what does it amount? The plain import of the words would doubtless be, that Betogabra was a place within the district of Eleutheropolis, but itself distinct from that city; thus contradicting the identity of the two, which I have above ventured to assume. Now, laying all other things out of view, there certainly is nothing in the age or character of this legend as an historical

1) The Greek of this life has never been printed; it exists in Europe in two Manuscripts; see Fabricii Biblioth. Graeca lib. V. c. 32. Tom IX. p. 53; or Tom. X. p. 193. ed. Harles. A Latin translation by G. Hervetus is found in the following works: Lipomann de

Vitis Sanctor. Oct. 1. Tom. VI. Rom. 1551-60. Surius de Vitis Sanctor. Oct. 1. Bolland professes to have made a new version from the Greek; Acta Sanctor. Jan. Tom. II. p. 613.

2) Menologium Graecor. ed. Albani, Pars I. p. 79.