In the beginning of our era the popnlation was
revailingly Towle. Perwa sent a multitude of pa to Jerusalem in the rising against Sabinus (BJ τι. iii, 1). When Gadara fell they were mostly Jews who perished (BJ rv. vii. 3,6). They were
strong enough to venture on armed strife with the inhabitants of Philadelphia (‘Ammdédn) over the boundaries of a certain village (Ant. Xx. i. 1), and were reduced to order only by the iron hand of Fadus. The Mishna constantly refers to Perea— ‘the land beyond Jordan ’—as a province of the land of Israel, along with Judwa and Galilee. Treating of the disposal of the seventh year’s fruits it is said, ‘The land of Israel is divided into three parts: Judea, the land beyond Jordan, and Galilee’ (Shebiith ix. 2). With regard to the marriage law, it is in the same case with the other two (Kethubim xiii. 10); so also with regard to possessions (Baba bathra iii. 2). Perea lay between two Gentile provinces on the east, as did Samaria between the two Jewish provinces on the west of the Jordan. The fords below Beisdn and opposite Jericho afforded communication with Galilee and Judea respectively. Perea thus formed a link connecting the Jewish provinces, so that the pilgrim from any part might go to Jerusalem and return without setting foot on Gentile soil; and, what was at least of equal im- portance, he could avoid peril of hurt and in ignity, which the Samaritans loved to inflict on those passing through Samaria (Lk 9; Jos. Ant. xx. vi. 1, Vita 52).
Jesus seems to have been baptized on the Perean side of Jordan (Jn 10“), Farrar thinks He passed that way after the Samaritans refused to receive Him (Lk 9°), From the Feast of the Dedication He escaped to Perea (Jn 10“), whence He was summoned by the sisters at Bethany (Jn 115). The visit, with incidents and teaching, described in Mt 19, Mk 10'8!, Lk 1819-8, is commonly re- ferred to the period succeeding His retirement to Ephraim (Jn 11%) ; and from Perea He made His iast journey to Jerusalem.
Niger, ‘a man of great valour in the war with the Romans,’ who belonged to this district, is called ‘the Peran’ (Ilepatrns, BJ τι. xx. 4, Iv. vi. 1). One of the most awful incidents in the siege of Jerusalem perpetuates the name of Mary, a woman of Perwa, from the village of Bethezob (BJ νι. iii. 4). In the nation’s crowning calamity, when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, and the temple sank in flaming ruins, Josephus names Perea for the last time, as if in sympathy ‘ echo- ing back’ from afar the dolorous tumult and uproar (BJ YI. v. 1).
Lireraturs.—Beaides the authorities cited above, see Merrill, East of the Jordan; Oliphant, The Land o Gilead ; Baedeker, Pal. and Syria, 176-193; Thomson, Land and Book, iii. 547- 677 ; Buhl, GAP 120; Pliny, Nat. Hist. v. 18.
W. Ewrna.
PERAZIM (o°y95-77, ὄρος ἀσεβῶν).----Μ|. Perazim of Is 284 (‘the LorD shall rise up as in mount Pera- zim’) is probably to be identified with BAAL- PERAZIM, the scene of one of Dayid’s victories over the Philistines, 2S 5%=1Ch 14, It lay apparently N.E. of Adullam, on the ridge above ‘Ain Faris (see PEF St, Oct. 1899, p. 347). C. R. CONDER.
PERDITION.—One of the renderings of ἀπώλεια in NT (AV and RY), but not found at all in OT, in either version. It occurs eight times both in AV and in RV, but the latter has substituted " perdition’ for ‘destruction’ at Ph 3" (‘whose end is perdition ’), and ‘destruction’ for ‘perdition’ at 2 P 37 (‘destrue- tion of ungodly men’), a parently because in the former Pees the ‘final perdition’ (cf. τέλος) of the soul is the prominent sense, and in the latter the OT Messianic destruction of the present bodily mode of existence. It would seem as if the Re- visers took this view of the eschatology of 2 P generally, for ney have translated ἀπώλεια by ‘destruction’ in the five passages containing It, even in 2? and 3156. It is difficult, however,
to see why, if this distinction between destruction ΑἹ
and perdition is to hold (cf. Gwynn’s note in Speaker’s Commentary on Ph 3), the Revisers did not carry it out more consistently. At Ro 95 (xarnpricuéva els ἀπώλειαν) ‘destruction’ has no doubt been allowed to remain as more suitable to the figure of the potter and the clay ; but why is it left at Mt 7'* ‘broad is the way that leadeth εἰς τὴν ἀπώλειαν" The more technical and complete sense of ἀπώλεια as perdition (Ph 3%, Mt 10%) in comparison with the more general sense of ὄλεθρος as Bene (cf. 1 Co 55), comes out at 1 Ti 6°, where ἀπώλεια serves as a definitive climax—‘ hurt- ful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition.’ - The question whethe: the word ἀπώλεια, with its correlates, (a) involves annihilation, (6) admits of unending existence and punishment, or (6) gives room for restoration, has already been dealt with in the article on ESCHATOLOGY (see vol. i. esp. pp. 738-740, 752f., and 756). It is a question which (as it seems to us) can never be absolutely decided by the phraseology. An objection to the uncon- ditional acceptance of (a) lies in the Jewish views of Sheol and Gehenna, and in such a moral use of ἀπόλλυμι and its correlates as in the phrase (Lk 1919), ‘The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost (τὸ dwodw)és),’-—a moral use which can be illustrated from the Greek prose of Polybius and Plutarch, and from the exegesis of Philo.* (6) is rendered uncertain, notonly by a priori considera- tions as to the character of God, but by the proved relativity in the sense of αἰών and αἰώνιος. It is impossible to dogmatize in the direction of (c) in face of the manifest efforts of our Lord and the writers of the NT to depict a finality of destiny for those who reject the truth. But when these can be said finally to reject it we are not distinctly informed. Without doubt, it is to men in the present state of existence that the gospel makes its urgent appeal. But nowhere in the NT are unbelievers warned that after the cessation of the present mode of existence all chance is gone. Of two things only can we speak with any confidence: freewill will never be forced; repentance will never be spurned. J. MASSIE.