Into this region Jesus came with His disciples during one of His tours of retirement from the common scenes of His Galilean activity ; but He does not seem to have entered Ca>sarea itself. St. Matthew (16'^, cf. 15-') tells us that Jesus came into the region (eh rd nipr]) ; St. Mark (8") mentions more specifically and vividly the villages of Caesarea (eh Tds Kuiias). In the territory of which Caesarea was the chief city tliere were Mualler towns, and it was through these tliat .lesus moved with His disciples and others \\ ho folluw ed Him. St. Luke alone (g""-) of the Synoptists seems to have lost the touch of local colour fixed so indelibly upon tlie narratives of Mt. and Mk.— an authenticating element whose force even those who question the Synoptic tradition at this point find it difficult to escape (cf. Wrede, Messiasgeheimtiis, p. 239). The narrative in Lk. lends itself, however, to the set- ting of Mt. and Mk., both by the way in which it is introduced without definite localization (xoi iyivero ii/ rijj eivai airbv wpo(Tevxt>iiei'ov), and by the fact that in Lk.'s order it follows tlie feeding of the five thousand in the neighbourhood of Beth- saida. According to Mk 8-^- '", it was from Beth- saida that Jesus went into the villages of Caesarea, and in Jn 6^^- we read of a confession of Peter immediately after the discour.se of Jesus in Caijernaum, occasioned by the feeding of the five thousand. St. Luke's material may have come to him in the form of a gjroup centring around a saying of Jesus, but without definite localization. By inserting it after the feeding of
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the Ave thousand he has preserved the historical order without, however, giving us the exact local setting. For this we must look to St. Matthew and St. Mark.
By our First and Second Evangelists the same group of events is not only connected with a place which lends peculiar significance to them, but set in a larger context which extends to the feeding of the five thousand. Mt. and Mk. alike represent Jesus' arrival in the region of Caesarea Philippi as part of a course decided upon shortly after that event. The decision which led to the retirement into the region of Tyre and Sidon must have been confirmed by His experience on returning to Galilee. For Jesus withdrew again, this tmie
Ejing north into the region of Coesarea Philippi. ocated at Csesarea and standing in tlie period of retirement, this group of events points back to the beginning of the period for the explanation of its characteristic features. The Gospels do not enu- merate the causes which led to such a change in the scene'of Jesus' activity, but their narratives do indicate a situation which will in a measure account for it.
But, besides change of scene, this group of events reveals, as do the earlier events of the
Seriod of retirement, a change in the method of esus' work. His retirement from Galilee is from the people and tlieir religious leaders into more intimate companionship witli His disciples, from His popular instruction of the multitudes and beneficent activity in their midst to teach His faithful followers in more secluded intercourse the significance of His own person for the Kingdom He had been proclaiming, and to prepare them for His Passion. The period has fittingly been called, from its chief characteristic, the Training of the Twelve, and in no incident does this char- acteristic more clearly appear than in the events of Ctesarea Philippi.
The immedrate occasion of Jesus' retirement from Galilee and the change in His method of work are indicated in Mt. and Mk. by their account of His attitude towards the traditions of the elders (Mt 15'--», Mk 1^-"-^). The fundamental opposition between Jesus and the legalism of the Pnarisees which had appeared in His attitude to- wards the Sabbath customs, and in the Her
the Mount, came now to sharp expressii
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attack on the whole system of external formalism in religion. The people, moreover, liad shown themselves unprepared to receive and unable to appreciate His teaching, even after the work of John the Baptist and His own labours in their behalf. And so the form of His teaching had changed from the gnomic to the parabolic, causim; a separation between the mass and those who luul ears to hear. How utterly the people had failed to comprehend Him is revealed by their attempt after the feeding of the five thousand to take Him and make Him king (Jn 6'^). After His discourse in Capernaum (Jn 6-™-), St. John tells us that many of His disciples walked no more with Him (Jn 6»«). Finally, the mission of the Twelve had widely extended His work, and shortly thereafter we are told that Herod (Antipas) heard of Jesus (Mk6", Mt 14>, Lk 9™-)- Bitter hostility from the religious leaders, failure on the part of the people to understand the character of His work, interested attention from the murderer of John the Baptist, — in the midst of such conditions Jesus withdrew from Galilee, and from His popular preaching activity, to devote Himself to His disciples.
Jesus' first retirement is into the region of Tyre and Sidon, part of the Roman province of Syria. Returning to Galilee, He feeds the four thousand, refuses the request of the Pharisees and