Such is the land of Gennesaret, on the immediate edge of which lay Capernaum, and over whose ' Eden-like landscape ' the feet of our blessed Lord so often trod as He went about preaching from village to village, healing the sick and raising to life the dead. One can almost see Him, in fancy, pushing out in a little boat along the embayed and shell-covered shore, followed to the water's edge by the multitudes who pressed upon Him daily from populous Gennesaret, and hear Him speaking to them, as they sit upon the shore, concerning the gospel of the Kingdom, drawing illustrations from the sower, who, going forth to sow, allows some seeds to fall by the wayside, others on stony places, still others where they are choked by thorns ; ,T,nd then, when He became weary, retiring to the mountains for rest and spiritual refreshment in prayer, only to return again and repeat His mess- age of goodwill and comfort ; until, finally, when the great tragedy on Calvary is ended and He is risen from the tomb, He reappears to those same disciples, who meanwhile have returned to their nets. Surely no other spot of like size can possibly be of equal interest, to the Christian who loves to trace the footprints of His Master's earthly career, with what has justly been called ' the most sacred region of the Lake,' ' the gem of Palestine.'
LiTERATiTEE.— Sandav, Sacred Sites of the Gospels, 39 f. ; Tris- tram, Bible Places, 311-316, The Land 0/ Israel, 665 ; Thom- son, The Land and the Book, i. 86, ii. 293f., 29S, 403, iii. 166; G. A. Smith, HGHLUSd. ; Merrill, Galilee in the Time of Christ, 33, 34, art. 'Gennesaret, Land of,' in Hastmgs' DB; Robinson, BRF iii. 277 ff.. Physical Geo,,, of the Holy Land, 199; Cheyne, art. 'Gennesar' in Encyc. Bibl. ; Wright and Hackett, art. ' Gennesaret, Land of,' in Smith's DB ; Socm in Baedeker's Palestine and- Syria, 291 ; Stewart, Land of Israel, 264; Gender, Primer of Bible Geoff. 160 f.; Stanley, SP 444- 454 • Wilson, Lands of 'the Bible, 137 ; Oeikie, The Holy Land and the Bible, ii. 331 ; Eitter, Geog. of Palestine, ii. 265 ; Buhl, GAP US; Neubauer, G^og. du Talm. 46 f.; Josephus, BJ ill. X. 8; Ruetsche in PREi v. 6f. ; Furrer in Sohenke!, 11. 322 ; Swete, Com. an St. Mark, ad &'■> ; Plummer, Com. mi St. Luke,
ad 51. George L. Robinson.
GENTILES.— In AV of the Gospels, ' Gentiles ' and 'nations' are the translations of lOvri, RV agreeing with the rendering of AV in every place of the word's occurrence. In Mt 6' {i9pmot) and
GENTILES
GENTILES
18" (idviKos) AV has ' heathen ' and ' a heathen man ' respectively; RV 'Gentiles' and 'the Gentile.' In Mt 5'\ where AV has reXuvai, ' publicans,' RV mth the reading iSviKoi has ' Gentiles.' "EXXi/ves, occurring in John only, is rendered 'Greeks' in 12» RV and AV ; in 7== tlV has ' Greeks,' AV ' Gen- tiles,' ^vith, however, ' Greeks ' in the margin. 'EW-nvls (Mk 7-«) is translated 'a Greek' in both versions, but AV has 'Gentile' in the margin. The very wide diffusion of the Greek language after the conquests of Alexander the Great was the reason that in our Lord's day ' Greek ' was often used as an equivalent for ' Gentile.' See Greeks. The word ' Gentiles,' from the Lat. gentilis (adjective of gens, pi. gentes, 'a race,' 'people,' or 'nation'), is used in the Vulgate to render the Heb. D^ia and the Gr. leni], and lias thus passed into English.
For a full discussion of the terra 'Gentiles,' reference must be made to the Bible Dictionaries. It is only necessary here to allude to the origin and use of the expression in the OT. Just as le^os in the Gospels, as a rule (for an exception see Mt 21''^), means the Je^vish nation, and IBfTj the nations other than Jewish, so in the OT '13 {goi], as a rule (for an exception see Lv 20'^), stands for the former and the pi. d:u {goiim) for the latter ; and whilst often used in its purely ethnogiaphical and geographical sense, with the meaning ' foreigner,' it is also constantly employed, especially in the Psalms, as a term of aversion and contempt, as connoting the practice of false religions and of immoral customs. The material and moral evils which the goiim had brought upon Israel in its later history tended to intensify the feelings of hostility with wliich the Jews looked out upon tliem from their o^vn religious exclusiveness ; and accordingly, in oui- Lord's day and in the genera- tions following (see Acts and the Epistles passim), they were regarded by the Jews generally as aliens, having no claim whatever to the Divine recognition. This must be borne in mind when estimating our Lord's teaching on the subject.
A full consideration of the attitude of early Christianity towards the Gentiles requires a study of the Acts and Epistles at least, and is beyond tlie scope of this article : our Lord's teaching, how- ever, afterwards developed by His followers, is quite plainly indicated in tlie Gospels, and must form tne basis of any adequate discussion of the subject.
The fact that Jesus did not pass His youth in the religiously exclusive atmosphere of Jerusalem, but in the freer and more liberal surroundings of semi-Gentile Galilee, fits in with the prophetic word of Simeon at the Presentation, and the de- clarations of His forerunner: He was to be 'a light to lighten the Gentiles' (Lk 2^-); and, God was able to raise up to Abraham children (3*) who could not boast any natural descent from the patriarch. St. Matthew, although according to the usual account of his standpoint he had no especially Gentile procli'i'ities, records two im- portant prophetic utterances regarding the Gen- tiles as being illustrated and fulfilled in his Master's work : ' Galilee of the Gentiles ; the people which sat in darkness saw great light ; ana to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up ' (4''- '*), and, ' In his name shall the Gentiles trust' (12-'). At the beginning of His ministry, if we accept St. Luke's chronology (see Naaman), Jesus defied the Jewish prejudices of His hearers in the synagogue at Nazareth by citing cases of Gentiles blessed through the agency of Israel's prophets (Lk 4""-) ; and, when driven from His native town, He took up His abode in a city of despised Galilee which be- longed to that less Jewish portion of it known as