The villages are charming at a distance, but full of disillusion as one approaches. Tlie difference between the distant view and the interior reminds one of the Avords of Jesus about the outAvard and iuAvard appearances of Avhited sepulchres (Mt 23-''). They are usually Avell set, on picturesque heights or hillsides, and the angular outline of flat roofs and walls lends them a suggestion of military forti- fication. Cultivated oliveyards or gardens give the promise of quiet prosperity, and groups of trees seem to have arranged themselves for a picture. But, on nearer approach, the trees appear to detach themselves and stand apart, and the houses to decay before the eyes of the spectator into ruinous heaps of debris. This is due partly to poverty, and partly to the pretence of poverty as a device for avoiding the rapacity of the tax-gatherer or of the robber. Even in the time of Jesus ostentation Avas dangerous.- Those toAvns of Avhich He speaks Avere Availed and guarded. Towns and A'illages Avere eagerly Avatched by the tax-gatherers and some- times ruined and burned by banditti, especially in outlying or frontier regions. When He spoke of an angry lord coming to avenge the murder of his son and destroy the city of the murderers (Mt 21^^), the Avords Avould aAvaken no surprise.
Jesus Avas a dAveller in tOAAns. His longest homes on earth Avere Nazareth and Capernaum, both of them among the larger toAvns of Galilee. The significance of this fact is noteworthy. Most of the Syrian towns are to-day the mingling-places of the land, the crucibles Avherein a composite race is molten out of many elements. One or tAvo toAvns, indeed, like Nablus and Hebron, are fanatically Mohammedan, and the uuAvelcome alien elements of the population are kept apart, Avhile the life of the Avhole community stagnates, immune to the infection of their uncleanness, but unprogressive as cities of the dead. But the other toAvns are open to the AA'orld. It is said that the sanitary con- ditions are such that if it Avere not for the freedom of intercourse the population Avould die off. The inhabitants often emigTate, and there is much inter- marriage Avith jjeople of other towns, so that the life is A'aried and has other than purely local in- terests.
From the earliest times the population of these toAvns Avas recruited by Canaanites, Arabs, and Israelites from other districts. In the days of
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Jesus, Gneeo-Roman life was pouring iuto tliem, and there was always the presence of the imperial military contingent. The gi-eat roads ana the Eastern campaigns of Rome had opened up and greatly developed foreign commerce, which found markets in all the larger centres. Jesus was a child and a man of the town. It was not, as in the case of John the Baptist, in desert places that He chose to teach, but in the crowded synagogues, clad in ordinary townsman's tasselled dress.
Urban communities arose from three main causes, \tz. com- merce (especiallj' commerce in connexion with agriculture), war, and worship. In its various phases, town life bears marks of its threefold origin through all time. Christ touched this life on all its sides, and came iuto relation with each of these three aspects of it.
Coiiunerce Jesus knew from the first in Xazareth. The town lies in the oval hollow of a high mountain valley. The car- penter's shop there led Him doubtless to a knowledge of house building, and He knew the reasons why some houses stood the underwash of rainstorms and some did not (Mt 7^). Tradition mentions ' yokes and ploughs ' as among the chief objects \\ hich He manufactured as a carpenter : and there can be little doubt that this is correct. For Xazareth was just the place in which commerce was most sure to be closely connected wilh agri- culture : and He who said, ' Take my yoke upon you ' (11-*), and spoke of the Ught burden and the easy joke, had doubtless in His mind much experience of the choice of timber and of accurate fitting of yokes to the necks of oxen. He knew the markets, and may not only hare seen children placing in them, but have played there Himself as a child. Capernaum was a place of importance for the collection of revenue, being situated at an important point on a great Roman road. Jericho, famous for its rich trade in balsam, was a still more important tax- coUecting centre, where a leading publican could gather many of his friends to a feast (Lk 5^). Matthew and ^echaeus are links connecting Jesus with the receipt of custom. Capernaum also had its fishing fleet, and its extensive fish-market, and Peter "s family resided there (Jit y-*). The traveller coming in from the eastern desert towards the Lebanon is astonished by the aspect of the town of Honis (Emesa). whose high square blocks of masonry an S many chimney-stalks give it a striking resemblance to a T.iidland English manufacturing town. Xo doubt that is a product of modern industry. Yet, as He looked southward from His disciples' boat, Jesus must have often seen the cloud of smoke rising from Tariches, at the southern end of the Lake, where in His time a large trade in fish-curing was carried on.
War, also, had left its traces. As one advances farther and farther to the north-east from Damascus, one is struck to find the walls of oasis-towns grow thicker and higher, and to note the pierced loopholes in them, testifying to the nearness of the raiding Bedawin, and the precarious terms on which town life is possible there. Many such fortress-towns Jesus must have visited on His journeys. Ever \isible from Xazareth itself, the crest of Tabor, to which some have seen an allusion in the 'citj" set on an hill' (51-'), was crowned by a fort and occupied by a Roman garrison. The centurions whom Jesus met, and who impressed Him so favourably, were in command of detachments of Roman soldiers, who formed an important feature in all the town life of S\Tia, mingling at times in friendly inter- course with their neighbours (Lk T-i-^), and lending to the life of the place that unmistakable air of distinction which is ever to be found about the army of a great empire.