594
SEAL
SECOND ADAM
arrangements, this could not be satisfactory in the neighbourhood of a town like Capernaum. Then every village would have, as at the present time, its own dunghill, a fruitful source of swarms of flies.
Great extremes of wealth and poverty there would not be. We meet, indeed, with a knowledge of wealth (Mt 7« 13^« W\ Lk 12i8- ") ; but on the Avhole the life was of the simplest, as we see from the nature of the household furnishings, — the bushel, the candlestick (Mt 5^^), there being but one; and the mention of the food— bread, eggs, fish(Mt78-^ Lk 1111-12).
Then it is to be noted that the people were to a certain extent bilingual. Judging from similar conditions in this district and elsewhere at the present day, we should say that the language of the homes and of the Jewish population among themselves was Aramaic, but that the men would generally be acquainted colloquially with the Hellenistic speech of the larger towns. The native language, too, had its own peculiarities (Mt 26'^), the chief of which was a remarkable confusion of the gutturals, which is repeatedly ridiculed in the Talmuds, where a notable example is given of a Galilaean being asked, when shouting on the street, whether he wished to sell ' wool,' ' a sheep,' ' wine,' or 'a donkey' (Bab. Erubin, 536 ; Bcrakhoth, 32a).
To sum up, then, the population of this district was as manly, industrious, independent, moral, pious, and experienced in the world as any in Palestine. It was among men who were morally right that our Lord chose to settle. It was such that He made His first disciples, and finally His Apostles. Had these been willing to compromise conscience, they might easily have passed into easier walks of life. In the full strength of early manhood, they might have had a share in the settlement of Tiberias {Ant. XVIII. ii. 3), but they had resisted that temptation. It is true that Matthew the publican (Mt 10^) was among them, but it is to be remembered that here he did not serve an alien like the publicani in Judaea. The taxes he collected would go to the coffers of Antipas in Tiberias (Titus Livius, 32 F ; Cicero, in Verr. ii. 72), and they would be drawn from the tax on goods passing along the highways as well as on the fish from the Lake, as at the present day. This latter fact suggests a peculiar relation- ship between Matthew and the ' fisher-folk ' among the Twelve, and a still more interesting one be- tween him and Simon the Zealot, who had fought against these taxes.
We conclude by observing that, as no land in the world save Palestine could have given us the Bible, no part of the land save this, with its wealth of recent historical association and variety in nature, from the torrid heat of el-Ghuweir to the perennial snows of Hermon, could so well have suited the Great Teacher in His appeal to men of every kindred and every clime. In its calm beauty it was in many ways worthy of the presence of the Son of Man, and it presents us with a beautiful picture of many aspects of His life and character. It deserved all that Jew and Gentile said in its praise even in their playing with its names — Tiberias (Nnna) nn^xn nnio, ' beautiful of appear- ance ' ; Capernaum (D'yj "iSD, x'»'P'<"' TapaKXijo-ews), ' land of pleasantness or consolation. ' Before the time of the Lord Jesus the Sea of Galilee was to the world an unknown, neglected, and almost un- named distant inland lake ; but He has changed all this. He has rendered it immortal.
Literature. — Hastings' DB and Encyc. Bihl. art. ' Galilee, Sea of ; G. A. Smith, HGHL, ch. xxi. ; Merrill, Galilee in the Time of Christ ; see also art. Galilee and the Lit. given there.
Wm. M. Christie. SEAL. — The only reference in the Gospels to the
literal use of a seal is Mt 27**^,* where we read that the chief priests and Pharisees, after consulta- tion with Pilate, in order to guard against the re- moval of our Lord's body by the disciples, secured the sepulchre to the best of their power by setting their seal upon the entrance stone (cf. Dn 6i') as well as by placing soldiers to guard it. The pro- cess would be accomplished by stretching a cord across the stone that blocked the entrance, and by sealing the two ends of the cord against the wall of rock. Twice in the Fourth Gospel the act of sealing is used figui-atively to describe (a) tlie solemn confirmation by the believer, from his own experience, that God is true (Jn 3^^) ; (b) the destination and authentication of the Son by the Father as the bestower of the food which nourishes eternal life ( Jn 6^^). In all of these three cases it is the verb (T(j>payi'^(j) that is used, the noun <T<ppayis not being found in the Gospels.
C. L. Feltoe. SEAM.— See Coat.
SEkRCKlfiG.— Searching (of Latin-French deri- vation) is a richer word than seeking (of Anglo- Saxon origin), because it implies examination as well as looking and asking (cf. 1 P li"). Thus while ^TjT^o} and its compounds are always translated 'seek,' the words corresponding to 'search' are avaKpivu (Ac 17" only), i^erd^u), and ipevvdw. In Mt 2^ e^erdfoj is appropriately used for the identifying of the child of Messianic promise : ' Search out care- fully concerning the young child' (RV ; whereas AV tr. as if it were iK^rjT^o}). In Mt IQH it means 'get to know exactly who is genuinely worthy,' rather than settle down with the first man who is spoken of for his piety. In Jn 211^ the same word is used to suggest that the disciples did not venture to probe the mystery any further. Reverence held them back, — the sense that faith must at such a moment take the place of criticism.