There are now Only three or four inhabited houses in El-Belid. It is on a small jieninsula lying between the ocean and a bay, and the port is on the land side of the town. In the present day, during nearly the whole of the year, at least at low tide, the bay is a lake and the peninsida an isthmus; but the lake is of sweet water. In the rainy season, which is in the spring, it is a gulf of sweet water at low tide, and of salt water at high tide. The classical writers, as above noted, mention "Sap- phar metropolis" {'S.aiT^apa ^ii]Tpinro\iQ) or Saphar (in Anon. Peripl. p. 274), in long. 88^, lat. 14° 30', according to Ptolemy, the capital of the Sappharitas (S^rtTr^npiT-ai)? placed by him (vi. 6, 25) near the Homeritiv; but their accounts are obscure, and probably from hearsay. In later times, as we have already said, it was the seat of a Christian Church^one of three which were founded A.D. 343, ijy permission of the reigning Tubbaa. in Dha- fari (written Tapharon, Td<papov, by Philostorgius, //tst. Eccles. iii, 4), in 'Aden, and on the shores of the Persian Gulf. Theophilus, who was sent with an embassy by order of the emperor Constantine to effect this purpose, was the first bishop (Caussin, i. 111 sq.). In the reign of Abrahah (A.D. 537-570) St. Gregentius was bishop of these churches, having been sent by the patriarch of Alexandria (see the authorities cited by Caussin, i, 142- 145).— Smith.
Seph'arad (Heb. Sepharad', T^SD, meaning, if Heb., separated; Targ. X'^'QEpX, i. e. Ispamia; Sept. 'iioQ 'E(j)paBd ; Vulg. in Boaporo ), a name which oc- curs in Ohad. 20 only, as that of a jilace in which the .Tews of Jerusalein were then held in captivity, and whence they were to return to possess the cities of the south. Its situation has always been a matter of un- certainty, and cannot even now be said to be settled.
1. The reading of th€ Sept. given above, and followed by the Arabic Version, is probably a mere conjecture, though it may point to a modified form of the name in the then original, viz. Sepharath. In Jerome's copy of the Sept. it appears to have been Ev(ppdTi]Q, since (Comm. in Aid.) he renders their version of the verse transmigi-atio lernsalejn vsque Euphraihem. This is certainly extremely ingenious, but will hardly hold when we turn it back into Hebrew.
2. The reading of the Vulgate, Bnspiorus (obtained by taking the prefixed preposition as part of the name — ~~i£D3 — and at the same time rejecting the final D), was adopted by Jerome from his Jewish instructor, who considered it to be "tlie jilace to which Hadrian had transported the captives from Jerusalem" (Comm. in Abd.). This interpretation Jerome did not accept, but preferred rather to treat Sepharad as connected with a similar Assyrian word signifying a "boundary," and to consider the passage as denoting the dispersion of the Jews into all regions. We have no means of knowing to which Bosporus Jerome's teacher alluded — the Cim- merian or the Thracian. If the former (Strait of Yeni- kale), which was in Iberia, it is not impossible that this rabbi, as 'ignorant of geography outside of the Hoh' Land as most of his brethren, confounded it with Iberia in Spain, and thus agreed with the rest of the Jews whose opinions have come down to us. If the latter (Strait of Constantinople), then he may be taken as confirming the most modern opinion (noticed below), that Sepharad was Sardis in Lydia.
3. Tlie Targum Jonathan (see above) and the Peshito- Syriac, and froin them the modern Jews, interpret Seph- arad as iSpain (Is]iamia and Ispania), one common va- riation of which name, Hesperia, <loes certainly bear considerable resemblance to Sepharad: and so deeply has this taken root that at the present day the Spanish Jews, who form the chief of the two great sections into which the .Jewish nation is divided, are called by the Jews themselves the Sephardim, German Jews being known as the Ashkenazim. It is difficult to suppose that either of these can be the true explanation of Seph- arad. The prophecy of Obadiah has every appearance
SEPHARDIM
537
SEPHIROTH
of referring to the destruction of Jerusalem by Neb- uchadnezzar, and there is no reason to believe that any Jews had been at that early date transijorted to Spain.
4. Others have suggested the identity of Sepharad with iStppliara in Mesopotamia (Ilardt, Sippharu Buhy- lonice [Helmst. 1708]), but that is more probably Seph- arvaim.
5. The name has perhaps been discovered in the cu- neiform Persian inscriptions of Naksh-i-Rust«m and Behistun (see Burnouf, Mem. stir Deux Inscr. Cuneif. 1836, p. 147), and also in a list of Asiatic nations given by Niebuhr {Reiseb. ii, pi. 31). In the latter it occurs between Ka Ta Pa TUK (Cappadocia) and Ta UNA (Ionia). De Sacy was the first to propose the identifi- cation of this with Sepharad, and subsequently it was suggesied by Lassen {Zeitschr.f. Moryenl. V, i, 50) that S Pa Ra D was identical with Sardis, the ancient cap- ital of Lydia. This identification is approved of by Winer, and adopted by Dr. Pusey (Int7-ocl. to Ohad. p. 232, note, also p. 245). In support of this, Fiirst (Ihindwb. ii, 95 a) points out that Antigonus (B.C. cir. 320) may very probably have taken some of his Jewish captives to Sardis; but it is more consistent with the apparent date of Obadiah's prophecy to believe that he is refer- ring to the event mentioned by Joel (iii. G), when "chil- dren of Judah and Jerusalem" were sold to the " sons of the Javanim" (lonians), which — as the first captivity that had befallen the kingdom of Judah, and a trans- portation to a strange lan(l, and that beyond the sea — could hardly fail to make an enduring impression on the nation.