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upper part of the picture, consists only of these words:

MARY THE VIRGIN.

The third picture is, perhaps, of more modern origin than either of the others, because it is painted upon paper made of cotton, or silk rags, which has been also attached to a tablet of sycamore wood. This is evidently a representation of the Virgin Mary and the Child JESUS, although the words "THE HOLY," in Arabic, are all that can be read for its illustration; what followed having been effaced. Three lilies are painted above the head of the Infant Messiah; and where the paint has wholly disappeared, in consequence of the injuries it has sustained, an Arabic manuscript is disclosed, upon which the picture was painted. This manuscript is nothing more than a leaf torn from an old copy-book the same line occurs repeatedly from the top of the page to the bottom; and contains this aphorism:

THE UNBELIEVER HATH WALKED IN THE WAY OF SIN.

Whatsoever may have been the antiquity of these early specimens of the art of painting, it is probable that they existed long prior to its introduction into Italy; since they seem evidently of an earlier date than the destruction of the church, beneath whose ruins they were buried, and among which they were recently

CHAP.

IV.

IV.

CHAP. discovered. No value was set upon them: they were not esteemed by the Arabs in whose possession they were found, although some Christian pilgrim had placed the two fragments belonging to one of them upon the rude altar which his predecessors had constructed from the former materials of the building. Not the smallest objection was made to their removal: so, having bestowed a trifle upon the Moslem tenant of the bee-hive repository, we took them into safer custody'.

Among the various authors who have mentioned Sephoury, no intelligence is given of the church in its entire state: this is the more

(1) The author is further indebted to his learned friend, the Rev. J. Palmer, of St. John's College, Cambridge, Arabic Professor in the University, for the following observations upon these pictures. Professor Palmer travelled in the Holy Land soon after they were dis covered.

"The antiquity of the Tablets cannot be determined precisely: yet it may be of importance to remark the absence of any Arabic titles corresponding with MP, OY, and OKOTOKOC, so commonly, not to say invariably, inscribed upon the effigies of the Virgin, some of them more than five hundred years old, which are seen in the Greek churches.

"I assume, as beyond doubt, that these tablets belonged to some church, or domestic sanctuary, of Malkite Greeks; both from the close correspondence, in figure and expression, between the effigies in their churches, and those on the tablets; and from the fact, familiar to all who have visited Eastern countries, that such tablets are rarely, if ever, found among Catholic Christians."

IV.

remarkable, as it was certainly one of the state- CHAP.
liest edifices in the Holy Land. Quaresmius,
who published in the seventeenth century a
copious and elaborate description of the Holy
Land, has afforded all the information we can
obtain concerning the form of this building;
but even his account is avowedly derived from
a survey of its ruins. Speaking of the city, he
expresses himself to the following effect3: "It
now exhibits a scene of ruin and desolation,
consisting only of peasants' habitations, and
sufficiently manifests, in its remains, the
splendour of the antient city. Considered as
the native place of Joachim and Anna, the
parents of the Virgin, it is renowned, and
worthy of being visited. Upon the spot where

(2) This work is very little known. It was printed at Antwerp in 1639, in two large folio volumes, containing some excellent engravings, under the title of "Historia Theologica et Moralis Terræ Sanctæ Elucidatio." QUARESMIUS was a Franciscan friar of Lodi in Italy, and once Apostolic Commissary and Præses of the Holy Land. He had therefore every opportunity, from his situation, as well as his own actual observation, to illustrate the ecclesiastical antiquities of the country.

(3) "Nunc diruta et desolata jacet, rusticanas dumtaxat continens domos, et multas objiciens oculis ruinas ; quibus intelligitur quàm eximia olim extiterit urbs. Celebris est, et digna ut visitetur, quòd credatur patria Joachim et Annæ, sanctorum Dei Genitricis parentum. Et in loco ubi Joachim domus erat fuit posteà illustris ædificata Ecclesia ex quadratis lapidibus: duos habebat ordines columnarum, quibus triplicis navis testudo fulciebatur: in capite tres habebat capellas, in præsentiâ in Mauroram domunculas accommodatas." Quaresmii Elucid. Terr. Sanct. lib. vii. cap. 5. tom. II. p. 852.

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IV.

CHAP. the house of Joachim stood, a conspicuous sanctuary, built with square stones, was afterwards erected. It had two rows of pillars, by which the vault of the triple nave was supported. At the upper end were three chapels; now appropriated to the dwellings of the (Arabs) Moors." From the allusion here made to the nave and side aisles, it is evident that Quaresmius believed its form to have been different from that of a Greek cross: yet the four arches of the centre and the dome they originally supported do rather denote this style of architecture. The date of its construction is incidently afforded by a passage in Epiphanius', in the account given by him of one Josephus, a native of Tiberias, who was authorized by Constantine to erect this and other edifices of a similar nature, in the Holy Land. Epiphanius relates, that he built the churches of Tiberias, Diocæsarea, and Capernaum; and Diocæsarea was one of the names given to Sepphoris. This happened towards the end of

(1) The testimony of Epiphanius concerning this country is the more valuable, as he was himself a native of Palæstine, and flourished so early as the fourth century. He was born at the village of Besanduc, in 320; lived with Hilarion and Hesychius; was made bishop of Salamis (now Famagosta) in Cyprus, in 366; and died in 403, at the age of eighty, in returning from Constantinople, where he had been to visit Chrysostom.

(2) As it appears in the writings of Socrates Ecclesiasticus and Sozomen. Vid. Socrat. Hist. xi. 33. Sozomen. Histor. lib. iv. c. 7.

the life of Constantine; therefore the church of Sepphoris was erected before the middle of the fourth century. "There was," says he3, " among them, one Josephus, not the antient writer and historian of that name, but a native of Tiberias, contemporary with the late Emperor, Constantine the Elder, who obtained from that sovereign the rank of Count, and was empowered to build a church to CHRIST in Tiberias, and in Diocæsarea, and in Capernaum, and in other cities."

The æra of its destruction may be referred to that of the city, in the middle of the fourth century, as mentioned by Reland', upon the

(3) *Ην δέ τις ἐξ αὐτῶν Ἰώσηπος, οὐχ ὁ συγγραφοὺς, και ἱστοριογράφος, καὶ παλαιὸς ἐκεῖνος, ἀλλ' ὁ ἀπὸ Τιβεριάδος, ὁ ἐν χρονοις τοῦ μακαρίτου Κωνσταντίνου τοῦ Βασιλεύσαντος, τοῦ γέροντος, ὃς καὶ πρὸς αὐτοῦ τοῦ βασιλέως ἀξιώματος Κομίτων ἔτυχε καὶ ἐξουσίαν εἴληφεν ἐν τῇ αὐτῇ, Τιβεριάδι ἐκκγησίαν Χριστῷ ἱδρύσαι, καὶ ἐν Διοκαισαρείᾳ καὶ ἐν Καπερναούμ, καὶ ταῖς ἄλλαις. " Fuit ex illorum numero Josephus quidam, non historiæ ille scriptor antiquus, sed Tiberiadensis alter, qui beatæ memoria Constantini Senioris Imperatoris ætate vixit: à quo etiam Comitivam accepit, cum eâ potestate, ut tum in urbe ipsâ Tiberiadis, tum Diocæsareæ, Capharnaumi, ac vicinis aliis in oppidis ecclesias in Christi honorem extrueret." Epiphanii Opera. Par. 1622. tom. II. lib. i. Adv. Hær. p. 128.

(4) The reader, after a fruitless examination of the pages of Adrichomius, and his predecessors, Breidenbach and Brocard, for an account of this city, may find, in the Palæstine of Reland, every information, concerning its history, that the most profound erudition, joined to matchless discrimination, diffidence, and judgment, could select and concentrate. It is the peculiar characteristic of Reland's

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