Gaza: A City of Many Battles 7

Gaza: A City of Many Battles 7

"It is a fact that prehistoric man of the two hemispheres had the

knowledge to spin fibre and thread, to wind it on bobbins (see spindle

wheels found in museums) having the same sign on them wherever found,

viz. the Swastika [swastika sign]" (p. 44).

 

"This symbol has probably a wider range than any other that has been

preserved from prehistoric times" (p. 352).

 

Dr. Churchward states, in _Primordial Man_, p. 187, that the recent

discoveries of Flinders Petrie at Abydos tend to show that the Druids

derived the Swastika from Egypt more than 20,000 years ago!!!

 

On April 16, 1912, a few poor specimens of Roman bronze coins struck at

Gaza were brought to me in that city, but the local finds seem to have

become nearly exhausted.

 

A representation of the temple Tychæon erected to the Fortune of the

City occurs on a coin of Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius (shortly before

A.D. 161), which shows a tetrastyle temple. (Most of the temples

depicted on the Gaza coins are distyle.) The goddess of the town, as

well as the heifer, also appear on this coin.

 

FOOTNOTES:

 

[16] On some coins the word ΜΕΙΝΩ occurs. It refers to Minoa,

the legendary name of Gaza, with reference to its foundation by Minos

of Crete.--_Meyer._

 

[17] Hadrianus, A.D. 117-138, favoured Gaza with several visits from

A.D. 123-135. This probably accounts for De Saulcy (_Numismatique de

la Terre Sainte_, Paris, 1874) being able to describe, on pp. 215-18,

twenty-two Gaza coins of this reign.

 

[18] _Historia Numorum_, Head, p. 680.

 

[19] _Encyclopædia Britannica_, "Philistines," pp. 755-6, vol. xviii,

ninth edition.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER V

 

THE JEWS AT GAZA[20]

 

 

There is no record to show that the Jews obtained any stronghold in

Gaza during Pagan times.

 

Pompey liberated Gaza _c._ 65 B.C., which had been subjected to the

Jews since the times of the Maccabees, and restored the city to its

freedom.

 

With the institutions of Pompey, the freedom of the Jewish people,

after having existed for scarcely eighty years, if we reckon it as

beginning in 142 B.C., was completely overthrown.

 

Josephus says (_The Jewish War_, II. 18, 1) that after the people of

Cæsarea had slain about 20,000 Jews, and all the city was emptied of

its Jewish inhabitants, A.D. 66, the whole nation was greatly enraged,

so the Jews divided themselves into parties, utterly demolishing

Anthedon and Gaza.

 

Schürer (_History of the Jewish People in the Time of Christ_, II. vol.

i, p. 71), however, thinks that this must have been a very partial

destruction, for so strong a fortress as Gaza could not have been

actually destroyed by a band of insurrectionary Jews.

 

During the middle ages, the use of wine being forbidden to Muslims by

the Kûrản, it was manufactured in Gaza only by the Jews. This Jewish

wine trade remained in their hands exclusively for a lengthened period.

There was also a colony of wine-dealers in the harbour Mayoumas.

 

In February 1799 most of the Jews fled when the French troops under

Napoleon entered Gaza. Meyer says that in 1811 there were none left.

Their synagogue stood idle, and their cemetery was deserted.

 

There were supposed to be, in 1907, about one hundred and sixty Jews in

Gaza (of whom thirty were Sephardim).

 

FOOTNOTE:

 

[20] It will be noticed that this chapter does not refer to the

earliest connections of Jews with Gaza.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VI

 

THE SAMARITANS

 

 

Meyer supplies some valuable information about the Samaritans in

Gaza on pages 71-2, from which I gratefully cull a few sentences. He

writes of their having settled there early, maintaining themselves as

a separate community till the modern period. A complete history is

impossible, because of the meagreness of the record. It is remarkable

how this little sect spread all over Palestine, and even into Egypt.

There are records of the Samaritans at Gaza from the fourth to the

seventeenth centuries. According to the Samaritan Chronicle of the High

Priest Eleazar, the territory of Palestine, and other parts of Syria

and Egypt, were assigned to various Samaritan families at the time of

Baba the Great (end of fourth century). That extending from Gaza to the

River of Egypt was given to Israel ben Machir, and Shalum was assigned

to it as Priest; the territory from Carmel to Gaza to Laib ben Becher,

with Joseph as its Priest. All the Samaritans who settled at Gaza were

of the tribe of Benjamin, excepting Mouzaf ben Mitpalel of the tribe of

Ephraim. The Martyr Paul of Gaza, _c._ A.D. 300, before his death at

Cæsarea, prayed for the Samaritans of his native town.

 

During the reign of Justinian, _c._ A.D. 529, the imperial troops once

occupied the city on the occasion of an uprising of the Samaritan

inhabitants of the district, and the citizens were greatly disturbed.

The Bishop Marcianus stepped into the breach, and settled the affair by

organising a militia to which the matters in dispute were referred.

The imperial troops were withdrawn, and peace was restored.

 

There were many Samaritans at Gaza in the seventh century. After the

Muslim conquest, A.D. 634, the Samaritans of Gaza deposited their

property with their high priest, and fled to the east.

 

The five hundred Samaritans who had been captured at Shechem by

Bazawash, governor of Demascus, _c._ A.D. 1137, were redeemed by a

co-religionist of Acre. Many of these settled in Gaza.

 

In A.D. 1674 the Samaritans living at Gaza addressed a letter to Robert

Huntington, who was deeply interested in their religion and literature.

 

Clermont-Ganneau reports the finding of a Samaritan liturgical

inscription at Gaza, but does not produce it either in the original

or in translation. Able also reports a fragment of a decalogue in the

Samaritan script of the Mohammedan period.

 

Among the _Gleanings from the Minute Books_ of the Jerusalem Literature

Society, November 1849, Mr. E. T. Rogers remarks that the Samaritans

are still quite a distinct set of people, as they were in the time of

our Saviour. They make no proselytes; never intermarry with people of

other sects, and are particularly clean as a people; none others are

known than those now in Nablus. Their principal distinction in the

oriental crowd is that they wear a crimson turban.

 

When the Rev. Dr. E. H. Thomson visited Nablus, in May 1898, he asked

after the fate of the Samaritan community that was still surviving in

Gaza when Baron Sylvestre de Sacy, _c._ 1829, corresponded with the

Samaritans of Nablus. He was informed that the community in Gaza had

ceased to exist some sixty years before. Now, at all events, these one

hundred and sixty Samaritans resident in Nablus are all that remain of

the Samaritan race and creed.

 

Mr. J. G. Pickard, writing from Gaza in _The Quarterly Statement_ P. E.

F., July 1873, reports on the newly discovered Samaritan Stone of which

the inscription is a passage in Deuteronomy iv. 29-31. It has been

suggested that this stone belonged to a Samaritan synagogue in Gaza.

The spot where the stone was discovered is about a mile and a half from

the sea shore.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VII

 

SOME EARLY BISHOPS OF (I) GAZA, (II) MAYOUMAS (THE PORT OF GAZA)

 

 

Palestina Prima--Cæsarea, _Metropolis_.

 

_The Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_, p. 1631, mentions "Philemon

(1) Bishop of Gaza; commemorated February 14 (Basil Menol)."

 

_The Kalendar of the Byzantine Church_, on November 22, commemorates

"Philemon, Apostle."

 

The Jerusalem Archimandrite Meletius Metaxakis, (now Bishop of Kition,

Cyprus), in an article on the Madaba Mosaic Map, _Nea Sion_, May and

June 1907, p. 485, states that "according to _The Ecclesiastical

Treatise about the Seventy Disciples of the Lord_, Philemon, the

Apostle, to whom the Epistle of Paul is directed, became Bishop of

Gaza."

 

The legendary history of Philemon supplies nothing on which we can

rely. _The Apostolic Constitutions_ (vii. 46) relate that Philemon

became Bishop of Colosse, and died a martyr under Nero, but this is

not sustained by any other early testimony, and is expressly denied by

the author of the _Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles_, attributed to

Hillary. This tradition, therefore, which Dr. Meyer (p. 59) mentions,

apparently without hesitation, cannot, I think, be accepted.

 

 

I.--BISHOPS OF GAZA

 

_c_. A.D. 285. SYLVANUS. The first Christian martyr of Gaza whose name

is known. Having had his eyes put out, he was beheaded at the Copper

Mines of Phæno.

 

Commemorated May 4.

 

A.D. 325. Gaza was represented by a Bishop at the Council of Nicæa. He

is described as a Bishop "of _the Churches round Gaza_."

 

A.D. 341. ASCLEPAS.[21] His name occurs in the Minutes of the First

Œcumenical Council. He succeeded Sylvanus, but was deposed at a Council

of Antioch, and reinstated at a Council of Sardica.

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