The results of this past summer's renewed archeological excavations at Capernaum are of interest to Bible students because the synoptic Gospels quite clearly center Jesus' ministry in that small town on the northwest shore of the Lake of Galilee.
Located just north of the fertile Gennesareth valley, Capernaum was strategically located for natural resources. The lake provided abundant fish, and the valley produced agricultural products of high quality. 1 Capernaum also enjoyed the benefits of being located at the frontier between the tetrarchy of Herod Antipas, who ruled Galilee from 4 B.C. to A.D. 39, and that of Herod Philip (4 B.C. to A.D. 34), whose capital was to the north at Caesarea Philippi. Both Herods were sons of Herod the Great, who died in 4 B.C., shortly after the birth of Jesus.
Capernaum's location at the border may explain the New Testament's reference to custom officials in the town, as well as the mention of a centurion with his men living there (Matt. 9:9; 17:24-27; 8:5-13; Lk. 7:1-10). Capernaum also lay on the major route linking the Mediterranean ports of Caesarea Maritima and Acco-Ptolomais with the interior capital of Damascus. This meant that caravans could supply themselves with vegetables and dried fish in abundance here before venturing into the rather arid country side between Gaulanitis (the modern Golan Heights) and Damascus. Quite probably the customs officials at Capernaum also regulated the consignments of grain sent from Gaulanitis for shipment to Rome.
Matthew's Gospel begins the account of Jesus' ministry with the short report "and leaving Nazareth he went and dwelt in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulon and Naphtaii" (chap. 4:13, R.S.V.). This identification of Jesus with Capernaum is completed later in that Gospel when Jesus' coming to this city after a short stay on the other side of the lake is reported as a return to "his own city" (chap. 9:1). Mark identifies Capernaum as the setting for the exorcism Jesus performed while teaching at the' synagogue on a Sabbath day (Mark 1:21-28), and for His healing of Peter's mother-in-law (verse 30), besides many other miracles. But Capernaum, like the neighboring towns of Chorazim and Bethsaida, also received harsh words of reproof from Jesus: "And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shall be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day" (Matt. 11:23). Because of these words, no doubt, Christian pilgrims going to the Holy Land in modern times have not been surprised to find Capernaum an abandoned mound.
Early explorations
Explorations of Capernaum and the identification of its site began in 1857 with the survey of Prof. E. Robinson and the visit of Capt. C. Wilson in 1866. They were able to identify the remains of a monumental building on the surface of the ground. In 1890 the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land and the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem purchased the mound with the visible re mains of the ancient building lying on the Franciscan portion of the property, but the highest point in the mound being on Greek Orthodox property.
Systematic excavation of the remains of the building (subsequently identified as a monumental synagogue) was begun by H. Kohl and C. Watzinger in 1905, and the synagogue was fully excavated and somewhat reconstructed by G. Orfali during the years 1905-1925. More recently, between 1968 and 1977, V. Corbo and S. Loffreda have conducted excavations under the floor of the synagogue and also to the west and south of the building. South of the synagogue they have located an octagonal Christian church, which they claim was built on top of a house that served as a church to the local Christians (a domus ecclesia). According to the excavators, this house, in turn, had been built on top of St. Peter's house in Capernaum. Their identification is made on the basis of graffiti that represent prayers to Peter.
Even though early rabbinic sources and the Talmud seem to refer to minum (the usual designation given to Judeo- Christians by the Jews)2 living in the area during the second and third centuries. Capernaum has been considered to have been basically a Jewish town. The presence of the monumental Jewish synagogue3 and the literary sources gave that general impression. Since the city of Tiberias was considered unclean at the time and Jews refused to live there, Capernaum was seen as the Jewish center on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. On the basis of their excavations Corbo and Loffreda reported that Capernaum had been abandoned at the be ginning of the Islamic conquest of the Holy Land in the seventh century. 4 This seemed to agree with the fact that in the eighth and ninth centuries Tiberias be came one of the best-known centers of Jewish learning in the whole world, a place where ancient scrolls were copied.
But the reports of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land after the Arab takeover did not quite agree with this historical reconstruction. From the vantage point of a nearby hill, Bishop Arculpus in A.D. 670 gained a view of Capernaum which he described as extending over a rather large area from the lakeshore to the foot of the hills, and lacking an outside wall. A few years later the pilgrim Willibald visited Capernaum. But he seems either not to have been too familiar with what to look for or trusted too much his own faulty memory, a not uncommon sin among tourists. He apparently confused Capernaum with Bethsaida and reported visiting a church built on the site of the house of Peter in Bethsaida. Of Capernaum, he reports that the city had at the time of his visit, A.D. 726, a strong out side wall.
A century later, in A.D. 820, the Greek monk Epiphanius came to Capernaum, which he described as a village and re ported that he had there visited the house of John the Theologian, where the miracles of the centurion's servant and the paralytic brought to Jesus through the roof had been performed (Matt. 8:5- 13; Mark 2:1-12). The existence of Capernaum, the locating there of the house of John the Theologian, as well as the identification of the miracles performed there, are also reported in S. Helenae et Constantini Vitae, a document of the tenth or the eleventh century and in the diaries of the following pilgrims who traveled in Palestine during the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: the Russian Abbot Daniel (A.D. 1105), Petrus Diaconos (1137), Fretellus (1147), John of Warszburg (1165), Theodorich (1172) and Ernoiul (1231). All of them report on the town itself and, significantly, fail to mention the prophecy of its impending doom. 5 It is only in the thirteenth century that the Dominican Father Burckhardt laments, "Capernaum, once a noble and glorious city has become now a miserable one, hardly containing seven shacks of poor fishermen." 6 The final demise of the town is reported in the itineraries of Francesco Suriano and Nicolo of Poggi, who came to Capernaum in 1347, and by Rabbi Isaac Chillo from Aragon, who visited Palestine in 1433. 7
In October of 1978 and during May and June of 1979, Dr. Vassilios Tzaferis, of the Department of Antiquities of the State of Israel and professor of archeology at the University of Haifa, per formed a number of archeological soundings in that area of the ancient city which is now the property of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. The evidence suggested that the site had been occupied uninterruptedly for at least 400 years after the Arab Conquest in A.D. 614. Among the most interesting finds uncovered by these soundings was a fishery close to the lakeshore, where the fishermen's catches were kept for sale. This well-built structure measured 2 meters in width and 5 meters in length and contained two large, rather shallow, semicircular pools, one at each end, with a rectangular platform in the middle on which, presumably, the fish were cleaned and sold to the townsfolk. The two pools had a thick coat of watertight plaster. The ceramic remains found in this fishery indicate that it may have been in use as late as the tenth century.
1980 campaign
Encouraged by these results, Dr. Tzaferis contacted Dr. Joseph Blenkinsopp, of the University of Notre Dame, in order to organize a volunteer program for the complete excavation of the ancient city in a systematic way within a reasonable length of time. Dr. Blenkin sopp, in turn, contacted me, and thus the University of Notre Dame-Saint Mary's College Capernaum Volunteer Program came into being. In May and June of 1980 a regular archeological campaign was conducted on the highest point of the ancient mound covering the city of Capernaum. With the help of twelve volunteers and the regular professional staff, fourteen squares were opened adjacent to one of the soundings undertaken the previous summer. This made accessible for study about seventy square meters on the southern face of the summit of the mound. The results were quite rewarding and promise even greater things in future seasons.
Not more than two inches below the present surface the excavators found re mains of the latest buildings. Some units and rooms were successfully traced and, although their preservation is poor, enough was uncovered to give an idea of the social life of the village in the eighth and ninth centuries. These structures indicate that the village was poor; both the ceramic and the numismatic evidence for this period is scarce. The walls were of poor quality. Even if one takes into ac count the results of natural damage with the passage of centuries, the evidence still indicates a rather poor standard of living. It is significant, however, that the archeological findings indicate that life in Capernaum continued uninterruptedly at least up to the ninth century A.D.
Beneath the surface walls a second line of walls was found. The pottery of this second level dates these walls to the seventh and eighth centuries. They represent the Capernaum of the period immediately following the Arab conquest in Galilee.
In general these second-level walls were well constructed, making it relatively easy to reconstruct large living units with three or four rooms. This level also had well-constructed stone pavements and beaten-earth floors. Thus although the area excavated is rather small in relation to the whole mound, enough was uncovered to reconstruct the basic type of living unit and the social life of the village at this time. The village consisted of narrow lanes between living units, and common paved courts giving access to the living areas. The pottery finds point to a slightly higher material culture than that encountered in Level I. Probably the most important small find consisted of several fragments of two glass oil lamps that were held together by some kind of metal candlestand. These were in a fairly good state of preservation.
Thus the Arab period is to be divided into two levels of habitation. Even if Level II represents a higher material standard than Level I, it is clear that Capernaum's best days were already in the past when Islam arrived. Capernaum may not be called a prosperous town at this time, but it was continuously occupied without major destructions or abrupt interruptions.
Under the Arab stratum were found buildings of the late Byzantine period, that is, the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. Unlike the structures discovered by the Franciscan fathers between the synagogue and the site of "St. Peter's house," these houses had well-constructed walls of cut stones mortared with cement, utilizing the black basalt stone typical of this region in Galilee.
The buildings themselves are large, testifying to a higher standard of living in this sector of the ancient town than was later enjoyed. Two large houses, separated by what seems to be a street coming up from the lake, have been excavated. One of these had a large pit from which several small objects were uncovered, including segments of lamps with the Greek Christian cross clearly visible. Just north of this house was dis covered a small ringstone with the Constantinian monogram inscribed on it.
Final conclusions about the late period of Byzantine Capernaum are still premature, but the evidence thus far, though not abundant, allows one to say that late Byzantine Capernaum was a Christian rather than a Jewish town, and that it was a prosperous, elegant town with a well-organized civic life, inhabited by Christian families of the higher middle class. It will not surprise the excavators, therefore, if in future seasons a rather large Christian basilica comes to light.
It seems fitting that the town where Jesus concentrated part of His early ministry became a predominantly Christian city half a millennium later.
Notes:
1 The Jewish historian Josephus Flavius (The Jewish War, III. iii. 2, 3) has only words of praise for the fertility of this valley.
2 See Koheleth Rabba 1.8.
3 Today there is a rather bitter controversy being waged about the dating of the synagogue. Jewish scholars date the synagogue in the second century on the basis of architectural and ornamental considerations. Corbo and Loffreda date the synagogue in the fourth century on the basis of the discovery of more than 20,000 coins under the floor of the synagogue.
4 V. Corbo, Cafarnao I (Jerusalem, 1975), p. 220, and S. Loffreda, Cafarnao II (Jerusalem, 1974), p. 21.
5 See D. Baldi, Enchiridion Locorum Sanctorum (Jerusalem 1955), pp. 278-284.
6 Ibid.
7 For the references to the visits of pilgrims to Capernaum I wish to thank my good friend the Reverend Archimandrite Kyprianos Melidonis, curator of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem.
