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"Well, then," said Moses, "if I may not even go into the land as a common citizen, let me at least enter into the promised land by the Paneas Grotto, that runs from the east bank to the west bank of the Jordan." But this request, too, God denied him, saying, "Thou shalt not go from this bank of the Jordan to the other."
He appears never to have visited Tiberias, a city inhabited for most part by Pagans, and the habitual residence of Antipas. Sometimes, however, he wandered from his favorite region. He went by boat to the eastern shore, to Gergesa, for instance. Toward the north we see him at Paneas or Cæsarea Philippi, at the foot of Mount Hermon.
The Hellenistic population outnumbered the Jews in the Herodian foundations of Caesarea, Sepphoris, Tiberias, Paneas, etc., as well as in the old Greek cities of Doris, Scythopolis, Gerasa, Gadara, and the rest of the Decapolis.
The merit and effect of a copy depends on its resemblance with the original; but the primitive Christians were ignorant of the genuine features of the Son of God, his mother, and his apostles: the statue of Christ at Paneas in Palestine was more probably that of some temporal savior; the Gnostics and their profane monuments were reprobated; and the fancy of the Christian artists could only be guided by the clandestine imitation of some heathen model.
Here at Paneas, after the city had been rebuilt by Philip the Tetrarch and renamed after him and his Imperial master, there came one day a Peasant of Galilee who taught His disciples to draw near to Nature, not with fierce revelry and superstitious awe, but with tranquil confidence and calm joy.
A right of pasturage round Paneas had been granted to the Mahometans by Baldwin III. When the ground was covered with their sheep the Christian troops burst in, murdered the shepherds, and drove away their flocks not with the sanction, we may hope, of the most high-minded of the Latin kings of Jerusalem.
In Decapolis, whole towns crumbled to the earth; and in Asia, in several localities, the earthquake was severely felt, particularly to the east and north-east of Paneas. In Upper Galilee, many Pharisees found their houses in ruins when they returned from keeping the feast.
But the time of quietness could not last long. The designs of Saladin became continually more manifest, and Noureddin was on his way to Egypt when he was struck down by illness and died at Damascus. The widow of Noureddin held the fortress of Paneas; and her husband's death encouraged Almeric to undertake the siege. A bribe to abandon it was at first refused.
Another happy accident there was, which was a further great advantage to Herod at this time; for Zenodorus's belly burst, and a great quantity of blood issued from him in his sickness, and he thereby departed this life at Antioch in Syria; so Caesar bestowed his country, which was no small one, upon Herod; it lay between Trachon and Galilee, and contained Ulatha, and Paneas, and the country round about.
Here, in all probability, was Baal-Gad, where the Canaanites paid their reverence to the waters that spring from underground. Here, certainly, was Paneas of the Greeks, where the rites of Pan and all the nymphs were celebrated. Here Herod the Great built a marble temple to Augustus the Tolerant, on this terrace of rock above the cave.
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