nd retold amongst Christians one to another
whether in writing or in oral transmission. Mistakes would inevitably
arise from the universal tendency to mix error with truth which Virgil
has so powerfully depicted in his description of 'Fame':--

Tam ficti pravique tenax, quam nuntia veri[3].

And as soon as inaccuracy had done its baleful work, a spirit of
infidelity and of hostility either to the essentials or the details of
the new religion must have impelled such as were either imperfect
Christians, or no Christians at all, to corrupt the sacred stories.

Thus it appears that errors crept in at the very first commencement of
the life of the Church. This is a matter so interesting and so important
in the history of corruption, that I must venture to place it again
before our readers.

Why was Galilee chosen before Judea and Jerusalem as the chief scene of
our Lord's Life and Ministry, at least as regards the time spent there?
Partly, no doubt, because the Galileans were more likely than the other
inhabitants of Palestine to receive Him. But there was as I venture to
think also another very special reason.

'Galilee of the nations' or 'the Gentiles,' not only had a mixed
population[4] and a provincial dialect[5], but lay contiguous to the
rest of Palestine on the one side, and on others to two districts in
which Greek was largely spoken, namely, Decapolis and the parts of Tyre
and Sidon, and also to the large country of Syria. Our Lord laid
foundations for a natural growth in these parts of the Christian
religion after His death almost independent as it seems of the centre of
the Church at Jerusalem. Hence His crossings of the lake, His miracles
on the other side, His retirement in that little understood episode in
His life when He shrank from persecution[6], and remained secretly in
the parts of Tyre and Sidon, about the coasts of Decapolis, on the
shores of the lake, and in the towns of Caesarea Philippi, where the
traces of His footsteps are even now indicated by tradition[7]. His
success amongst these outlying populations is proved by the unique
assemblage of the crowds of 5000 and 4000 men besides women and
children. What wonder then if the Church sprang up at Damascus, and
suddenly as if without notice displayed such strength as to draw
persecution upon it! In the same way the Words of life appear to have
passed throughout Syria over congenial soil, and Antioch became the
haven whence the first great missio