Jordanes

“ They raised him on a shield and acclaimed him as a king; leader and followers both resolving (says Jordanes the Gothic historian) “rather to seek new kingdoms by their own labour, than to slumber in peaceful subjection to the rule of others.” ”

“ A certain Edica, chief of the Scyrri, of whom Jordanes speaks as defeated by the Ostrogoths, may more probably have been the father of Odoacer, though even in this theory there are some difficulties, chiefly connected with the low estate in which he appears before us in the next scene of his life, when as a tall young recruit for the Roman armies, dressed in a sordid vesture of skins, on his way to Italy, he enters the cell of Severinus, a noted hermit-saint of Noricum, to ask his blessing. ”

“ In his later days the west Goths threw off his yoke, and, on the invasion of the Huns, rather than witness the downfall of his kingdom he is said by Ammianus Marcellinus to have committed suicide. His fate early became the centre of popular tradition, which found its way into the narrative of Jordanes or Jornandes (De rebus geticis, chap. 24) , who compared him to Alexander the Great and certainly exaggerated the extent of his kingdom. ”

“ Most remarkable is the fact that in stories relating to the Continent nearly all the chief characters (Eormenric, Theodric, Guthhere, Attila, etc.) belong to nations which had passed out of existence before the end of the sixth century. From Jordanes (cap. 5) we gather that the preservation of the early Gothic traditions was very largely due to the pride taken by that people in its own heroes of the past. Yet it is not easy to see how the survival of the stories which have come down to us can be ascribed to any such feeling.
Let us first examine the Anglo-Saxon poems. ”

“ JERICHO AND THE JORDAN TO JERUSALEM. LEAVING the sterile desolate shores of the Dead Sea, we ride in a north-westerly direction over a plain encrusted with salt and sulphur, through a morass overgrown by a jungle of reeds and rushes, and then enter upon the plain of the Jordan. The soil is cumbered with clumps of nubk, its thorns sharp as prongs of steel, and thickets of Zizyphus Spina Christi, from which tradition says that the crown of thorns was made. The osher or apple of Sodom, its flowers resembling those of the potato, its fruit green or yellow, attracts the eye by its deceitful beauty. ”

“ The Jordan is born among the hills, having its source at the base of Hermon, from which it bursts forth like the streams that issue from the glaciers of the Alps, with all the fury of a mountain torrent. ”

“ Blessed, praised and glorified be the Uthras who dwell at the Jordan. You Jordan be gentle for these souls who have descended into you. And healing be to them for the sake of truthful speech and the raising of the Jōkabar-Zīwā. And life is victorious. ”

“ Seven times in the river of Jordan, and be
Whole. And Naaman questioned, and was wrath,
As was not any river of Damascus
Purer than Jordan, and in more virtue flowing?
But, little, his servants said, was this to do,
And, as persuasion led him, he went down
And seven times let Jordan cover him,
And came with a clean body as of old,
A strong man with the tides of blood before him,
With equal limbs for all the spirit could dare,
And into Syria he sang upon his riding. ”

“ The only clear opening from the Jordan to the Mediterranean is the Plain of Esdraelon. Standing on Jordan’s bank below Bethshan and looking westward, you see before you a valley whose farther end shows nothing but sky. Many streams cut their way down its slopes beside a green morass, and hold in their embrace the ruins of a strong city. You must follow them up westwards for some ten miles before you reach sea level, and soon after that you cross the watershed in a wide valley with mountains rising to north and south. ”

“ In answer to this, me said, Where are your blows and beatings, the prooss os your love ? Sure it is, that in this country they are the only in- siances os the care and assection os husbands. When Jordanes heard this, his amazement at sirst hindered his laughter, but soon aster, when both were over, he thought it sor his interest to use her as she had pre- scribed, and not long aster took an occasion to beat her ; and me growing into good humour, by the in- sluence os the cudgel, srom that time sirsb began to*
love
love and esteem her husband in carncst. ”

“ The river Jordan is four leagues to the east of Jericho. On this side Jordan is the region called Judea, as far as the Adriatic Sea, that is, to the port which is called Joppa; on the other side Jordan is Arabia, most hostile to Christians, and hateful to all who worship God, in which is the mountain whence Elijah was carried into heaven in a fiery chariot. ”

“ Very well, thank God you are out of the Egypt of sin, that the wilderness journey through justification is behind you, and that Canaan, that fair land where milk and honey flows, lies just before you. Only the Jordan intervenes. Of course the Jordan always is running strong and out of its banks every time, it seems, when souls are to cross, just as it was for Israel in Joshua's day. But this is only a necessary test to prove the sincerity and valor of the soul.
Thousands have made bold to strike their feet in Jordan's waters in the name of God and start across. ”

“ The mountains on the eastern side of the Jordan are more lofty than those which skirt the Vale of Jericho, being not less than 2000 feet in height. From the summit of a towering peak, which the traveller still delights to recognise, Moses was permitted to behold the promised inheritance, stretching towards the west, the south, and the north,—"All the land of Gilead unto Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah unto the utmost sea, and the south, and the plain of the Valley of Jericho, the city of palm-trees, unto Zoar. ”

“ But on the shore of Ocean, where 36 the floods of the river Vistula empty from three mouths, the Vidivarii dwell, a people gathered out of various tribes. Beyond them the Aesti, a subject race, likewise hold the shore of Ocean. To the south dwell the Acatziri, a very brave tribe ignorant of agriculture, who subsist on their flocks and by hunting. Farther away and above 37 the Sea of Pontus are the abodes of the Bulgares, well known from the wrongs done to them by reason of our oppression. From this region the Huns, like a fruitful root of bravest races, sprouted into two hordes of people. ”

“ Thus the land is not only inhospitable to men but cruel even to wild beasts.
19Now in the island of Scandza, whereof I speak, there 19 dwell many and divers nations, though Ptolemaeus mentions the names of but seven of them. There the honey-making swarms of bees are nowhere to be found on account of the exceeding great cold. In the northern part of the island the race of the Adogit live, who are said to have continual light in midsummer for forty days and nights, and who likewise have no clear light in the winter season for the same number of days and nights. ”

“ The great gash of the Jordan Valley, its bed two or three thousand feet below the mountain country on either side, cut off the eastern minority from the western majority. In the west a plain separated the foothills of the central range from the seashore. This plain not only contained enemies like the Philistines whom only a united Israel could have conquered, but also quickly altered the type of its Hebrew settlers. Right across the mountain belt from the sea to the Jordan stretched an almost unbroken plain (Esdraelon) , varying from sea level to the lower level of the Jordan. ”

“ It was on a spring day that some pastoral tribes passed across the Jordan into a strip of land which can only be regarded as an extended coast-line of the Mediterranean. This was the land of Canaan, subsequently called Palestine. The crossing of the Jordan and the entry into this territory were destined to become of the utmost importance to mankind. The land of which the shepherd tribes possessed themselves became the arena of great events, so enduring and important in their results, that the country in which they took place became known as the Holy Land. ”

“ The Jordan is frightfully rapid, but so narrow that a child could throw [187] a stone across any part of it within a mile of the sea. Rabbits and birds are plentiful here; in the shrubbery in the valley of the Jordan I killed doves and quails enough for supper. Jericho is not worth mentioning, as there is not even a temple here left by time. The ground is covered with broken bricks and stones.
Having stayed in the city of Jerusalem seventeen days, I leave it, never wishing to return again, and am now leaving the wall, Calvary, Moriah, and Olivet, to see Gallilee, Tabor, Nazareth, and Damascus. ”

“ The Jordan is not a little river to be loved: it is a barrier to be passed over. From its beginning in the marshes of Huleh to its end in the Dead Sea, (excepting only the lovely interval of the Lake of Galilee) , this river offers nothing to man but danger and difficulty, perplexity and trouble. Fierce and sullen and intractable, it flows through a long depression, at the bottom of which it has dug for itself a still deeper crooked ditch, along the Eastern border of Galilee and Samaria and Judea, as if it wished to cut them off completely. ”

“ An hour before sunset, upon the day following his departure from Damascus, the caravan of Naaman reached the banks of the Jordan. The Jordan was very different from the beautiful Syrian rivers, Abaha and Pharpar. ”

“ To one who has never studied the geography of Palestine or to whom books of travel are strangers, that first sight of the Jordan must bring far greater disappointment than to one in 50a way prepared for the dark, muddy stream whose swift current hurries on ceaselessly, gathering silt as it goes. ”

“ On the day when they created the olive staff for Mandā d-Haijē, its splendor rose above the Jordan. When the Jordan saw the splendor of the staff of Mandā d-Haijē, he leaped and rejoiced in the splendor of Mandā d-Haijē and said to him:
"As your Jordan is rich, so shall the fruit, grapes, and trees on it be constant. Let your splendor be rich, and let your root be preserved in a perfect way." ”

“ One of the Hhasbeya Protestants, who was with us, quoted in his native Arabic “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah,” etc.
At Tell el Kâdi we reposed beneath the great tree near the gush of its branch of the Jordan, the same tree (evergreen oak) as afforded us shelter in 1849. Both this spring of the river and that of Banias are far more striking objects than the humble source of the Hhasbâni, into which stream they run as affluents, making up the Jordan. ”

“ The suspected party finally came up, and proved to be friendly Arabs.
The Jordan runs very rapidly; the banks are covered with trees and verdure, and present a very pretty appearance. I was struck with wonder and surprise when I reflected how in ancient times the shores of the Jordan were crowded with multitudes of human beings, while now not a habitation or a civilized being is to be found upon its banks ”

“ It would be well if the topographical survey could be extended so as to cover all the ground occupied by the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh. It is true indeed that the East of Jordan is less intimately bound up with the Scripture narrative than the West, yet still there are ninety-six places east of Jordan mentioned in the Bible—Dr Selah Merrill estimates that there are two hundred and forty—and it would be an advantage to have them all identified. On the east side, also, the country is much more thickly strewn with ruins than on the west ”

“ He was, in fact, the first to bring the existence of this southern valley to the notice of the civilized world. The valley of the Jordan, as he describes it, widens about Jericho, where the hills which border it, join the chains of mountains which inclose the Dead Sea. At the southern extremity of the sea they again approach each other, leaving between them a valley or Ghor, similar in form to the northern Ghor, through which the Jordan flows; though the southern valley, from want of water, is a desert, while the Jordan and its tributaries make the other a fertile plain. ”

“ The stream sometimes washed the bases of the sandy hills, and at other times meandered between low banks, generally fringed with trees and fragrant with blossoms. Some points presented views exceedingly picturesque — the mad rushing of a mountain torrent, the song and sight of birds, the overhanging foliage and glimpses of the mountains far over the plain, and here and there a gurgling rivulet pouring its tribute of crystal water into the now muddy Jordan. ”

“ If an Arab had done so, I should have been pleased at his play, and should have held him to be a good pagan; but I believe no good of that Christian.' When he rejoined his party, the patron told him that the Eastern Christians were least to be trusted of any men.
On arrival at Jordan there was much excitement. To bathe in that ancient river was thought to renew youth, and so all the pilgrims were eager to immerse themselves; even women of 80—a rather doubtful figure—plunging into the lukewarm stream. Some had brought bells to be blessed with Jordan water, others strips of material for clothes ”

“ Hear me, my Father, hear me, raise me up, great one, son of the mighty (life) , our father, son of life, Šilmai and Nidbai, the lords of Jordan. Hear me, Jordan and its two banks. Hear me, hear me, Hibil-Zīwā, whose power rests over the Uthras, his brothers. ”

“ There are no pleasant places along its course, no breezy forelands where a man might build a house with a fair outlook over flowing water, no rich and tranquil coves where the cattle would love to graze, or stand knee-deep in the quiet stream. There is no sense of leisure, of refreshment, of kind companionship and friendly music about the Jordan. ”

“ The great (life) blessed with his pure mouth the man who settled here and said to him: "From your splendor grew, from your light the whole world was illuminated".
Our Father illuminates with his wondrous voice, saying, "Let not every one that is true and believing go to Jordan early in the morning, and be marked with the sign of Jordan altogether". ”