With Jesus in the City of Caesarea Philippi
The city of Caesarea Philippi is on the southwestern slope of Mount Hermon and was the northernmost extent of Jesus’ ministry. Here, about 25 miles north-east of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus could be alone with His disciples—outside the domain of Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee, and within the area of Philip the Tetrarch.
The population was not Jewish, so Jesus could teach the twelve in peace. Here, on a road outside of the city, Jesus asked one of the most profound questions that could ever be posed, “Who do men say that I am?” It is interesting to see where Jesus chose to ask this question, for there are few areas in all of the world with more religious associations than Caesarea Philippi.
Caesarea Philippi is one of the most pleasant sites in Israel on a terrace 1,150 feet high overlooking a fertile valley in what today is called the Golan Heights. It is an area scattered with the temples of ancient Syrian Baal worship. Historians have listed at least fourteen such temples—it was a place beneath the shadow of ancient gods.
There are several references to this area in the Old Testament. The northernmost conquest of Joshua is described as ranging from “the mountains of Israel and its lowlands, from Mount Halak and the ascent to Seir, even as far as Baal Gad in the Valley of Lebanon below Mount Hermon” (Joshua 11:17). In a description of the nations that were left to “test” Israel we read of “the Hivites who dwelt in Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath” (Judges 3:3). In 1 Chronicles 5:23 we read, “So the children of the half-tribe of Manasseh dwelt in the land. Their numbers increased from Bashan to Baal Hermon, that is, to Senir, or Mount Hermon.”
A cave near Caesarea Philippi is said to be the birthplace of the Greek god Pan, the god of nature, fields, forests, mountains, flocks and shepherds. “He is son of Hermes by one or another nymph; his mother was so scared by his appearance that she abandoned him at birth and Hermes introduced him to Olympus. His name is probably related to the same root as Latin pasco, and thus means ‘shepherd.’” (Richard Stoneman, Greek Mythology, p. 136).
The cult of Pan originated in Arcadia, a pastoral region in Greece. Greek travellers, finding the landscape was like their homeland, established this area of worship to Pan. During the Hellenistic period a sanctuary was built to Pan. There are five niches hewn out of rock to the right of the cave—at one time they probably held statues—three of the niches bear inscriptions in Greek mentioning Pan, Echo and Galerius (one of Pan’s priests).
The original name for Caesarea Philippi was Panias. The modern name is Banias—an Arabic corruption of Panias.
The Jordan River has four main sources, and the cave at Caesarea Philippi is its easternmost source—this alone would make the area full of emotion for the Jews. “This is a very fine cave in a mountain, under which there is a great cavity in the earth; and the cavern is abrupt, and prodigiously deep, and full of water. Over it hangs a vast mountain, and under the cavern arise the springs of the River Jordan.” (The Works of Flavius Josephus)
In Caesarea Philippi there was a great temple of white marble built to the godhead of Caesar—it had been built by Herod the Great. (“At Paneas, Antiochus III defeated the Ptolemies of Egypt in 200 BCE, thus establishing Seleucid rule in Palestine and Syria. In 20 BCE Augustus gave Paneas to King Herod who erected there a temple of white marble to his patron.” (Josephus, Antiq. 15, 10.3/360) But the city was built only later by Herod the Great’s son, Herod Philip II (also known as Philip the Tetrarch).
During the First Jewish-Roman War (66-70 CE), Vespasian together with Titus and his army encamped there, and were entertained by King Agrippa II (Josephus, War, 3, 9.7/443-44). “After the death of Agrippa II, Caesarea Philippi was attributed to the province of Syria, and later to Phoenicia.” (Rousseau and Arav, Jesus And His World, p. 34).
In 2 B.C. Herod the Great’s son, Philip, named it Caesarea in honour of Augustus Caesar, and, to differentiate it from Caesarea Maritima, it became known as Caesarea Philippi. Later, Herod Agrippa would call the place Neroneas in honor of the Emperor Nero. After the destruction of Jerusalem, “The victors gave no quarter, but slew all Jews upon whom they could lay their hands; 97,000 fugitives were caught and sold as slaves; many of them died as unwilling gladiators in the triumphal games that were celebrated at Berytus, Caesarea Philippi and Rome.” (Will Durant, Caesar And Christ, p. 545)
Caesarea Philippi was destroyed, probably by an earthquake, in 363 A.D. Since 1967 there has been considerable excavation in and around the city—the shrine of Pan has been cleared, along with the Herodian palace. All around are the rusted metal bodies of tanks blown up in the Six Day War, a reminder of the precarious peace of this region.
Caesarea Philippi is typical of every modern city that is awash with false religions and cults. On street corners the Scientologists lay in wait with their pads and pens looking for teenagers and young adults who are walking by on their own. Hare Krishna’s offer free vegetarian meals to those who are looking for an alternate lifestyle and a place out of the cold. In airport waiting lounges, free copies of religious magazines offer themselves to bored and waiting passengers, some proclaiming some aspect of their British Israelite theory of racial supremacy.
Competing then against the clear proclamation of the Christian message and the claims of Christ are a thousand other voices from radio and television, newspaper and magazine, cash register and computer, all proclaiming offers of a better life, greater satisfaction and lasting joy.
The Christian message becomes muffled and misunderstood. Sometimes it becomes hijacked, and other times it becomes watered down in the pop psychology of our day. The results are the same: people in the city find it hard to hear the claims Jesus makes upon their lives, and do not hear accurately His teaching.
The church has a responsibility to clearly present His words and His claims so they are heard above the competing voices of this generation.
From Capernaum, and the towns of Galilee where Jesus had been teaching His disciples, He led them to a far northern city. Here among a host of competing temples and religious traditions, He tested His disciples to see if they had understood His teaching, and had heard properly His claim upon their lives.
The city of Caesarea Philippi is only associated with this one event in the life of Jesus. He chose it carefully, did not become involving in any teaching or healing in this area, and to reach it, took the disciples on the longest journey in their time together.
Today it is an archaeological site located within the Golan Heights. Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in the closing stages of the 1967 Six-Day War when the army swept through the Syrian forces and captured it. Israel then began to settle the Golan area. Syria tried to retake the Golan Heights during the 1973 Middle East war. Today the bunkers and entrenched gun emplacements, from which Syria attacked Israel, can still be seen. In 1982, fighting again broke out following Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) bombardment of Israeli settlements in Northern Galilee until peace was agreed upon in May 1983.
A UN observer force has been in place on the ceasefire line since 1974. UN soldiers escorted me with heavily armed Israeli solders when I visited the area. I could only walk in areas they had checked for landmines. Today about 20,000 Israeli settlers live in the area with approximately 20,000 Syrians.
During US-brokered peace talks in 1999-2000, then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak had offered to return most of the Golan to Syria.
But Syria wants a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 border. This would give Damascus control of the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Any deal with Syria would also involve the dismantling of Jewish settlements in the territory, which is being done in others areas of the West Bank against great settler resistance.
Jesus walked through the villages surrounding the township which still stands on a terrace 1,150 feet above sea level. The steep rock face of the cliff is punctuated by caves, one of which is rich in history.
1. Caesarea Philippi
It is located in the northernmost area of modern Israel, and not to be confused with the Caesarea on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. One modern song about the ministry of Jesus starts, “On the Coast of Caesarea Philippi.” The song may be good music, but the words are poor geography. Far from being on the coast, it is 50 kms inland.
The Jews look upon the area as an important part of their promised land. Israel claims the area of the Golan Heights on the side of Mt Hermon because this was a traditional tribal area allotted to Manasseh’s tribe. It is from Caesarea Philippi, that a spring of water runs to form, with other tributaries, the River Jordan, the life blood of Israel.
In one sense, Caesarea Philippi is the source of Jewish tradition. Yet Caesarea Philippi has been associated with many cult deities over the centuries. The Canaanites worshipped the god Baal here, and there were 14 temples erected in the area to the god Baal. Joshua conquered as far as here when it was known as Baal gad.
It was also the centre of Greek celebrations from long before the time of Christ. It was known as Paneas, and when Alexander the Great conquered the area in 332BC, the Greeks dedicated the grotto to “Pan and the Nymphs”. They believed the god Pan was born in the cave from which the source of the Jordan flows. A Greek inscription on the rock face still speaks today of Pan and the nymphs. Even to this day it is called Banyas, due to the Arab’s difficulty in pronouncing Panias, as Arabic does not have a ‘P’ sound.
The Romans captured the area from the Greeks under the leadership of Caesar Augustus. It then became part of Herod the Great’s kingdom after Augustus divided the area, and Herod, in appreciation of this gift of territory, erected a marble temple to Augustus here. Upon Herod’s death, it became part of the territory ruled by his son Philip. He built a city as his headquarters for his northern kingdom and named it after the Caesar. In 2008 some significant archaeological excavations were completed.
The Question
Canaanite, Greek, Roman deities and Jewish traditions this was a natural centre for Jesus to take His disciples to ask them the most important question of His early time with them: “Who do you say I am?” Amid the competing voices of other cults and religions they had to hear His clear teaching and to answer His question. Their response was to change their lives, and provide the basis for the church ever after. Matthew 16: 13 19
The question came at the end of the Galilean period of His ministry. From the moment the disciples acknowledged Him as the Messiah and Saviour, Jesus was to set His face steadfastly towards Jerusalem and to speak of His coming death.
The Responses
The disciples replied to the question by indicating what other people were saying: “Some say John the Baptist come back to life, others say Elijah, while others say Jeremiah or some other prophet”. Any other teacher would have been humbled by being spoken of as the re incarnation of the greatest teachers Israel had ever seen in her history.
But Jesus would not let them rest by merely repeating other peoples’ opinions: “What about you? Who do you say I am?” That pointed question brought the greatest response: “Simon Peter answered: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”
The Blessing
Jesus responded warmly to Peter: “Good for you, Simon son of John! For this truth did not come to you from any human being, but it was given to you directly by my father in heaven. And so I tell you Peter: you are a rock, and on this rock foundation I will build my church, and not even death will ever be able to overcome it. I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; what you prohibit on earth will be prohibited in Heaven and what you permit on earth will be permitted in Heaven.”
Peter, and the other disciples, amid all the clamour of competing religions and cults, came to their own conclusion about Jesus, claimed Him as Messiah and God’s Son. Henceforth their lives would be spent in serving Him in a way that would take them to Jerusalem and Calvary, through the Resurrection and Ascension, the winds and fire of Pentecost, to Judea, Samaria, and then to the uttermost parts of the earth.
They had heard His question: “What about you? Who do you say I am?” Their answer was to change their lives and their destinies.
The Caesarea Philippi Principle
People have to be challenged personally to respond to who Jesus is. Their answer is the door into the family of God.
There are many people who are willing to say that Jesus was an inspiring man, a wonderful poet, a teacher of tremendous insight, a religious genius, the founder of the world’s greatest religion, a man before his era whose psychological insight reveals true humanity, and whose directions for living may provide the only hope for world peace and harmony.
All very nice! But Jesus will not let you get away with that. Those are all condescending answers made out of ignorance. No one who has studied the teachings of Jesus would make those statements. So He says again: “But who do you say that I am?” And He is not satisfied until we, like Peter, can say: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”
That was the rock on which the church was built. You do not have the option of saying that Jesus was a great man, good teacher, a leading philosopher or an influential founder of a religion.
He claimed to be the promised Messiah, the redeemer of Israel, the Son of man, a title reserved only for the Messiah, and to be the Son of God. Either He is a lunatic raving in megalomania yet never was such a man so sane nor his teachings able to help every generation! – or He is a liar and not what He claimed to be yet the evidence of even His enemies is that no one ever called Him a liar or even suggested it when He challenged them to accuse Him of lying! – or He is who He claims to be: Lord of all!
That is the challenge. Our generation must hear that challenge and growing churches in the metropolis must preach the crucified Christ as Lord and Saviour so that those who hear from the streets of the city will make up their minds as to who Jesus is.
The trouble is that people are not hearing clearly the claims or the teaching of Jesus. In the Monty Python film “The Life of Brian”, which many people viewed as a blasphemous film, Brian is a contemporary of Jesus. When Jesus is delivering the Sermon on the Mount, Brian and his mother are listening on the edge of the crowd and they only half hear what Jesus says. Someone says, “What did he say?” to the crowd about, and one man who had only partly heard what Jesus said, replies, “I think it was, ‘Blessed are the cheese makers’”. The others say, “What’s so special about cheese makers?” Then a religious type nearby chips in: “It’s not meant to be taken literally. Obviously it refers to any manufacturer of dairy products.”
So our ears mis hear the claims of Christ and we mis interpret His teaching. Jesus took His disciples away from the crowd and into a world of mixed religious traditions, so He might ask clearly: “Who do you say that I am?”
“The Caesarea Philippi Principle” is that a church grows in the midst of a noisy, bustling city, when it confronts people clearly with the claims and teachings of Jesus Christ, in such a way that each person then needs to answer for himself the question: “But who do you say that I am?”
We are not responsible if people reject Him. But we are responsible for so presenting the Word of Christ that people either accept Him as Lord, or reject Him and suffer the consequences.
We in our turn present Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour: Lord of your life for His way is the way to life eternal; and Saviour because only through His blood shed upon the Cross can you find forgiveness of your sins. “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which you may be saved than the name of Jesus”. (Acts 4:12)
There is no other way, no other truth, no other life than that of Jesus who said: “I am the way, the truth and the Life, no one comes to the father but by me”. (John 14:6) That, we know from our experience, and that, we present clearly to you.
Will you not accept Him as your Lord and Saviour?
He asks of you the question: “Who do you say that I am?”
He expects of you the answer: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
Rev the Hon Dr Gordon Moyes AC MLC