With Jesus In The City Of Capernaum
A remarkable archaeological discovery occurred in 1894, when German Franciscans purchased some synagogue ruins from their Bedouin owners. They believed this was the Biblical Capernaum. It lay just near the northernmost point of the Sea of Galilee where the River Jordan enters.
Capernaum was a fishing and farming community in the day of Jesus, stretching for half a kilometre along the lake side. As it was on the main road by the border it also had a customs house where Matthew worked. (Mark 2:14) As the northern-most city it also had a Roman detachment based at the east of the fishing village. It was a centurion based here who had financially supported the building of the synagogue. (Matthew 8:5 13) Among the Roman ruins are a bathhouse, which was heated, and a cold water “plunge pool”.
Matthew calls Capernaum Jesus’ “own city”. (Matthew 9:1) It was at the crossroads of east-west and north-south trade, hence the need for a customs house. There were taxes levied on all goods for trade including salt, dried fish, fruit, spices and silks from the Asian Silk Road via Damascus.
But by the nineteenth century the site was a pile of rubble housing a herd of goats. This was a graphic fulfilment of the fate that befell the towns that had witnessed the miracles of Jesus but did not believe in him. (Matthew 11:20 24) Today only two buildings stand, the Franciscan monastery and a Greek Orthodox Church.
Capernaum is of great scriptural interest because after Jesus left Nazareth, He “went to live in Capernaum, a town by Lake Galilee”. (Matthew 4:12 17) It was here He began to preach the Kingdom of God, and called the fishermen as disciples (Mark 1:16 20). It was to Capernaum that His mother Mary and His younger brothers came from Nazareth, where they lived, to take Him back home to Nazareth because they believed He was beside himself. (Mark 3:20 35)
Here Jesus called Matthew from the customs house to follow Him (Mark 2:13 17); told Peter to find a fish with a coin in its mouth to pay their tax (Matthew 17:24 27); and in the synagogue of Capernaum, preached and healed a man with an unclean spirit. (Mark 1:21 28)
It was in Capernaum that Jesus was teaching in a house so crowded with people that four men could not get their paralysed friend before Jesus, so they removed part of the roof of the house to let him down. The healing that followed spread the fame of Jesus widely in the area. (Mark 2:1 12)
It was here that Jesus healed the slave of a centurion who helped build the synagogue in Capernaum (Luke 7:1 10); the daughter of Jairus who was a ruler in the synagogue; and Peter’s mother in law who was ill. (Mark 1:29 34) She apparently lived with Peter and his wife, in Peter’s house.
In the synagogue Jesus gave his greatest teaching concerning the bread of life, and interpreted the significance of His death (John 6:25 59) Peter originally came from nearby Bethsaida (John 1:44), but later shifted to Capernaum with his wife, and her mother. (Matthew 8:14, Luke 4:38)
The Franciscans excavated and re erected a 3rd or 4th century synagogue. The basilica measures 17 by 23 metres and is three storeys in height. Beside it is a courtyard. About are the ruins of private houses and an unusually significant octagonal building.
The synagogue includes a dozen columns, and in the mortar on which the stone pavement was laid, were found some 2,920 coins belonging to the first half of the fourth century. In the courtyard more than 20,000 coins were discovered buried for safekeeping underneath a flagstone.
The highly polished limestone blocks looked like marble and painted plaster decorated the walls. The door lintels, friezes, cornices and pillar capitals are delicately carved with representations of the Ark of the Covenant (pictured as being moveable on wheels), the star of David, star of Solomon, palm, date and pomegranate trees, a menorah, and many animals including lions, eagles, a sea horse and bulls.
But the greatest discoveries were to occur in twelve remarkable seasons of excavation from 1968 to 1977. Beneath the synagogue at Capernaum lie the foundation stones of an earlier synagogue built from black basalt from the first century A.D. As there was only one synagogue in Capernaum, and as the Bible says that Jesus did preach in this city, this was probably the synagogue in which Jesus Himself preached. These were the very stones on which He walked.
Then a more exciting discovery occurred on which the archaeologists have been working since 1968. Just outside the synagogue doors were the foundations of a most unusual octagonal church. This eight-sided church was built upon an earlier, smaller house church and beneath that a very ordinary fisherman’s house that was revered by the early church in North Galilee.
This octagonal church was built in the fifth century A.D., to honour the site of an earlier house church, and before that, the house of Peter. The archaeologists suspected that if they removed the floor of the octagonal church they would probably find the remains of the house of Peter.
Since 1968 archaeologists carefully removed the floor of the fifth century church. This church was built round two octagons, the inner one enclosing the foundations and walls of the earlier house.
A baptistry was built on one side, and the floor covered with beautiful mosaics including a peacock, in the centre, one of the early Church’s symbols of eternal life. The baptistry was large enough for any man to be laid down immersed under water.
1. First Home Church
In the early fifth century a Spanish pilgrim from Eteria wrote in her diary: “In Capernaum the house of the Prince of the Apostles (i.e. Peter) became a church. The walls, however, have remained unchanged to the present day.”
The pilgrim speaks of a “domus ecclesia”, a private home used as a house of worship. Here was an actual home church, which had become enlarged into a church. Contained within it is the smaller home which used to be the domicile of Peter, the Big Fisherman.
The oldest church still standing, was discovered in 1931 at Dura Europos, on the River Euphrates in Syria. It is a large private home with rooms round a courtyard. One room could open into two others to form a chapel seating about one hundred. A large baptistry, capable of containing a large man lying down for immersion beneath the water, is at the front with a painting of a young shepherd Christ carrying a lamb across His shoulders.
Other wall paintings depict the Samaritan woman at the well, Peter walking on water, and the healing of the man let down through the roof of the house at Capernaum. This earliest church is an example of “domus ecclesia”, a home church. By the sixth century, Peter’s home was known as a house of worship, not as a house church.
Archaeologists carefully removed the floor of the house of worship from the first century and discovered the foundations of a home of a fishing family. This was where believers worshipped Christ in the first century. The home was then enlarged, with the interior walls used as filling for a new floor laid upon it.
The plaster from the walls contained some paintings and writing from the time of Peter. The archaeologists lifted the floors carefully in 1977 and found pieces of plaster, covered for the last 1,800 years, which still had some words from the original walls! Over tor four centuries that the home was used for worship the walls had been plastered three times, and each layer contains graffiti testifying to the sacred nature of the home.
There are one hundred and thirty one pieces of plaster graffiti written in four languages. The name of Jesus appears and He is called Christ, Lord, the Most High, God. Peter is mentioned twice and he is called the “helper of Rome”. Some prayers are broken but still meaningful: “O Lord Jesus Christ, help…..”. “Christ have mercy….”. “O Lord Christ….”.
There is an interesting inscription from a non-canonical book that appears in some Greek manuscripts, 3 Baruch 4:4 15: “The Lord says: ‘Bitterness will be turned into sweetness, malediction will be changed into benediction, and the fruit of the vineyard will become the blood of God.” a reference to the Lord’s Supper.
Apart from the inscriptions there are several hundred pieces of plaster with decorative motifs, of boats fishing, crosses, chi rho (one of the earliest forms of christogram), and several scraps of prayers and one longer prayer. What a wonderful find from the home of the Apostle Peter! I have been in hundreds of archaeological sites, and this one is the most remarkable and most authentic I have ever seen.
The home of Peter was more than the place where he lived. We read: “When Jesus entered Capernaum, Jesus went into Peter’s home and there He saw Peter’s mother in law sick in bed with a fever. Jesus touched her hand and the fever left her and she got up and began to wait upon Him.” (Matthew 8:5,14 17) The foundations of the walls which saw a miracle of Jesus are still there. But is there further evidence that this is the house?
The Bible has a clue to the location of the house. Mark’s Gospel says: “Jesus and His disciples came to the town of Capernaum, and on the next Sabbath Jesus went to the synagogue and began to teach…..Jesus and his disciples, including James and John, left the synagogue and went straight to the home of Peter”. (Mark 1:21, 29) The home was “hard by”, “adjacent”, meaning “he went straight into”, but a “step into” the house of Peter. I timed walking from the synagogue to the house and it takes less than one minute. They came down the steps of the synagogue, across the road, and into the house of Peter.
Jesus’ last words to Peter were His very first words on the same shore of Galilee: “Follow me!” For the next 30 years Peter led the most incredible life following the way of Jesus. His home in Capernaum became the centre for the Christian thrust throughout the world. Jesus told them to witness to Him “in Jerusalem, and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) From the home of Peter, the witness was made.
For four hundred years, it was to be the centre of Christian witness and worship. From there Peter went to Jerusalem, Samaria, the Mediterranean coast, to Asia Minor, Greece and finally, Rome.
The largest church in the world in Rome marks the end of his Christian ministry, but the home church in Capernaum marks its beginning.
2. Other Home Churches
The first home church was in Jerusalem in the home of John Mark’s mother, where the Upper Room was the site of the Lord’s Supper, the place of meeting for the Christians, the place of prayer and discussion and the coming of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 1)
Across the Empire, the early Church grew in the home churches of believers. Priscilla and Aquila set up a home church in Rome; Lydia established one in her home in Philippi; Jason led a home church in Thessalonica; Titus Justus had a home church just opposite the synagogue in Corinth; Stephanus had a home church in Corinth where Paul baptised a number of people.
The meetings were small, informal, participatory, based upon a family at worship, and close knit. There believers were strengthened and grew in faith.
Centuries later, John Wesley insisted every new convert join a class meeting held in the home of an established believer. There, spiritual growth and progress were measured and encouraged. The leader, often the owner of the house, kept a roll, took an offering, and reported on the spiritual growth of each member.
City churches such as Wesley Mission have in the centre of the city celebrations in a theatre or other large public spaces, worship in local congregations and also meetings in home churches scattered across the metropolis. Central, regional, and local home churches, all reflecting a strategy of penetration of the city.
Around the world today, “ecclesiola in ecclesia” little churches within the church are aiding church growth. The church in China thrived during the era of the Red Guard persecution and today 100 million Chinese meet in home churches. Some of these are quite large. I have worshipped in a three-storey house with over a thousand others, and at each of the next five services a similar number are present in each.
In Latin America there are probably about 150,000 home churches meeting. Tens of thousands dot Africa.
3. The Capernaum Principle
Home churches are the local expression of the church which also gathers in congregations and in large celebrations in the centre of the city. That is the Capernaum Principle. Any effective ministry today to win the city for Christ must have a central place for Christian celebration, a number of congregations, and many home fellowships, house churches, cell groups where people study the scriptures, break bread together and grow together.
Christian growth occurs when celebration and congregation are surrounded with cells home churches of believers and friends.
Every church needs members who will open their homes so friends can meet regularly from the area around. That is what happened in Capernaum.
Rev the Hon Dr Gordon Moyes AC MLC
