Page:Historical Works of Venerable Bede vol. 2.djvu/247

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OF VENERABLE BEDE.
175

or wild honey. In the same place is shown St. John the Baptist's fountain of the clearest water, having a stone roof covered with mortar.


CHAPTER XV.

OF JACOB'S FOUNTAIN, NEAR SICHEM.

Near the city of Sichem,Jacob's well at Sichem. now called Neapolis, is a church divided in four; that is, made in the form of a cross. In the midst of it is Jacob's well, forty cubits deep, and as wide as from the side to the ends of the fingers. It was from this well that our Lord vouchsafed to ask water of the Samaritan woman.


CHAPTER XVI.

OF TIBERIAS, CAPARNAUM, NAZARETH, AND THE HOLY PLACES IN THOSE PARTS.

Tiberias, Cparnaum, Nazereth, &c.The place in which our Lord blessed the loaves and fishes on this side of the Sea of Galilee, to the north of Nazareth, the city of Tiberias, is a plain, grassy and level, which has never been ploughed since those times, nor has ever been built upon: but there is the same fountain there from which those persons drank. Those who go from Ælia to Caparnaum, pass through Tiberias, and from thence along the Sea of Galilee to the place where the loaves were blessed, from which it is no great distance to Caparnaum on the borders of Zebulon and Naphtali. The town has no walls, and lies on a narrow piece of ground between a mountain and lake. On the sea-coast towards the east it extends a long way, having the moun-