The maps too officious.

1. The maps too officious.

You will see, in some maps, the Syrophoenician woman pictured, making her supplication to our Saviour for her possessed daughter, almost at the gates of Sidon. But by what right, I fear the authors will not tell me with solidity enough.

In one of Adrichomius' the woman is pictured and no inscription added: but in the Dutch one of Doet she is pictured with this inscription; "Here the Canaanitish woman prayed for her daughter," Matthew 15. In that of Geilkirch, with these words written at it, "The gate of Sidon, before which the Canaanitish woman obtained health for her daughter possessed with a devil," Matthew 15.

"Before the gate of Sidon (saith Borchard the monk) eastward, there is a chapel, built in the place where the Canaanitish woman prayed our Saviour for her demoniacal daughter: concerning whom we read thus Matthew 15, that 'going out of the coasts of Tyre and Sidon she came to Jesus.'"

There are two things which plainly disagree with that situation and opinion:--

I. That it is not credible that Christ ever passed the bounds of the land of Israel. For when he said of himself, "I am not sent but to the lost sheep of Israel only"; and to his disciples, "Go not into the way of the Gentiles"; and, "If these wonderful works had been done in Tyre and Sidon";--you will never persuade me that he ever went as far as the gates of Sidon.

II. It is said by St. Mark, that after that maid was healed, Christ came "from the coast of Tyre and Sidon to the sea of Galilee, through the middle of the coasts of Decapolis." What! from the gate of Sidon to the sea of Galilee, through the midst of Decapolis? It would have been more properly said, "Through the midst of Galilee": and hence, as it seems, some have been moved to place Decapolis within Galilee, with no reason at all. We shall meet with it in another place, in the following chapter, and in such a place, that it is not easy to conceive how Christ could pass through it from the gate of Sidon to the sea of Galilee.