Capernaum / Kefar Nahum

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, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim" (Matthew 4,13). Here he called his first disciples, who were all fishermen: Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, James and his brother John (Matthew 4,18-22). He preached in the synagogue, where he healed a man with an unclean spirit (Mark 1,23-26). He also healed many who were lame, blind, dumb and maimed (Matthew 15,29-31), cured the centurion's servant (Luke 7,1-10) and brought back Jairus's daughter from the dead (Mark 5,35-42). Near Capernaum he fed the five thousand with five loaves and two fishes (Matthew 14,13-21; Mark 6,35-44), and on another occasion fed four thousand people with seven loaves and a few little fishes (Matthew 15,32-39: see Tabgha). In Capernaum he formulated his teaching in parables - the parable of the sower, of the tares among the wheat, of the grain of mustard-seed, of the leaven, of the treasure hidden in a field, of the net cast into the sea, and so on (Matthew 13) - and above all in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).

History

Finds of coins suggest that the town - which is not mentioned in the Old Testament - was established in the second century B.C. Capernaum was a small unfortified town which took no part in the uprisings against Rome in the first and second centuries and as a result remained unscathed. Later it grew in size: originally extending only between the synagogue and the sea, it was enlarged in the fourth century by the development of new districts to the east and north of the synagogue. The prosperity of the town is indicated by the fact that the synagogue was not built of the local black basalt but of imported limestone. About 450 an octagonal church dedicated to St Peter, who was believed to have had a house on this spot, was built to the south of the synagogue on the site of earlier houses. After the Arab invasion in the seventh century the town's decline began. A pilgrim called Burchardus noted in the 13th century that "the once famous city of Capernaum is now a sad sight to behold: it consists only of seven wretched fishermen's huts". A new phase began when Edward Robinson, an American, identified the site in 1838. The first soundings were carried out by Charles Wilson in 1866. In 1894 the Franciscans bought the site. In 1905 two German archaeologists, H. Kohl and C. Watzinger, brought to light the central and eastern aisles of the synagogue, which had collapsed in an earthquake; between then and 1914 Wendelin Hinterkeuser, a Franciscan, excavated the rest of the synagogue and the courtyard and investigated the surrounding area; and between 1921 and 1926 another Franciscan, Gaudentius Orfali, excavated the residential district, with the octagonal church of St Peter. Further work on the site began in 1968. Excavations carried out by Stanislao Loffreda showed that from apostolic times onwards Capernaum and the surrounding area were continuously inhabited by Jewish Christians. These passed on their knowledge of the holy places in the area to the pilgrims who began to come to the Holy Land from the West in the fourth century and took home with them stories of what they had seen.