Capernaum

The first thing you notice is the stone. Two kinds of it, side by side. Dark, pitted basalt, almost black, rough under your fingers like cooled lava, which is exactly what it is. And above it, pale limestone that glows almost white in the Galilee sun. Somewhere beyond the ruins, water laps quietly against the shore. The air down here is warm and heavy, very different from the cool hills above.

A quick note on where you are. Capernaum is not inside Safed. Safed sits high in the mountains of the Upper Galilee. Capernaum lies far below, on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, a short drive down from the hilltop town. Many visitors pair the two in one day. The contrast is part of the experience. You leave the thin mountain air and descend into the lake basin, where the land sits well below sea level and the heat gathers.

The name comes from Hebrew, Kfar Nahum, which means the village of Nahum. Nobody knows for certain who this Nahum was. In the first century, this was a modest fishing and farming village. It sat on a road through the region, near the border between territories, so it saw traders and travellers. Its people fished the lake, pressed olives, and ground grain. Look around and you will see the low walls of their houses, built from that same dark basalt.

Capernaum is famous because of one figure. The Christian Gospels describe it as the centre of Jesus' ministry in the Galilee. The Gospel of Matthew calls it his own city. The Gospels place several stories here. One tells of a paralysed man lowered through a roof by his friends, because the crowd at the door was too thick. Another describes teaching in the local synagogue. For Christians, this small lakeside village matters in a way few places do.

It was also, according to the Gospels, the home of Simon Peter, a fisherman who became one of the first disciples. His brother Andrew lived here too, along with other fishermen named in the texts. This is why you will see a large bronze statue of Peter near the entrance, holding a set of keys. The keys come from a Gospel passage where Jesus promises Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

Now look at the modern church nearby. It looks strange at first — like a spaceship hovering on pillars. That is deliberate. Built in 1990, the church stands above the ruins rather than on top of them. Beneath it are the remains of an octagonal church from around the fifth century. And beneath that lie the walls of a much older house, which early Christians appear to have honoured as the house of Peter.

Here is a detail many visitors miss. Archaeologists found that one room of this house was treated differently from the others. Its walls were plastered, which was unusual for ordinary homes here. On the plaster, they found scratched graffiti in several languages, including prayers and Christian symbols. This suggests that people gathered in this room for worship very early. Through a glass panel in the floor of the modern church, you can look straight down into those ruins.

The Franciscans, a Catholic religious order, acquired much of this site in the late nineteenth century. Franciscan archaeologists carried out major excavations here through the second half of the twentieth century. Much of what you see today, the cleared streets and exposed foundations, comes from their patient work. Not all the ancient village belongs to them, though. Look east along the shore and you may see red domes. That is a separate Greek Orthodox property.

Now turn to the grandest ruin on the site, the synagogue. It is often called the White Synagogue, and you can see why. Its pale limestone stands out sharply against the black basalt houses. Limestone like this is not common in this area. The builders seem to have brought it from elsewhere, which took real effort and money. Scholars generally date this building to the late Roman or early Byzantine period, roughly the fourth or fifth century.

This brings the second surprise. Look closely at the base of the synagogue walls. In places, the white limestone rests on a foundation of dark basalt. Many archaeologists believe this basalt belongs to an earlier synagogue, possibly from the first century. If that is right, then the stories in the Gospels about teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum would point to this spot. The building you see came later, but the ground beneath it may be the same.

Walk among the carved stones scattered around the synagogue. They are worth slow attention. You will find palm trees, grapes, pomegranates, and geometric patterns. You will see a five-pointed star and a six-pointed star, which here are decorative motifs, not the national symbols they became much later. One carving shows a small structure on wheels. It is often read as a portable ark, the chest that held sacred scrolls.

Capernaum did not survive as a living town. Over the centuries after the Byzantine period, the village slowly declined and was eventually abandoned. Earthquakes, shifting trade routes, and changing rule all played a part. For a long time, the ruins lay half buried under soil and vegetation. Pilgrims and travellers in the nineteenth century described a scattered field of stones. The tidy site you walk through today is the result of careful clearing and study.

Before you leave, walk down toward the water. The Sea of Galilee is actually a freshwater lake. On a calm day, the surface is smooth and silver. Fishing boats still work these waters. On the far shore, you can see the hills rising in soft brown and green layers. It is easy to picture the fishermen of the Gospels here, mending nets on the rocks at the edge.

Stand for a moment between the black stone and the white. Listen to the water and the birds in the trees. People have come to this shore for many reasons over the centuries — to fish, to trade, to pray, to dig. Today you are one of them. As you walk back toward the gate, notice the basalt under your feet. It is the same stone the villagers walked on, warm in the sun, as it was then.