Past Perfect: An American in Gilead

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In 1900, American schoolteacher Elmer U. Hoenshel traveled to Palestine and Jordan without any organized tour or group. He had only the company of a hired dragoman, William Barakat, to whom he dedicates his book, and a muleteer. Hoenshel, very knowledgeable about the Holy Land, including its history and geography, kept a journal that he later put down in book form for publication. The following excerpt from his book, My Three Days in Gilead (published in 1909), recounts his impressions of the ancient city of Gerasa—modern-day Jerash, Jordan— one of the cities of the Roman Decapolis, a stronghold for the Jews before the Jewish Revolt of 66–70 A.D. and an important center for early Christianity. Hoenshel looked upon the ruins 25 years before their restoration.

Gerasa was one of the chief cities of the Decapolis, and was situated twenty miles east of the Jordan on one of the northern tributaries of the Jabbok. [19th-century naturalist and Bible scholar Henry B.] Tristram considers it to-day as “probably the most perfect Roman city left above ground.” In the beginning of the thirteenth century a German traveler visited it; the magnificent ruins of the place amazed him. The same ruins today, or some of them, strike the comparatively few visitors with awe at the thought of the riches, the gayety, and the power that once reigned here on the border of the desert.

The walls of the ancient city are plainly traceable, and formed an enclosure about a mile square. Three of its gates are fairly well preserved. On the south side of the city ruins, less than a half mile distant, stands a triumphal arch forty feet high. Between this arch and the city wall are the ruins of a great stone pool and of a circus. The main street lies on the west side of the stream. It was paved; yet shows ruts worn into the stones by chariot wheels; and was lined on each side with a row of rock columns above twenty feet in height, some of which have capitals representing a high degree of artistic skill in their planning and execution. Part of this street was arcaded behind the columns where was the sidewalk … Farther on toward the south it widens into an oval-shaped forum a hundred yards long, surrounded with Ionic pillars in their original positions.

Just beyond the forum, elevated somewhat, is a large, well-preserved temple; and immediately to the right of the temple is a theater built in the hill-side with seats, stage, and other parts plainly distinguishable. It is easy to sit in one of these empty benches and see, as a shadow out of the past, a lively scene presented on the now deserted stage—the voice of eloquence rings clear out of the dead centuries, the play-house resounds with the applause of the shades that fill the seats about me—and, then, the curtain of mystery is dispelled by the bright sunlight that floods all the landscape, and I see nothing but ruins everywhere. The play is over. The shades have gone again to their long home.

Gerasa! Beautiful, though in ruins. What glory must once have been thine! But where are the warriors who passed in triumph through thy gates? Where are the builders of thy temples? Where are the priests who ministered at thy altars? Where are the devotees who bowed at thy shrines? Where are the people who thronged thy theaters and trod thy beautiful streets? The hills over which man walked are still here; the rocks that he quarried, carved, polished, and fitted into place are here; the stone coffin in which he lay down to his last resting-place is here—but where is he? Gone! Gone forever! Surely, how frail is man! How fleeting his glory!

In 900, American schoolteacher Elmer U. Hoenshel traveled to Palestine and Jordan without any organized tour or group. He had only the company of a hired dragoman, William Barakat, to whom he dedicates his book, and a muleteer. Hoenshel, very knowledgeable about the Holy Land, including its history and geography, kept a journal that he later put down in book form for publication. The following excerpt from his book, My Three Days in Gilead (published in 1909), recounts his impressions of the ancient city of Gerasa—modern-day Jerash, Jordan— one of the cities of the Roman Decapolis, a stronghold for […]