LYDDA (lyd'd1), (Heb. /0(4 Gr. Anoct, hut dah).
A town within the limits of the tribe of Eph raim, nine miles east of Joppa, on the road be tween that port and Jerusalem.
It bore in Hebrew the name of Lod, and ap pears to have been first built by the Benjamites, although it lay beyond the limits of their territory; and we find it again inhabited by Ben jamites after the Exile (t Chron. viii:i2 ; Ezra ii :33 ; Neh. xi :35).
It is mentioned in tile Apocrypha (I Macc. xi:34), as having been taken from Samaria and annexed to Judwa by Demetrius Nicator; and at a later date its inhabitants are named among those who were sold into slavery by Cassius, when Ile inflicted the calamity of his presence upon Palestine after the death of Julius Cmsar (Joseph. Antiq. xiv. II. 2; xii. 6). In the New Testament the place is only noticed, under the name of Lydda, as the scene of Peter's miracle in healing Eneas (Acts ix :32, 35). Some years later the town was reduced to ashes by Cestius Gallus, in his march against Jerusalem (Joseph. De Bell. hid. 19, i) but it must soon have revived, for not long after we find it at the head of one of the toparchies of the later Judtea, and as such it surrendered to Vespasian (Joseph. De Bell. Ind. iii:3, 5; iv :8). At that time it is de scribed by Josephus (Antig. xx :6, 2) as a village equal to a city; and the Rabbins have much to say of it as a seat of Jewish learning, of which it was the most eminent in Juthea after Jab neh and Bether (Lightfoot, Parergon, sec. 8).
In the general change of names which took place under the Roman dominion, Lydda be came Diospolis, and under this name it occurs in coins of Severus and Caracalla, and is often mentioned by Eusebius and Jerome. It was early the seat of a bishopric, and at the different coun cils the bishops are found to have subscribed their names variously, as of Lydda or Diospolis.
Lydda early became connected with the hom age paid to the celebrated saint and martyr St. George, who was not less renowned in the east than afterwards in the west. A church was erected there in honor of him by the Emperor Jus tinian. This church, which stood outside the town, had just been leveled to the ground by the Moslems when the Crusaders arrived at Lydda; but it was soon rebuilt by them, and they established a bishopric of Lydda and Ramleh. The church %vas destroyed by Saladin in Ica ; and there is no evidence that it was ever rebuilt, although there was in later centuries an un founded impression that the church the ruins of which were then seen, and which still exist, had been built by King Richard of England. It is now known by the ancient name of Lud. (Robinson's Bib. Researches, iii, 55; Pococke, Description, ii, 58; Volney, l'uyagc, i, 278.)