ARIMATHEA, the birth-place of the wealthy Joseph, in whose sepulchre our Lord was laid (Matt. xxvii. 57 ; John xix. 38). Luke (xxiii. 51) calls it a city of the Jews ;' which may be explained by 1 Macc. xi. 34, where King Deme trius thus writes— We have ratified unto them [the Jews] the borders of Judna, with the three governments of Aphereum, Lydda, and Rama Maim, that are added unto Juda from the country of Samaria.' Eusebius (Onomast. s. v.) and Jerome (Spit. Paula) regard the Arimathea of Joseph as the same place as the Ramathaim of Samuel, and place it near Lydda or Diospolis. Hence it has by some been identified with the existing Ramie because of the similarity of the name to that of Ramah (of which Ramathaim is the dual) ; and because it is near Lydda or Diospolis. Professor Robinson, however, disputes this conclusion on the following grounds — 1. That Abulfeda alleges Ramleh to have been built after the time of Mo hammed, or about A.D. 716, by Suleiman Abd-al Malik ; 2. That Ramah and Ramleh have not the same signification ; 3. That Ramleh is in a plain, while Ramah implies a town on a hill. To this it may be that Abulfeda's statement may mean no more than that Suleiman rebuilt the town, which had previously been in ruins, just as Rehoboam and others are said to have built many towns which had existed long before their time ; and that the Moslems seldom built towns but on old sites and out of old materials ; so that there is not a town in all Palestine which is with certainty known to have been founded by them. In such cases they retain the old names, or others resem bling them in sound, if not in signification, which may account for the difference between Ramah and Ramleh. Neither can we assume that a place called Ramah could not be in a plain, unless we are ready to prove that Hebrew proper names were always significant and appropriate. This they probably were not. They were so in early times, when towns were few ; but not eventually, when towns were numerous, and took their names arbitrarily from one another without regard to local circumstances. Further, if Arimathea, by
being identified with Ramah, was necessarily in the mountains, it could not have been ' near Lydda,' from which the mountains are seven miles distant. This matter, however, belongs more properly to another place [RAntAH ; RamaTHAINI-Zomitm] ; and it is alluded to here merely to shew that Dr. Robinson's objections have not entirely destroyed the grounds for following the usual course of de scribing Ramleh as representing the ancient Ari mathea. [Some of the most recent investigators favour the opinion that we are to seek the repre sentative of the ancient Arimathea in the village of Renthich or Remthiah, which lies on the road between Antipatris and Lydda or Diospolis. ' As Dr. Robinson remarks,' says Mr. Thomson, `it is sufficiently like Arimathea to be assumed as the ' site of that place ; and from what Jerome says, it seems to me quite probable that this was really the city of that honourable counsellor `who also waited for the kingdom of God, who went in boldly unto Pilate and craved the body of Jesus" (Land and Book, ii. 290). An opinion to the same effect is given by the very competent author of Murray's Handbook to Syria and Palestine, p. 277, cf. 647. Dr. Robinson objects to this opinion partly on the same grounds on which he sets aside Ramleh, partly on the very authority on which Mr. Thom son relies, that of Jerome, and partly on the testi mony of Josephus (Later Bibl. Researches, p. 141). As respects the testimony of Jerome, it really does not tell either for the one side or the other ; all he says is, that Paula visited the village of Arimathea, which is near Lydda. Dr. Robinson, indeed, assumes that the order in which Jerome mentions the places visited by Paula is the order in which they were visited by her ; and as he names Lydda after Antipatris, and Arimathea after Lydda, it is inferred that the latter could not be between Anti patris and Lydda., as Renthieh undoubtedly is.