EMMAUS ('Euua6vs). We read in Luke xxiv. that on the day of our Lord's resurrection, two of the disciples went from Jerusalem to a village called Emmaus. Jesus appeared to them on the way, walked with them to the village, joined them in their evening meal, and then revealed himself unto them and vanished. It will be observed that though the distance of the village is stated ciao lepourraXiha), its direction is not given. Josephus mentions a place where the em peror Vespasian planted a colony of disbanded sol diers ; he says it is called Emmaus, and is distant from Jerusalem sixty stadia' (Bell. vii. 6. 6). There can be little doubt that the two places are identical. This is all the information we possess regarding the scene of one of the most interesting events in Gospel history.
The site of Emmaus has given rise to consider able controversy. No place bearing this name now exists within the prescribed circle—' three score furlongs,' 7.1- Roman miles from Jerusalem.
There is an Emmaus (in Arabic Amwas) on the border of the plain of Sharon, at the base of the Judxan hills ; it however is twenty-two miles from the city. Yet Dr. Robinson and others maintain that this is the Emmaus referred to by Luke. His reasons for this view are the following In a few ancient MSS. the word licardu is inserted be fore EHKOLT a in Luke xxiv. 13, thus making the distance of Emmaus 160 instead of 6o furlongs from Jerusalem. 2. Both Eusebius and Jerome are explicit in identifying the two. The latter says Emaus cnjus Lucus meminit Evangelista, hcee est nunc Nicopolis insignis civitas Palantinx ' (Ozzoniast. s. v.) All the ancient writers seem to agree with, or rather to follow them ; and the same view continued general until the 14th century. This,' says Robinson, was not the voice of mere tradition ; but the well considered judgment of men of learning and critical skill resident in the country, acquainted with the places in question, and occu pied in investigating and describing the scriptural topography of the Holy Land' R. iii. I48).
There is much weight in these remarks, and coming from such a source they are deserving of our most careful consideration. But the question just resolves itself into one of sacred criticism, in which diplomatic evidence alone must be our guide. Looking at the evidence for and against
the reading bcardp, on which the theory depends, no sound critic would for a moment hesitate to reject it as an interpolation. It is only supported by three Uncial MSS., and these not of high value (I. K. and N.) ; while all the others omit it (see Tischendorf, Lachmann, and Alford, in loc.) Robinson says—' This (jKaTav) may have been the current reading in the days of Eusebius and Jerome. There seems indeed to be a strong probability that it actually was so.' It is a sufficient answer to this statement, that Jerome's own version and the old Latin read sexaginta' (Lachmann and Sabatier, in loc.) Neither Eusebius nor Jerome can be taken as a certain guide on all points of sacred geo graphy ; and their followers in succeeding cen turies were but poor critics. It seems that in this, as in several other instances, ancient geographers, when they found a place bearing a scriptural name, assumed, without close investigation, that it was the scriptural city. The explicit statement of Jose phus, cited above, confirms the words of Luke. He refers repeatedly in his writings to Emmaus or Nicopolis ; and it appears to be only in order to distinguish this Emmaus from the other that he men 'ions its distance from Jerusalem (comp. Bell. Ind.
5. 1 ; iii. 3. 5 ; iv. 8. 1 ; vii. 6. 6). It is also justly remarked by Reland (Pal. 75S, sq.) that the distance of Nicopolis from Jerusalem is too great to agree with the Gospel narrative. We know not at what time the two disciples left Jerusalem ; but it could not have been early in the day (ver. 22, sq.) They reached Emmaus in the evening (ver. 29) ; they partook of the evening meal, which was usually served at sunset ; and then, after Christ had made himself known to them, they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them' (ver. 33). The night could not have been as yet far advanced ; and there would have been no time for a journey of twenty-two miles, which up those rugged mountains could scarcely have been accomplished in less than seven hours. The whole tenor of the narrative leads to the con elusion that the village was not more than the dis tance stated from Jerusalem.