Tabgha

Pouring into the lake near Capernaum are seven springs (heptapegon in Greek, hence “Tabgha”). Their warmth attracts fish of tropical origin called tilapia (“Peter’s fish” in the nearby restaurants). Jesus likely met Peter here, borrowing his boat to address the crowd9.1.: a natural theater slopes up from a cove.

Tabgha is where early Christians remembered the first miraculous feeding (Mark 6). Inside the large limestone Church of the Multiplication is the chief wonder of its Byzantine forebear: a simple mosaic, in front of the altar, showing two fish and four loaves. The fifth would have been on the altar, under which may be seen, today, a small black stone, the remnant of a boulder that resembled a table before ancient pilgrims arrived with chisels.

The rest of the church consists of scenes from the Nile. Among lotus blossoms, snakes, and ducks, we see a “Nilometer,” which measured the height of the river in flood (corresponding to the height of expected prosperity and certain taxes). Next door, a few yards from the lake, is the dark basalt Church of the Primacy. Sitting on the “thrones of the apostles” (six heart-shaped pillar segments), we recall how the disciples returned from fishing to encounter the resurrected Jesus. He cooked breakfast for them. (The focus of the church is another table-like rock, in better shape than its neighbor.) Then he sent them out again, bidding Peter to “feed my sheep”9.2..

9.1. Luke 5
9.2. John 21:17

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