Livias (titular see)

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Livias is a Catholic titular see. It was in Palestina Prima, suffragan of the archdiocese of Cæsarea. To-day Livias is known as Teller-Rameh, a hill rising in the plain beyond Jordan, about twelve miles from Jericho. Archaeological evidence from Shuneh al-Janubiyyah has shown the existence of a church in the diocese, dating from the sixth-eighth centuries[1].

Contents

[edit] History

Livias is twice mentioned in the Bible[2] under the name of Betharan. About 80 B.C. Alexander Jannaeus captured it from the King of the Arabs[3]; it was then called Betharamphtha. Somewhat later Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee, fortified it with strong walls and called it Livias after the wife of Augustus; Josephus calls it Julias also, because he always speaks of the wife of Augustus as Julia[4]. Nero gave it with its fourteen villages to Agrippa the Younger[5], and the Roman general Placidus captured it several years later[6].

From the time of Eusebius and St. Jerome the natives always called it Bethramtha. Lequien[7] mentions three bishops:

  • Letoius, who was at Ephesus in 431;
  • Pancratius, at Chalcedon in 451;
  • Zacharias, at Jerusalem in 536.

[edit] References

  • Reland, Palæstina, I (Utrecht, 1714), 496;
  • Heidet in Vigouroux, Dict. de la Bible, s. v. Bétharan

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ THE CHRISTIAN SANCTUARIES IN TRANSJORDAN 07
  2. ^ Numbers 32:36; Joshua 13:27
  3. ^ Josephus, "Ant. Jud.", XIV, i, 4.
  4. ^ "Ant.", XVIII, ii, 1; "Bel. Jud.", II, ix,l.
  5. ^ Josephus, "Ant. Jud.", XX, viii, 4.
  6. ^ Josephus, "Bel. Jud.", IV, vii, 6.
  7. ^ Oriens Christianus, III, 655.

[edit] External links

This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.