Lyd´da, a town within the limits of the tribe of Ephraim, nine miles east of Joppa, on the road between that port and Jerusalem. It bore in Hebrew the name of Lod, and appears to have been first built by the Benjamites, although it lay beyond the limits of their territory; and we find it again inhabited by Benjamites after the Exile (;; ). It is mentioned in the Apocrypha (), as having been taken from Samaria and annexed to Judea by Demetrius Nicator; and at a later date its inhabitants are named among those who were sold into slavery by Cassius when he inflicted the calamity of his presence upon Palestine after the death of Julius Caesar. In the New Testament the place is only noticed, under the name of Lydda, as the scene of Peter's miracle in healing Æneas (; ). Some years later the town was reduced to ashes by Cestius Gallus, in his march against Jerusalem; but it must soon have revived, for not long after we find it at the head of one of the toparchies of the later Judea, and as such it surrendered to Vespasian. At that time it is described by Josephus 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 Judea after Jabneh and Bethar. In the general change of names which took place under the Roman dominion, Lydda became 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 is known to have continued such until at least A.D. 518. Lydda early became connected with the homage paid to the celebrated saint and martyr St. George, who is said to have been a native of this place, and who was not less renowned in the east than afterwards in the west. A church was here erected in honor of him by the Emperor Justinian. This church, which stood outside the town, had just been leveled to the ground by the Muslims when the Crusaders arrived at Lydda; but it was soon rebuilt by them, and they established a bishopric of Lydda and Ramleh. The church was destroyed by Saladin in 1191; and there is no evidence that it was ever rebuilt, although there was in later centuries an unfounded impression that the church, the ruins of which were then seen, and which still exist, had been built by our King Richard. From that time there has been little notice of Lydda by travelers. It now exists, under its ancient name of Lud, as a considerable village of small houses, with nothing to distinguish it from ordinary Muslim villages, save the ruins of the celebrated church of St. George, which are situated in the eastern part of the town. The building must have been very large. The walls of the eastern end are standing only in the parts near the altar, including the arch over the latter; but the western end remains more perfect, and has been built into a large mosque, the lofty minaret of which forms the landmark of Lud.
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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