Golan Heights grotto revered by Christians and Druze, reviled as pagan site by Jews

The Temple of Banias. Creative Commons image.

BANIAS, Israel—Before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, I used to like to stand in front of the Grotto of Pan at Banias, at the foot of towering Mount Hermon and welcome tourists to the lush Hermon Stream Nature Reserve on the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights: “Welcome to the Gates of Hades!”

Indeed, welcome to Banias, the Arabic pronunciation for Pan (Arabic has no “p” sound)—the city of the lusty half-human, half-goat flute-playing Greco-Roman god of shepherds and flocks, mountainsides, hunting and rustic music; he is infamous for his unfettered sexuality, and is often depicted with a super-sized erect phallus. The pagan cult site, also variably called Paneas, Panias, Panium and Panaeon, was considered to be an entrance to the underworld. The city, repeatedly rocked by earthquakes and gradually reduced to a village, was finally abandoned in the 1967 Six Day War when its Muslim residents fled deeper into Syria.

For the Romans, this was Caesarea Philippi—the city honoring Tiberius Caesar, the son of Augustus, thus named by Herod’s son Philipp, the tetrarch of Ituraea, who in 2 BCE made the ancient town his capital following the break-up of his father Herod the Great’s vassal state. (Herod senior created the artificial port of Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean coast and built the temples to his patron Augustus at both sites, as well as at Sebaste, near today’s Nablus.)

In the pagan mindset, the limestone cave at Caesarea Philippi was literally a gate to the underworld, where fertility gods spent the winter. Here at the tenemos (shrine precinct) facing a series of marble temples and niches for pagan idols, worshippers engaged in ritual prostitution and bestiality with goats in the belief that those sexual relations would entice the return of Pan in the spring.

For Christians, this is where Jesus gave Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven. For Druze, this is a holy site associated with Elijah the Prophet, known in Arabic as an-Nabi al-Khader (the Green Prophet). And as for Jews, this is the only place in Israel where one may recite the blessing “who uproots idolatry in our land.”

Until last March, when Israel shut its national parks and stopped welcoming overseas tourists, Banias was a site where Evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews would come to revile the vestiges of paganism and admire the beauty of the cool rushing tributary cascading down a 33 feet-high waterfall before joining the Jordan River.

During the time of the Hebrew Bible, before Banias became associated with Pan, the northeastern corner of the Kingdom of Israel was a center for Baal worship. In the nearby city of Dan. 6 miles to the west, Israelite king Jeroboam built the high place that angered God and eventually led the Israelites to worship false deities. Eventually, worship of Baal morphed into the worship of Greek fertility gods.

Strikingly, Jesus chose to bring his disciples here to this place of pagan ritual impurity to deliver a sort of ‘graduation speech.’ In this pagan setting, he encouraged them to build a Church that would overcome the most debauched idolatry.

Jesus’ disciples must have been shocked. Caesarea Philippi was infamous for its ritual sex, and Jews would have avoided any exposure to the debauched erotic spectacles put on there. It was a city of people eagerly knocking on the doors of hell. Thus Jesus challenged his followers to storm the gates of Hades.

Standing near the gleaming pagan temples of Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked his disciples: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” It was Simon Peter who was inspired to answer: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

In reply, Jesus continued: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matt. 16:13-20)

Though various Christian traditions differ on the theological meaning of those words, it seems clear that Jesus’ words had a symbolic meaning. His Church would be built on the “rock” of Caesarea Philippi, a cliff face studded with niches for pagan idols, a setting where paganism and perversion dominated.

After giving Peter (the “Rock,” in Greek) the keys of the kingdom of heaven, Jesus led his disciples Peter, James and John to a “high mountain.” Traditionally, the Transfiguration is said to have taken place at Mount Tabor to the southwest, in the Lower Galilee, but scholars like Bargil Pixner, (With Jesus Through Galilee according to the Fifth Gospel, pp.95-98) suggest Jesus’ appearance was radiantly transformed as he left Banias and ascended Mount Hermon, the highest mountain the Middle East.

According to Greek mythology, Pan was born in Arcadia in the Peloponnese. While the longevity of the Pan cult reflects the stability of local religious life, historical evidence suggests that rituals evolved over centuries. Broken pottery attests to those developments. In Hellenistic times, worshipers from nearby settlements brought household ceramics in which they served dedicatory banquets, suggesting that they spent some time at the site. When the sanctuary became a civic shrine in the first century CE, simpler dedications such as the use of lamps became common. By the second century, impressive buildings and sculpture transformed the sanctuary into a formal ritual site, and private rites seem to have been abandoned.

In its final phase, the complex included the temple of Tiberius Caesar built in 16 BCE and the impressive Temple of Pan and the Dancing Goats built c. 220 CE at the mouth of the cave. The cult center, with its ritual courtyards and niches for statues, was constructed on an elevated 260 feet-long natural terrace above the city at the base of the 130 feet-high cliff that towered over the northern part of the polis. A four-line inscription at the base of one of the niches relates to Pan and Echo, the mountain nymph, and is dated to 87 BCE.

In Roman mythology, Pan’s counterpart was Faunas, the god of nature. Those who in lonely places dared disturb Pan during in his afternoon nap were subject to panic triggered by his angry shout (panikon deima).

Much of the giant cave collapsed in the earthquake of 1033. The remaining part of the grotto today is 65 feet wide by 50 feet high. The earthquake also blocked the very large spring which once gushed out of the cave. The Greeks held that Pan, the son of Hermes and grandson of Zeus, lived in this mystical cavern.

Individual patronage of the half-goat, half-man god resumed in the third and fourth centuries, as indicated by the presence of several thousand lamp dedications. The cult's popularity at that period was widespread, although the character of the dedications indicates that worship was essentially passive. Pagan worship continued until the middle of the Byzantine period, around the 5th century CE, and was then abandoned. No evidence exists of the cult site’s deliberate destruction, although by that time the shrine housed a pagan cult in an increasingly Christian city.

By then, Peter had triumphed over Pan.

Gil Zohar was born in Toronto, Canada and moved to Jerusalem, Israel in 1982. He is a journalist writing for The Jerusalem Post, Segula magazine, and other publications. He’s also a professional tour guide who likes to weave together the Holy Land’s multiple narratives.