Zoara

Zoara is a Roman Catholic titular see of Palestina Tertia.

It is the ancient Bala or Segor, one of the five cities of the Pentapolis [Gen., xiv, 2, 8] in Genesis in the Tanakh or Old Testament, which escaped the thunder and lightning which destroyed Sodom and Gomorra, for having sheltered Lot and his family [Gen., xix, 22, 30] . It is mentioned by Josephus ["Ant. Jud.", XIII, xv, 4; "Bell. Jud.", IV, viii, 4] ; Ptolemy (V, xvi, 4); and by Eusebius and Saint Jerome in the "Onomasticon".

Zoar was a city at the southeast end of the Dead Sea grouped with Sodom and Gomorra as being one of the 5 cities slated for destruction by God; but it was spared at Lot's plea as his place of refuge. Zoar in Hebrew means "small" or "insignificance."

The "Notitiae dignitatum", 72, places at Zoara, as a garrison, the resident "equites sagitkarii indigenae"; Stephen of Byzantium (De urbibus, s.v. Addana) speaks also of its fort, which is mentioned in a Byzantine edit of the fifth century (Revue biblique, 1909, 99). In a Madaba Map, of the sixth century, it is represented in the midst of a grove of palm trees under the names of Balac or Segor, now Zoara; near the city is a sanctuary to St. Lot. Hierocles ("Synecdemus") and George of Cyprus ["Description of the Roman World"] both mention it.

Some bishops have been ascribed to Zoara;

*Musonius, at Ephesus (449), and at Chalcedon (451);
*Isidore in 518;and
*John in 536. [Le Quien, "Oriens christianus", III, 737-746.] .

At the end of the fourth century one of its bishops accompanied the western pilgrim, wrongly named Silvia [Geyer, "Itinera hierosolymitana", 54] . The pseudo-Antonius in the sixth century describes its monks, and extols its palm trees (op. cit., 166, 181). Owing to its tropical climate and to the waters coming down from the mountains of Moab, Zoara is a flourishing oasis where the balsam, indigo, and date trees bloom luxuriantly. During the French occupation it took the name of Palmer, or of Paumier.

William of Tyre (XXII, 30) and Foulcher of Chartres (Hist. hierosol., V) have left beautiful descriptions of it, as well as the Arabian geographers, who highly praise the sweetness of its dates [Guy Le Strange, "Palestine under the Moslems", 289] . It is not known when the city disappeared; it is now very difficult to find any traces of it. Search may be made in the Ghor-es-Safieh at the mouth of Wadi el-Qrahy, the ancient torrent of Zared.

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