CANA. - A “Galilean” locality (Jn 2:1, 11; 4:46; 21:2), distinct from the Cana of the tribe of Asher (Jos 19:28) and from the homonymous stronghold in Arabia (Moab) mentioned by Flavius Josephus (Antiquitates Judaicae, XIII, 15, 1). Identification is disputed between the modern sites of Kefr Kennah and Hirbet Qānah. Until recent times, Kefr Kennah, 6 km east-northeast of Nazareth on the “way of the sea” in Galilee, was held to be Cana by almost all Catholic Palestinologists. The principal argument for this identification is the testimony of 4th-century pilgrims, above all the Peregrinatio Sanctae Paulae (PL 22, 491: “Haud procul [from Nazareth] cernitur Cana”); other texts in D. Baldi, pp. 250–51. Moreover, Cana appears to have been in the southern part of Galilee: Jesus, returning from Judea, first reaches Cana (Jn 2:1; 4:46).
Yet there is a philological difficulty: the Eastern versions write Cana with the consonant q, not k; moreover, the double n does not suit the form Qānā found in the Peshitta and other versions. Hence another site, situated farther north on the margin of the Plain of Asochis (el-Baṭṭōf), namely Hirbet Qānah, has been preferred by many since the Middle Ages, although it presents the difficulty of being 14 km from Nazareth, the distance being too great for the Virgin Mary to have attended the wedding (Jn 2:1).
The strongest reason is the expression Κανὰ τῆς Γαλιλαίας in all four New Testament passages that mention Cana. As the corresponding form in Flavius Josephus (Vita, 16) suggests, there was only one Cana in the northern province of Palestine: χωρίον τῆς Γαλιλαίας ὃ προσαγορεύεται Κανὰ. This was Hirbet Qānah. Here indeed Flavius Josephus quartered himself as military commander to defend Galilee (A.D. 66), having nearby the strongholds of Sogane and Iotapata. From this city he marched for an entire night
while at the banquet in the foreground on the right the Lord touches with His wonder-working staff one of the six hydriae (Wilpert, Pitture, pl. 57; other examples in pls. 166, 1 and 186, 1 and in Nuovo Bullettino di archeologia cristiana, 20 [1920], p. 83).
In the hypogeum discovered in 1858 at Alexandria in Egypt the representation of the miracle of Cana (5th–6th century) is much damaged; yet Wilpert succeeded in recognizing its liturgical-eucharistic character in connection with the other scenes (Eucharistische Malereien der Katakomben Karmonus in Alexandria, in Ehrengabe Deutscher Wissenschaft dargeboten von Katholischen Gelehrten, Freiburg 1920, pp. 273–82). Another example is offered by the painting in the underground church of Deir Abu Henuya at Antinoë. In sarcophagi the scene is more frequent: Christ touches with His wonder-working staff one of the hydriae at His feet; often the scene is combined with that of the multiplication of the loaves (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, pls. 8, 3; 17, 2; 127, 2; 218, 1; 227, 2). In one of the sarcophagi of Saint Victor at Marseilles the miracle scene is joined with that of the bearers of the Canaanite woman. The miracle of Cana is also found in the mosaics in the vault of the baptistery of Naples and in the cycle of the basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo at Ravenna.
Even in one of the panels of the door of Santa Sabina the miracle of the wedding at Cana was carved. In gold-glass vessels the hydriae of the miracle of Cana have the peculiarity of being provided with lids (R. Garrucci, Vetri oranti di figure in oro, Rome 1864, pls. VII, nos. 1 and 2; VIII, 1). In ivories it appears at Ravenna, in a diptych of Milan, in one of Palermo, in a binding from Oxford, etc.
Asterius of Amasea in the 5th century recalls that some Christians wore rich garments on which they depicted “collecta ex historia evangelica argumenta,” such as, for example, nuptias Galilaeae et hydrias (PG 40, 166–67).
In the excavations at Elatea, C. Diehl found near the bema of the Church of the Panaghia, rebuilt in the 13th century, a large stone on which was inscribed in Greek: “This is the stone that comes from Cana of Galilee where Our Lord Jesus Christ changed water into wine” (Bulletin de correspondance hellénique, 9 [1885], p. 33).
Antoninus of Piacenza relates in his Itinerarium that he went to Cana, ubi Dominus fuit ad nuptias, sat down in that very place, and wrote there the names of his parents (H. Grisar, La pietra di Cana e l’itinerario del cosiddetto Antonino di Piacenza, in La Civiltà Cattolica, series 180, XI [1903, III], pp. 600–609).