"Those Holy Fields." Palestine, Illustrated by Pen and Pencil
by Samuel Manning · English · Gutenberg #51452 · 385,709 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: "Those Holy Fields." Palestine, Illustrated by Pen and Pencil
Author: Samuel Manning
Release date: March 14, 2016 [eBook #51452]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK "THOSE HOLY FIELDS." PALESTINE, ILLUSTRATED BY PEN AND PENCIL ***
Transcriber’s Note
When italics were used in the original book, the corresponding text has
been surrounded by _underscores_. Some corrections have been made to the
printed text. These are listed in a second transcriber’s note at the end
of the text.
[Illustration: _From a Drawing by Mr. F. E. Blackstone._ RANGE OF HERMON
NEAR BANIAS, OR CÆSAREA PHILIPPI, AT THE MAIN SOURCE OF THE JORDAN. _The
Probable Scene of our Lord’s Transfiguration._]
“Those Holy Fields.”
PALESTINE,
ILLUSTRATED BY PEN AND PENCIL.
BY THE
REV. SAMUEL MANNING, LL.D.,
_AUTHOR OF “ITALIAN PICTURES,” “SWISS PICTURES,” AND
“SPANISH PICTURES.”_
“Those holy fields,
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed,
For our advantage, on the bitter cross.”
LONDON:
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY;
56, PATERNOSTER ROW; 65, ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD;
AND 164, PICCADILLY.
BRIGHTON: 31, WESTERN ROAD MANCHESTER: 100, CORPORATION STREET.
PREFACE
[Illustration]
The journey of which a brief account is given in the following pages was
undertaken in the early part of 1873. The object of the writer was to
compare the _Land_ and the _Book_, and by an examination of the
topography of Palestine to illustrate the histories of Scripture. Had
any doubt existed in his own mind as to the veracity of those histories,
it must have been dispelled by the minute agreement which he traced
between the indications of the narrative and the physical geography of
the country. No “fable,” however “cunningly devised,” no myth or legend
coming into existence at a later age, could have adapted itself so
precisely to the topographical details of the scene. The main design of
the present volume has been to trace these coincidences, and thus to
elucidate and confirm the biblical narrative. Whilst he has availed
himself of all the help he could gain from the writings of former
travellers, he has in no case depended upon them, but endeavoured, by a
personal and careful inspection of the sites, to arrive at an
independent and accurate conclusion.
[Illustration: (Drawing of men next to a tent)]
In the Illustrations, which form so large a part of the present volume,
fidelity rather than artistic effect has been aimed at. Many of the
engravings are from drawings made on the spot, but a greater number are
from photographs. Those of Messrs. Bergheim and Nicodemus of Jerusalem,
and Madame Bonfils of Beyrout, have been largely used for this purpose;
and the writer desires to express his gratitude for the liberality with
which the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund have placed their
admirable series at his disposal.
The Maps are enlarged by permission of Messrs. W. and A. Keith Johnston,
from their Royal Atlas Map of Syria, which for correctness and fulness
of detail is worthy of the high reputation they have long enjoyed as
chartographers.
[Illustration: (Drawing of people outside the walls of a village)]
List of Illustrations.
Range of Hermon, near Banias _Frontispiece._
Village of Siloam, and Valley of the Kedron _Preface._
SOUTHERN PALESTINE, OR JUDÆA.
JAFFA TO HEBRON.
Map of the District _page_ 10
Head-Piece—Our Camp 11
Initial—Eastern Water-Seller 11
Jaffa, from the North 12
Jaffa, from the Sea 15
Ploughing in Palestine 17
Ramleh 18
German Colony near Jaffa 19
Lydda 21
Amwâs, or Nicopolis 22
Women of the Hill Country of Judæa 24
Wady es-Sumt and Kulônia 25
Southern Wall of the Temple Area Showing the opening
of “Robinson’s Arch” 27
Tomb of Rachel 29
Solomon’s Pools 31
Ruins of Tekoa, on the way down to Hebron 32
Distant View of Hebron 33
Hebron, and Mosque over the Cave of Machpelah 35
Pool of Hebron 36
Entrance to the Mosque over Machpelah 37
Roof of the Mosque 38
Arrangement of Tombs in the Cave 39
Abraham’s Oak, near Hebron 40
BETHLEHEM TO THE DEAD SEA.
Head-Piece—Bethlehem 41
Initial—The Dead Sea 41
Gate of Bethlehem 42
Women of Bethlehem 43
Shepherd of Bethlehem 44
Eastern Gleaners 45
Entrance to the Cave of Adullam 47
Interior of the Cave of Adullam 48
Bethlehem, from the Shepherds’ Field 49
Interior of a Khan 50
Interior of the Church of the Nativity 52
Church of the Nativity 53
Convent of Mar Saba 55
Wilderness of Judæa 57
Northern Shore of the Dead Sea 59
Southern Shore of the Dead Sea 60
The Dead Sea 61
Approach to Engedi 63
Makaur, the site of ancient Machærus 65
The Dead Sea, near Masada 66
Map of the Dead Sea 67
The Well of Bethlehem 68
JERICHO AND THE JORDAN TO JERUSALEM.
Head-Piece—Arabs of the Plain 69
Initial—Er Riha, near Jericho 69
Plain of the Jordan, near Jericho 70
Arabs in the Plain of Jericho 71
Banks of the Jordan 73
Sketch Plan of the Jordan 74
Site of Ancient Jericho 75
Elisha’s Fountain, near Jericho 81
Bathing-Place of Pilgrims on the Jordan 82
Ruined Aqueduct near Jericho 83
Bethany 85
Church on the Summit of the Mount of Olives 87
St. Stephen’s Gate 88
JERUSALEM.
Head-Piece—Church of the Holy Sepulchre 89
Initial—Tomb of Absalom 89
Plan of Jerusalem 90
Ruins near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre 92
Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives 93
Walls of Jerusalem 95
Street of Modern Jerusalem 96
Sketch Plan of the Site of Jerusalem 97
Entrance of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre 98
The Pool of Hezekiah 99
Plan of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre 101
Interior of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre 102
Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre 103
The Place of Scourging 104
Cave under the Church 105
Via Dolorosa 106
The Mosque of Omar 109
The Golden Gate 111
Projecting Stones of Robinson’s Arch 112
Wailing-Place of the Jews 113
Jewish Almshouses 115
Pool of Bethesda 116
Substructions under the Temple Area 117
Temple Area and Mount of Olives 118
Tunnel and Shaft of the Palestine Exploration Fund
outside the Temple Wall 120
Garden of Gethsemane 121
Mount of Corruption 124
Tomb of Zacharias 125
Aceldama 126
Tomb of Helena 127
The Valley of Jehoshaphat 128
CENTRAL PALESTINE, OR SAMARIA.
JERUSALEM TO SHILOH.
Map of the District 130
Head-Piece 131
Initial—Mosque of David 131
Jerusalem, from Scopus 132
Ramah 133
Anathoth 134
Ruins of Bethel 137
Stone Circle near Bethel 139
Ruined Synagogue at Shiloh 141
The Site of Shiloh 142
SHECHEM, EBAL, AND GERIZIM.
Head-Piece—Road-side Wells 143
Initial—Arab at Tent Door 143
Valley of Shechem, with Ebal and Gerizim 144
Jacob’s Well and Joseph’s Tomb 145
Nablus 146
Evening on a Housetop 148
Ruins on the Summit of Gerizim 151
Cylinder enclosing the Samaritan Pentateuch 154
Translation of Inscriptions 154
Copy of a portion of the Samaritan Pentateuch 155
In a Bazaar 158
Gate at Nablus 159
NABLUS TO THE PLAIN OF ESDRAELON.
Head-Piece 160
Initial—Ruined Church of St. John in Samaria 160
The Hill of Samaria 162
An Arab Story-Teller 164
Ruins of the City of Samaria 165
Ruins of Cæsarea 166
Jenin, the ancient En-gannim 168
Head-Dress of Egyptian Fellaheen 170
Plain of Esdraelon, with the Ruins of Jezreel 171
Mouth of the River Kishon 172
Sketch Plan of the Esdraelon Plain and surrounding
district from El-Muhrakah 174
Monastery on Mount Carmel 176
Promontory of Carmel, from the Sea 178
NORTHERN PALESTINE, OR GALILEE.
SOUTHERN GALILEE AND NAZARETH.
Map of the District 180
Head-Piece—Village of Nazareth 181
Initial—Fountain of Mary at Nazareth 181
Tabor 183
Nain 185
Nazareth 187
Cliff behind the Maronite Convent at Nazareth, the
supposed “Rock of Precipitation” 189
Church of the Annunciation, Nazareth 191
Fountain at Cana 194
THE LAKE OF GENNESARETH.
Head-Piece 195
Initial—Town and Lake of Tiberias 195
North Shore of the Lake, near Tell Hum 196
The Town of Tiberias 199
Magdala 201
Southern End of the Sea of Galilee 202
Hills over Gennesareth 203
Ruins of Et-Tabigah 206
Ruins of Tell Hum 207
The Lake of Gennesareth from near Khan Minyeh 208
GENNESARETH TO THE SOURCE OF THE JORDAN.
Head-Piece—Lake Hûleh 209
Initial—An Arab Encampment 209
Bridge of Jacob’s Daughters 210
Rob Roy captured by the Arabs on the waters of the
Lake Hûleh 211
The Mouth of the Jordan, Lake Hûleh 213
Lake Hûleh, or the Waters of Merom 214
Hermon, from the Northern Shore of Lake Hûleh 215
Hermon, from near Tell-el-Kadi 216
The Source of the Jordan at Banias 218
SOUTHERN PALESTINE,
OR JUDÆA.
[Illustration:
SOUTHERN PALESTINE, OR JUDÆA.
[_Enlarged by permission from Keith Johnston’s Map._
]
[Illustration: Head-Piece—Our Camp]
SOUTHERN PALESTINE, OR JUDÆA.
JAFFA TO HEBRON.
A REEF of sharp jagged rocks, over which the surf breaks fiercely, runs
parallel with the shore, forming a natural breakwater. Inside the reef
the water is smooth enough, but too shallow to admit anything except
fishing-boats and small coasting-craft. The harbour has silted up by the
sand-drift from Arabian and African deserts, so that steamers and
sea-going vessels must anchor outside. Jaffa, a town of four thousand
inhabitants, picturesque at a distance, as all Eastern towns are, stands
on the slope of a hill and comes close down to the beach. It is
encircled by a broad belt of gardens and orange groves. A rich fertile
plain stretches for ten or twelve miles inland. Then a range of hills
bounds the view.
[Illustration: EASTERN WATER-SELLER.]
This ancient port was famous both in legend and history. It is the site
of the fabled rescue of Andromeda by Perseus, and the city is declared
by Pliny to have been standing before the Flood. The cedar-wood for
building the Temple was sent hither by Hiram, king of Tyre.[1] Here
Jonah, “flying from the presence of the Lord,” found a ship about to
sail to Tarshish, “so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into
it.”[2] Somewhere within the circuit of those grey walls, “widows stood
weeping and showing the coats and garments which Dorcas had made whilst
she was yet with them.” And amongst the tan-pits on the shore once
stood, perhaps still stands, the house of Simon the Tanner, where Peter
was taught by vision that Jewish exclusiveness was to end, and that
henceforth he should “call nothing common or unclean.”[3] It is our
first view of that land,
“Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
Which _eighteen_ hundred years ago were nailed,
For our advantage on the bitter cross.”
[Illustration: JAFFA FROM THE NORTH.]
A number of boats, manned by half-naked Arabs, howling, yelling, and
fighting like demons, cluster round the steamer. In one of them,
retained for the use of our party, the fight is so fierce that our
dragoman leaps down into it, and lays about him right and left with his
heavy _korbash_. This proving of no avail, he seizes one of the Arabs by
the throat, and throws him into the sea, to sink or swim as it may
happen. Order being at length restored, we take our seats in the boat,
are skilfully steered through a gap in the reef, and soon find ourselves
at the foot of some black slimy steps, leading to the Turkish
custom-house. A crowd of wretched creatures press round us, clamouring
for _backshish_. The unpaved road is ankle deep in mud. Foul sights, and
yet fouler smells, offend the senses. To most of my companions the sight
was altogether new and strange. For myself, having had some previous
experience of the filth and squalor of an Oriental town, I was not taken
by surprise. But the disenchantment of the rest of the party, as they
first set foot on the soil of Palestine, was complete. One American
gentleman, who had come prepared to go into ecstasies, and had avowed
his intention of falling on his knees on landing, to express his
gratitude for being permitted to tread the sacred soil, looked round
with a comical expression of bewilderment, and exclaimed, “Is this the
Holy Land?”
Picking our way through a tortuous labyrinth of dismal alleys, we found
our tents pitched outside the town. The camping ground is a spot of rare
beauty. The Mediterranean, of a clear crystalline blue, studded with
white sails, rolls up upon the beach. The long coast-line of Philistia
runs north and south. Groves of orange, lemon, citron, fig, and
pomegranate, vineyards and gardens, the produce of which is famous
throughout Syria, form a broad belt round the city. The plain of Sharon,
bright with verdure and enamelled with flowers, stretches inland. The
mountains of Ephraim, blue against the eastern sky, form a beautiful
frame for a lovely picture. It was easy to understand how a name meaning
“the beautiful” should have been borne by the town for three thousand
years.
The traditional house of Simon the Tanner furnishes, from its flat roof,
a fine point of view for this charming scene. And there is reason to
believe that the tradition is not far wrong. The house is “by the
sea-side;”[4] the waves beat against the wall of its courtyard. An
ancient well, fed by a perennial spring, furnishes the water needful for
the tanner’s trade; and tanneries of immemorial antiquity probably go
back to the time of Peter’s visit or even earlier. The vision here
vouchsafed to the Apostle gains a new appropriateness on this spot.
Joppa has always been the port of Jerusalem. It is, indeed, the only
port of Southern Palestine. Thence “the ships of Tarshish” were seen
coming and going. The “isles of Chittim” (Cyprus) lie just below the
horizon. It was the point at which the Jewish and Gentile world came
into contact. Peter looking out over the waters of “the Great Sea”
towards Greece and Rome, where the gospel was to win its greatest
victories, would be at no loss to apply the lesson taught by the vision.
The history of Tabitha is fondly remembered by the people of Joppa.
Tabitha or Dorcas (_i.e._ the gazelle) is partly a personal name—partly
a term of endearment. An annual festival is still celebrated on the 25th
of May, when the young people go out into the orange-groves around the
town and spend the day in a sort of pic-nic, singing hymns and ballads
in her honour.
In modern times Jaffa has acquired a sad notoriety from the infamous
massacre of his prisoners, and the alleged poisoning of his
plague-stricken troops by Napoleon Bonaparte. The spot is yet pointed
out where, amongst the sand-hills on the beach, four thousand Turkish
and Albanian troops, who had surrendered as prisoners of war, were shot
down in cold blood.
[Illustration: JAFFA FROM THE SEA.]
Passing out from the town we cross the Plain of Sharon, the exquisite
fertility and beauty of which made it to the Hebrew mind a symbol of
prosperity. “The excellency of Carmel and Sharon”[5] was proverbial.
“The earth mourneth and languisheth” when “Sharon is like a
wilderness.”[6] When the Most High shall again “bring forth a seed out
of Jacob and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains,” its first
result will be that once more “Sharon shall be a fold for flocks.”[7] In
the Song of songs, “I am the Rose of Sharon,”[8] is the symbol to
express the highest ideal of grace and beauty. As we rode across the
plain, bright with the vivid green of early spring, and plucked handfuls
of the innumerable flowers—cyclamens, anemones, roses, lilies, tulips
and a score of others—which gemmed the turf or grew “unprofitably gay”
amongst the corn, we could enter into the feelings of Hebrew poets and
prophets as they exulted in “the glory of Sharon.” But where were the
inhabitants? This fertile plain which might support an immense
population is almost a solitude. Two or three wretched hamlets, mere
clusters of mud huts, are the sole representatives of the numerous and
thriving cities which once occupied it.[9] Here and there was a solitary
Arab breaking up the clods with a plough which remains unchanged in form
from the earliest ages. These were the only signs of life we could
discover. Day by day we were to learn afresh the lesson now forced upon
us, that the denunciations of ancient prophecy have been fulfilled to
the very letter,—“the land is left void and desolate and without
inhabitants.”[10] Within the last few years, however, there has been an
improvement in some parts of the plain, arising from the establishment
of a German agricultural colony near Jaffa, of a model farm supported by
a society in London, and the acquisition of a considerable tract of land
by Messrs. Bergheim of Jerusalem. The German colonists retain,
unchanged, the dress and manners of their fatherland, and it is not a
little curious to meet a bevy of fair-haired, blue-eyed, red-cheeked
damsels driven by a Silesian peasant in a genuine _einspanner_, in a
district made memorable by the exploits of Samson against the
Philistines.
[Illustration: PLOUGHING IN PALESTINE.]
[Illustration: RAMLEH.]
Three hours from Jaffa stands RAMLEH, which has been identified with the
Ramah of the Old Testament and the Arimathea of the New, but without
sufficient authority. Its chief object of interest is a magnificent
tower, resembling the famous Giralda of Seville, quite perfect, which
rises from the ruins of an ancient khan. From the summit a superb view
is gained. To the east are seen the mountains of Israel, bare and
monotonous, but not without a certain impressiveness. Westward the
Mediterranean stretches to the verge of the horizon. All around lies the
plain of Sharon. On the slope of a hill about three miles distant stands
a little white-walled village, conspicuous by a lofty ruined tower. It
is the Lod of the Old Testament, LYDDA of the New.[11] Here Peter “found
a certain man named Æneas, who had kept his bed eight years, and was
sick of the palsy. And Peter said unto him, Æneas, Jesus Christ maketh
thee whole: arise, and make thy bed. And he arose immediately.” Here,
too, he received the request of the saints at Joppa to visit them in
their trouble at the death of Dorcas. As the road has remained unchanged
from the earliest times, we can trace the whole route by which the
sorrowing disciples came and the apostle returned with them. In
hagiology, Lydda is distinguished as the birth-place of St. George, the
patron saint of England. The Church, the ruins of which are visible from
a distance, was destroyed by Saladin, and restored by Richard Cœur de
Lion.
[Illustration: GERMAN COLONY NEAR JAFFA, WITH THE PLAIN OF SHARON AND
THE MOUNTAINS OF EPHRAIM.]
Soon after leaving Ramleh the road begins to ascend and the country
grows wilder. We are approaching the elevated plateau on which Jerusalem
stands, two thousand six hundred feet above the level of the sea. Up to
the time of David the whole maritime plain over which we have been
riding was held by the Philistines. The defiles and passes we are now
about to enter formed the marches—the debatable ground, the possession
of which was contested inch by inch during successive generations. A
little to the north of us stood the city of Ekron, whither the Ark of
God was brought from Ashdod. We can trace the path by which the
milch-kine, yoked to the new cart on which the Ark was laid, left their
calves behind them and “went along the highway, lowing as they went, and
turned not aside to the right hand or to the left; and the lords of the
Philistines went after them unto the border of Beth-shemesh. And they of
Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley: and they
lifted up their eyes, and saw the Ark, and rejoiced to see it.”[12] The
names of Ekron and Beth-shemesh are easily identified in Akir and
Ain-shems. As we saw the green slopes of the hills with their fields of
wheat and barley, and the labourers in the busy light of the declining
sun, it was easy to realise the whole scene. Tracing the history step by
step and noting how the localities exactly fell into the requirements of
the narrative, it was impossible not to be struck by the precise
accordance of the one with the other. The land and the book formed a
perfect illustration of one another.
[Illustration: LYDDA.]
Two traditional sites are now passed—El Latron, the name of which is
said to be derived from its having been the abode of the penitent thief,
and Amwâs, the ancient Nicopolis, long regarded as the EMMAUS of the New
Testament.[13] Though the identity of the latter site was for a thousand
years unquestioned, and has recently been reasserted by the high
authority of Dr. Robinson, it seems to me to be quite untenable. Its
distance from Jerusalem is too great. The evangelist fixes it at “three
score furlongs;” Amwâs is a hundred and sixty. Robinson assumes an error
in the MSS., for which there is no authority; nor is it credible that
the disciples should have visited Jerusalem and returned hither in the
same day, as the narrative requires, making a distance of forty miles.
[Illustration: AMWÁS, OR NICOPOLIS, THE TRADITIONAL SITE OF EMMAUS.]
Just as the sun was setting we found ourselves on the summit of a hill.
Below us was a tangle and labyrinth of valleys running one into another.
On the opposite hill the sun was resting before he “hasted to go down.”
Our camp was pitched on the edge of a brook in the bottom of the valley
where mists and shadows were already gathering thick and heavy. It was
the VALLEY OF AJALON, where Joshua commanded the sun to stand still.
Again the topography illustrated and confirmed the narrative. Joshua,
encamped at Gilgal in the valley of the Jordan, received intelligence
that five kings of the Amorites had attacked the Gibeonites with whom he
had just before made an alliance,[14] and who demanded instant succour.
“Slack not thy hand from thy servants; come up to us quickly and save us
and help us.” Though only just before the army had required three days
to reach the city,[15] Joshua at once ordered a forced march which he
accomplished in the course of a single night. He found the Amorites
besieging Gibeon, the site of which is marked by the village of Geeb,
some distance to the north-east of where we stand. Taken by surprise at
this sudden and unlooked-for attack, they were “discomfited,” “slain
with a great slaughter,” and “chased along the way that goeth up to
Beth-horon,” now, Beit ’Ur el-Foka, Beth-horon the upper, on the summit
of a hill looking over the plain of Sharon. Here they seem to have made
a stand, but were driven down the steep rocky declivity leading to the
lower Beth-horon, now Beit ’Ur et-Tahta, at the foot of the ravine. As
in wild panic they were rushing down the precipitous descent, a
hailstorm, perhaps, accompanied by a fall of meteoric stones, added to
their confusion and dismay. Slipping and falling from rock to rock, the
discomfited host endeavoured to escape along the valleys below us, hotly
pursued by the victorious army. The kings took refuge in a cave, the
entrance to which was blocked up by the pursuers who still pressed on
after the flying foe. The sun had reached his meridian and stood over
Gibeon, the pale crescent moon over Ajalon. Will the shades of evening
close upon them when the victory is incomplete, giving opportunity to
the Amorites to escape among the defiles which run in every direction,
or to rally in the darkness? “Then spake Joshua to the Lord ... and he
said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and
thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the
moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their
enemies.” The victory was complete; the kings were brought out from the
hiding-place and slain. “And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him,
unto the camp at Gilgal.”[16]
Soon after leaving the valley of Ajalon we reach the village of
Kuryet-el-enab, better known at the present day as Abu-Gosh, from the
robber chief who for nearly a quarter of a century kept the Turkish
power at bay, and levied blackmail on the whole district. It is
identified with tolerable certainty as the ancient KIRJATH-JEARIM (_the
city of forests_), though the forests from which it took its name have
long since disappeared. Originally a city of the Gibeonites,[17] it
subsequently became one of the border towns marking the frontier between
Judah and Benjamin. It is in consequence frequently mentioned in the
mapping out and allotment of the land by Joshua.[18] The accuracy of
what has been well called “The Doomsday Book of the Israelites” is shown
by the fact that these ancient records still afford invaluable aid in
settling the topography of Palestine. At Kirjath-Jearim the Ark rested
for twenty years after being recovered from the hands of the Philistines
and before its removal to Jerusalem by David. It was in this “city of
forests” that the royal psalmist found it in “the fields of the wood”
and brought it with songs of praise to the place he had prepared for its
reception.[19] It was very interesting to read the narrative of the
bringing hither of the Ark and compare it with the surrounding scenery.
“And the men of Kirjath-Jearim came, and fetched _up_ the Ark of the
Lord, and brought it into the house of Abinadab _in the hill_.” The
village stands on the slope of a hill trending down towards Ain-Shems,
the ancient Beth-Shemesh. A hill rises above the town, and the ruins of
an ancient church which stands on its summit may not improbably mark the
site of “the house of Abinadab.”
[Illustration: WOMEN OF THE HILL COUNTRY OF JUDÆA.]
[Illustration:
WADY ES-SUMT AND KULÔNIA.
[_From a Sketch by Mr. F. E. Blackstone._
]
Shortly after leaving Abu-Gosh we descend into a broad deep valley, the
Wady es-Sumt, enclosed by rounded hills, terraced and covered with
olives to the very summit. A brook, swollen by winter rains into a
torrent, brawls over a bed of pebbles brought down by it from the rocks
above. It is the VALLEY OF ELAH, along which the hosts of the Amorites
fled after their defeat at Beth-horon, and where the ruddy stripling
from Bethlehem confronted and slew the giant of Gath.[20] The hills
curve round, forming an amphitheatre, in which, as “the Philistines
stood on a mountain on one side and Israel stood on a mountain on the
other, and there was a valley between them,” the hostile armies would be
able to watch the combat between their chosen champions. Bethlehem is
only about ten miles distant, and the young shepherd boy, who “rose up
early in the morning and left the sheep with a keeper,” could easily
reach the spot in time to see “the battle set in array,” and hear the
defiant challenge of the Philistine. Shocoh is represented by the
village of Shuweikeh; Azekah is probably the modern Tell Zakarîya; and
Gath lies at no great distance on the way down to Ekron. David,
returning to Bethlehem by the main road would pass through or near
Jerusalem, at that time in the hands of the Jebusites; hence the
statement which has caused some perplexity to commentators, that “he
took the head of the Philistine and brought it” thither.
Leaving the valley of Elah on the way to Jerusalem the eye is arrested
by a white-walled village standing on the slope of the hill, a little
way off the road, but visible from it. Travellers going thither from
Jerusalem must turn aside as “they draw nigh unto it”; others “who would
go farther,” continue along the road, leaving it on the right. It is now
called Kulon or Kulônia, and at least a probable conjecture regards it
as EMMAUS.[21] Though there is no direct evidence of the fact, yet it
fulfils all the requirements of the narrative, which, as we have seen,
the traditional site fails to do. We know from Josephus that there was
an Emmaus in this neighbourhood, and that a Roman garrison was stationed
there. The modern name of Kulônia may not improbably represent the
_Colonia_, or Roman settlement. Assuming the identification to be
correct, we now, for the first time, find ourselves in the actual
footsteps of Him whose “name is above every name.” Tender, sacred,
sublime, as are all the associations of the Holy Land, they must yield
to thoughts of Him who was David’s son and yet his Lord; who was of the
seed of Abraham, and yet could say, “Before Abraham was I am.”
About seven miles, “sixty furlongs,” from Kulônia we reach the summit of
a broad plateau. Turning a corner of the road, a huge Russian monastery
and church, with several smaller buildings around, all new, crude and
raw in colour, obstruct the view in front. On the right is a ravine,
beyond which a series of barren wind-swept hills stretch to the horizon.
Just behind the monastery is a Turkish barrack, and then a line of dim
grey venerable walls. There is nothing imposing or impressive in the
sight, and yet every traveller halts; even the most frivolous are awed
into silence. Not a few gaze with tears upon the scene. It is JERUSALEM!
The moment when its sombre turreted walls, minarets, and domes break,
for the first time, upon the eye is one never to be forgotten. The
dream, the hope of a lifetime has been fulfilled. The one thought, “Our
feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem,” swallows up every
other. I was not surprised; I was not disappointed. The outward features
of the landscape were scarcely seen. The present was lost sight of and
forgotten in the memories of the past. This was the city of the Lord of
Hosts! Here He chose to dwell between the cherubim! Here my Lord was
crucified!
It was not our plan to make any stay in Jerusalem at present. We should
return in a few days. I contented myself, therefore, with entering at
the Jaffa gate, and clattering for a few hundred feet along the stony
street. Then, retracing my steps, I rode round a portion of the southern
wall and descended into the Valley of Hinnom to rejoin my companions.
[Illustration:
SOUTHERN WALL OF TEMPLE AREA.
[_From a Photograph by Mr. Bergheim, Junr._
]
Passing the Pool of Gihon, and leaving the Hill of Evil Counsel on our
left, an extensive view opens before us. The eye ranges over a vast
expanse of rocky hills, covered with a sparse vegetation. Several
fortified and castellated convents—Greek, Latin, Copt and
Armenian—remind us that Christianity is but encamped as a foreigner in
the land which gave it birth, suggest too the wild and lawless character
of the people where the monks have to live as garrisons holding
fortresses in an enemy’s country. Several villages, each with a name
which recalls events of biblical history, come into view. One of these,
conspicuous from its size and position, is Bethlehem, which we hope to
visit on our return from Hebron.
[Illustration: TOMB OF RACHEL.]
An hour and a quarter after leaving Jerusalem, we approach a square
white-washed building surmounted by a dome. Except for its greater size,
it differs in no respect from the ordinary tombs of Moslem saints, so
numerous throughout Egypt and Syria. It is the birth-place of Benjamin,
and the TOMB OF RACHEL. The present edifice is modern, but the identity
of the site is undoubted, being clearly marked out by the inspired
narrative, “And they journeyed from Beth-el; and there was but a little
way to come to Ephrath: and Rachel travailed, and she had hard
labour.... And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing (for she
died), that she called his name Ben-oni (_i.e._ the son of my sorrow):
but his father called him Benjamin (_i.e._, the son of my right hand).
And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is
Bethlehem. And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave: that is the pillar of
Rachel’s grave unto this day.”[22] How deeply and permanently this
event, with all its details, was impressed on the mind of the bereaved
patriarch, may be gathered from the fact, that, on his death-bed, he
recalled all the circumstances: “As for me, when I came from Padan,
Rachel died by me in the land of Canaan in the way, when yet there was
but a little way to come unto Ephrath, and I buried her there in the way
of Ephrath.”[23] It has been said that the roads in the East never vary,
but continue to follow precisely the same course age after age. It will
be noticed that, in both accounts of the death of Rachel, stress is laid
upon the fact that she died and was buried “in the way.” The tomb of
Rachel still stands on the roadside.
An hour beyond Rachel’s tomb brings us to a fertile, but desolate and
unpeopled valley, in which stands a large old castellated khan, near
which are three remarkable cisterns of great size, constructed with
solid masonry, the joints of which have the peculiar bevel which is
regarded as characteristic of old Jewish or Phœnician work. Their
dimensions are as follows:
Length. Feet. Depth. Feet. Breadth. Feet.
Upper Pool 380 25 230
Middle Pool 423 39 230
Lower Pool 582 50 175
They are fed by three perennial springs, which gush from the rock into a
cavern lined with masonry in the hill above the khan, access to which is
gained by a narrow doorway, and are conducted by a subterranean conduit
into the upper pool. In the valley, below the lower pool, on the way to
Bethlehem and Jerusalem, are traces of ancient gardens and orchards.
Fruit trees are growing wild; the hills on either side are terraced; and
there are indications of fountains, waterfalls, and arbours having been
constructed amongst the rocks. The name by which they are known,
Solomon’s Pools, leads the mind to the passage in Ecclesiastes: “I made
me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: I made me
gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of
fruits: I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that
bringeth forth trees.”[24] Though we have no positive proof that these
are relics of “the glory of Solomon,” the probability is strong in
favour of their being so.
About four hours and a half south of Solomon’s Pools, stands a city,
which contests with Damascus the distinction of being the oldest in the
world; and which, in historical interest, may almost vie with Jerusalem
itself—Hebron. It has been said that the road thither is unique, as
being absolutely the worst in the world. It would, however, be more
correct to say that for the greater part of the distance there is no
road at all. A track, indistinctly marked, crosses hill and valley, over
smooth sheets of slippery rock, winding in and out amongst piles of
stones, or leading into treacherous quagmires. Here and there traces of
Roman pavement may be detected, or a mass of limestone rock has been cut
through. In all other respects the rugged mountain-sides remain
unchanged. The scenery is monotonous and depressing. A succession of
bare, rounded hills, absolutely treeless, and apparently hopelessly
barren, stretch to the horizon in every direction. There is nothing to
break the solitude, save now and then a string of camels on their way
between Hebron and Jerusalem. Not a house, or sign of human habitation,
is visible.
[Illustration: SOLOMON’S POOLS.]
The prevailing grey tone of the landscape, save where a strip of
brilliant green in the valleys marks the line of a watercourse, adds to
the monotony. And yet this district, now so lonely and desolate, must at
some period have been both populous and prosperous. Ruins of ancient
villages are to be seen on every hand; and the lines of stones, which
now add to the sterile aspect of the hill-sides, prove on examination to
be the remains of artificial terraces, by means of which the steepest
slopes and the scantiest soil were once brought under cultivation.[25]
Shortly before reaching Hebron the road passes along a valley, the sides
of which are covered with figs, olives, pomegranates, peaches, and
apricots. But the extent and luxuriance of the vineyards form its most
striking feature. It is the VALLEY OF ESHCOL, where the spies “cut down
a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a
staff; and they brought of the pomegranates, and of the figs.”[26] The
fruit of Eshcol is famous to this day for its size and flavour
throughout Southern Palestine; and as we looked around on the expanse of
orchards and olive groves and vineyards, it was easy to understand the
favourable report of the spies—“We came unto the land whither thou
sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the
fruit of it.” We are in the territory of Judah, and as we observed the
size of the vine-stubs, and the abundance of their produce, the
prophetic blessing of Jacob could not be forgotten, “Binding his foal
unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine; he washed his
garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes: his eyes shall
be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.”[27]
[Illustration: RUINS OF TEKOA, ON THE WAY DOWN TO HEBRON.]
We noticed, too, the vineyards walled round with stones, collected from
within the enclosure, each with its wine-fat and a tower, constructed,
like the fences, with stones and masses of rock which would otherwise
have marred the soil; and the words of Isaiah found an exact
illustration, “My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:
and he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it
with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also
made a winepress therein.”[28] The parable spoken by our Lord was, at
the same time, vividly illustrated. “There was a certain householder,
which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a
winepress in it, and built a tower.”[29]
The grapes are either eaten fresh, or dried into raisins, or boiled down
into grape-honey (_dibs_), or made into wine. Of course the Mohammedans
leave the production and consumption of the latter to the Jewish and
Christian residents, its use being forbidden by the Koran. I found the
wine of Hebron strong, but very sweet, being loaded with grape-honey,
and apparently flavoured with spices, tasting much like the elder-berry
wine which is made in country districts in England.
[Illustration: DISTANT VIEW OF HEBRON.]
The first view of Hebron is very striking. It is picturesquely situated
among groves of olives, on the slope of a hill at the southern end of
the valley of Eshcol. Solidly built with blocks of grey weather-beaten
stone, it has an appearance of great antiquity as befits a city reared
“seven years before Zoan in Egypt.”[30] Zoan has disappeared, but Hebron
still stands, with a history which goes back for more than three
thousand years. The ancient names of the city—“Kirjath-Arba, the city of
Arba the father of Anak, which city is Hebron,”[31] are no longer used.
But its modern name is strangely impressive and affecting. It is now
known as El-Khulil, that is, _The Friend_, leading the mind back to the
title given to the illustrious patriarch by God Himself, “Abraham, My
friend.”[32] It is by this name that he is always known throughout the
Mohammedan world; and the epithet has passed over from the patriarch
himself to the city with which he was so intimately associated.
Very early in the life of Abraham we find him encamped “in the plain of
Mamre, which is in Hebron, and he built there an altar unto the
Lord.”[33] He and his nephew Lot had parted. Lot had chosen the
well-watered and luxuriant plain of the Jordan, which lies just across
the range of hills on the western slope of which Hebron stands; and
Abraham had remained on the elevated _plateau_ which was henceforth to
be inseparably associated with himself and his descendants.
It was whilst encamped at Mamre that he received tidings of the disaster
which had fallen upon his nephew. Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, with his
allies, had attacked and sacked the cities of the plain, had carried
away Lot as captive, and, laden with spoil, was returning to his own
country. Abraham at once collected his clan, “born in his own house,
three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan,”[34] the extreme
northern city of Palestine. A battle was fought, in which Chedorlaomer
was slain, his army routed, and Lot with his family delivered from
captivity.
Some years now pass by, in which the names of Hebron and Mamre do not
occur, though it is probable that some of the incidents recorded
happened there. Then “the Lord appeared unto him in the plain of Mamre:
and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; and he lift up his
eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him.”[35] The prompt
hospitality of the patriarch was just such as would be offered by an
Arab sheikh at the present day. Travellers have delighted to illustrate
the narrative by narrating similar incidents in their own experience.
Soon the mysterious visitants “rose up from thence, and looked toward
Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way”[36] over the
ridge of hills which divided Mamre from the doomed city. Two of them
seem to have continued their journey, “and went toward Sodom.” The third
remains—it is the Lord himself, the Angel of the Covenant. He discloses
to Abraham the impending destruction of the cities of the plain, which
would involve Lot and his family in the general ruin. The patriarch, who
had once before rescued his nephew from the cruelty of man, now ventures
to interpose between him and the judgments of God. His fervent prayer
having reached its end, “the Lord went His way, as soon as He had left
communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place.”[37] With
the dawn of day we find him an eager watcher from the hill-top above his
tent. “Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood
before the Lord: and he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all
the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country
went up as the smoke of a furnace.”[38] It affords an interesting
confirmation of this part of the narrative that from the summit of the
hill just above the traditional site of Mamre a view may be gained,
through a notch of the dividing ridge, right down into the valley
beyond, with its scene of weird desolation.
Hebron next comes before us as the scene of bereavement. “And Sarah died
in Kirjath-Arba; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan: and Abraham
came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.” He, to whom the whole
land had been promised in “a covenant which could not be broken,”
possessed not a foot of soil in it, and he must buy a grave, “that I may
bury my dead out of my sight.” The negotiation with the sons of Heth
which followed, is finely characteristic of the courtesy, the
generosity, and the practical wisdom of the bereaved patriarch. The
purchase of the cave of Machpelah is effected and the place of burial is
transferred, the narrative of the completion of the purchase being
recorded in terms, the precision of which is like that of a legal
document.[39] Sarah is buried there, and “then Abraham gave up the
ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years; and
was gathered to his people. And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in
the cave of Machpelah.”[40]
Yet again we read that “Jacob came unto Isaac his father unto Mamre,
unto the city of Arbah, which is Hebron, where Abraham and Isaac
sojourned. And the days of Isaac were an hundred and fourscore years.
And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his people,
being old and full of days: and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.”[41]
[Illustration: HEBRON, AND MOSQUE OVER CAVE OF MACHPELAH.]
Here Jacob lived after the death of his father, and hence he sent the
beloved son of his beloved Rachel to visit his brethren at Shechem.[42]
Here, too, he buried Leah,[43] as Sarah and Rebekah had already been
laid side by side. And “he gave commandment concerning his bones,” that
the same sacred enclosure should be his last resting-place.[44] Hither
his embalmed body was brought, with all the pomp and ceremonial of
mourning for which Egypt was famous, and there, probably, the mummy of
the last of three great patriarchs rests to this day.[45]
We have already seen that the spies, starting from Kadesh-Barnea, passed
through Hebron when sent up “to spy out the land.”[46] One of them,
Caleb the son of Jephunneh, faithful amongst the faithless, had rebuked
the fears of the people and “wholly followed the Lord God of Israel.” To
him and his heirs Hebron had been promised as the reward of his
fidelity. After the defeat of the Ammonites by Joshua, when the city was
stormed and sacked by the victorious Israelites, Caleb claimed the
fulfilment of this promise, “And Joshua blessed him, and gave unto Caleb
the son of Jephunneh Hebron for an inheritance.”[47]
[Illustration: POOL OF HEBRON.]
For some time onward, Hebron receives only slight and passing mention.
But in this old royal city, hallowed by so many associations, David
established his throne on the death of Saul, and here he reigned as king
of Judah for “seven years and six months.”[48] Soon Hebron again comes
before us as a place of burial. Abner, falling a victim to the vengeance
and ambition of Joab, who slew him in the gate of the city, received a
magnificent funeral, and king David himself followed the bier, and they
buried Abner in Hebron, and the king lifted up his voice and wept, and
all the people wept.[49] A tomb is yet shown and regarded with great
reverence as that of Abner.
One spot in the suburbs of Hebron we are enabled to associate with the
residence of David here. There are two tanks or pools just outside the
city gate, evidently of great antiquity. It was here that he executed
the murderers of Ishbosheth, the son of Saul. “And David commanded his
young men, and they slew them, and cut off their hands and their feet,
and hanged them up over the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of
Ish-bosheth, and buried it in the sepulchre of Abner in Hebron.”[50]
[Illustration:
ENTRANCE TO MOSQUE.
_From a Photograph._
]
When the tribes of Israel came down to Hebron, and made David king over
all the land, the interest and importance of the city ceased. Only once
again does it appear in history. Here Absalom came and raised the
standard of revolt against his father, and “sent spies throughout all
the tribes of Israel, saying, As soon as ye hear the sound of the
trumpet, then shall ye say, Absalom reigneth in Hebron.”[51] The name
does not occur in the New Testament, nor does our Lord appear to have
visited it in the course of his ministry; but on the flight into Egypt,
when Joseph “arose and took the young child and his mother by
night,”[52] they must have passed through the city and probably rested
here on the first night of the journey.
Great and various as is the interest associated with Hebron, that
interest culminates in the cave of Machpelah. Here lie the bodies of the
three great patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with their
wives—Sarah, Rebekah, and Leah. Mohammedan tradition affirms that the
embalmed body of Joseph, likewise, rests here, and his cenotaph is in
the mosque over the cave, with those of the other patriarchs.[53]
[Illustration: ROOF OF MOSQUE OVER MACHPELAH.]
It is thus the most interesting _Campo Santo_ in the world, and shares
with Jerusalem the distinction of being regarded with reverence alike by
Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans. If it were possible for us to
ascertain with certainty the sepulchre of our Lord, we should approach
it with yet deeper feelings of awe and reverence, though He lay there
only for thirty-six hours. But in seeking the place “where the Lord
lay,” we have nothing to guide us but vague conjecture and dubious
tradition. Here, however, the identification is absolute and beyond the
reach of scepticism. Guarded with superstitious care for more than three
thousand years, we can feel complete confidence that “the Father of the
faithful” and “the Friend of God” lies here with his sons.
The entrance to the cave appears to have been in the face of a
projecting mass of rock—there are many such round Hebron—which rose in
the field of Ephron the Hittite. The trees which bordered it[54] were
probably co-extensive with the walls which now enclose the Haram of the
Mosque. At a very early period, probably not later than the times of
David or Solomon, an edifice was erected over the cave. The stones are
of great size, with the characteristic Jewish bevel. Dr. Wilson measured
one which was thirty-eight feet in length. The architecture is peculiar,
being neither Saracenic nor Christian. A series of flat pilasters run
round the sides. From the main entrance a flight of stone steps runs up
between the outer wall and the mosque. We thus rise from the bottom of
the cliff in the face of which was the entrance of the cave up to the
top. Into the cave itself no one is allowed to enter. Even the mosque is
guarded with jealous care. No Jew or Christian had been permitted to set
foot within it, until, after immense difficulty, permission was granted
to the Prince of Wales and his suite in the year 1862. Within the last
few years the severity of the restriction has been somewhat relaxed. In
the year 1873, I was allowed to go about halfway up the flight of steps
outside the mosque and to put my hand through a hole in the wall, which
I was told led into the cave. I was then led round the outside on to the
roof, that I might look down through the lattice-work of a tower into
the mosque. All, however, was perfectly dark, and I could see nothing.
The locality of the shrines was pointed out to me, which agreed with the
description given by Dean Stanley in the narrative of his visit with the
Prince of Wales.
[Illustration: ARRANGEMENT OF TOMBS IN CAVE OF MACHPELAH.]
It is to Dean Stanley that we are indebted for our knowledge of the
interior. He found the chapels or shrines of the patriarchs and their
wives, arranged in order, over the places where the bodies were said to
lie in the cave beneath. They stand as in the annexed plan.
As we turn away from the secret and mysterious cave, where lie the ashes
of the illustrious dead, under the jealous care of their Arab guardians,
hallowed memories and yet more hallowed hopes suggest themselves. The
hushed silence of well-nigh four thousand years shall one day be broken,
and He, who is “the resurrection and the life,” shall call forth the
sleepers from their resting-place of ages.
“What though the Moslem mosque be in the valley!
Though faithless hands have sealed the sacred cave!
And the red prophet’s children shout ‘El Allah’
Over the Hebrews’ grave!
Yet a day cometh when those white walls shaking
Shall give again to light the living dead;
And Abraham, Isaac, Jacob reawaking
Spring from their rocky bed.”
On the return from Hebron, a slight detour by a road leading through
vineyards brings us to a magnificent tree known as ABRAHAM’S OAK. Here
according to tradition, Abraham sat at the door of his tent, when he
received the visit of the angels.[55] It is a stately Syrian oak, of the
species known to the Arabs as _Sindiân_. Though of great age it is
obviously later than the Christian era. Yet it well deserves a visit,
not only for its great size and beauty, but as the last survivor of the
grove of oaks, which stood here in Patriarchal and Hebrew times. It
measures twenty-three feet round the trunk, and its branches cover an
area in one direction of fifty feet, and of ninety feet in another. Its
situation answers admirably to the biblical description of Mamre, being
“before” or “over against” Machpelah, whilst from the hill above it a
view, already referred to,[56] of the plain of Sodom is gained. Here,
therefore, I should fix the site of Mamre rather than at Rhamet el
Khulil (the Hill of the Friend), which stands some distance to the
north.
[Illustration: ABRAHAM’S OAK NEAR HEBRON.]
[Illustration: Head-Piece—Bethlehem]
BETHLEHEM TO THE DEAD SEA.
IT was a brilliant morning in early spring as we rode along the
hill-side over the Wady Urtas from Solomon’s Pools to BETHLEHEM. The
turf was vividly green, gemmed with innumerable flowers. Orchards of
peach, apricot, and pomegranate with their white and scarlet blossoms,
succeeded one another in an unbroken series along the valley. The
conduit, which conducts the water from Solomon’s Pools to Jerusalem, and
which in ancient times supplied the Temple, was open in various places,
and we could see the crystal stream flash past on its way to “make glad
the city of God.”[57] The Jebel Fureidis, a steep conical mountain,
visible from almost every point in Southern Palestine, formed a striking
object in the landscape. “The little hills rejoice on every side; the
pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with
corn; they shout for joy, they also sing.”[58] Wherever we turn our eyes
the words of the Psalmist are suggested as the aptest description of the
scenery. It was easy to see where the Shepherd of Bethlehem drew the
materials for his poetry.
[Illustration: Initial—The Dead Sea]
Soon Bethlehem[59] comes into view—a white-walled village of about three
thousand inhabitants, all Christians. They are, however, a turbulent,
quarrelsome set, ever fighting amongst themselves or with their
neighbours. In the disturbances which take place so frequently at
Jerusalem, it is said that the ringleaders are commonly found to be
Bethlehemites. The women are remarkable for personal beauty. I saw more
handsome faces here in a few hours than elsewhere in the East in many
days. The dress, which is peculiar, is very becoming. A sort of tiara of
some bright metal encircles the head over which is folded a white cloth
which hangs down upon the shoulders. The men are strong, lithe,
well-built fellows, and I saw several young shepherds, who were models
of manly vigour. Here, as elsewhere in the East, the pastoral pipe is in
constant use. The shepherd-lad makes it for himself, shaping the
mouth-piece out of some hard wood, and using a hollow reed for the pipe.
I cannot say much in praise of the music they produce.
[Illustration: GATE OF BETHLEHEM.]
Bethlehem stands on the crest of a ridge of Jurassic limestone. As it is
surmounted by higher hills, however, the view from it is not very
extensive. Jerusalem, though only six miles distant, is hidden by an
intervening height. But through the valleys stretching away eastward to
the Dead Sea, fine views are gained of the mountains of Moab, and from
the flat roof of the Latin Convent part of the Dead Sea itself is
visible.
[Illustration: WOMEN OF BETHLEHEM.]
Passing over the two disgraceful events connected with Bethlehem, during
the period of anarchy described in the concluding chapters of the Book
of Judges,[60] we come to that exquisite idyll, the beauty of which,
apart from its religious bearing, invests the scene with a charm,
amounting to fascination. Read the history of Ruth on the spot, and
every minutest detail acquires a new interest and meaning. We can trace
the journey of Elimelech and his family, as, driven by stress of famine,
they make their way toward that long line of purple mountains against
the eastern sky—some twenty miles distant. We see the two childless
widows return—Naomi, proud and bitter in her poverty and bereavement,
rejecting the greetings of the townspeople: “Call me not Naomi
(_pleasant_), call me Mara (_bitter_): for the Almighty hath dealt very
bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home
again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified
against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?”[61] We see the young
Moabitess with her strange beauty and gentleness winning all hearts.
Amongst the youths and maidens around us, it is easy to believe that her
descendants are not wanting.
[Illustration: SHEPHERD OF BETHLEHEM.]
[Illustration: EASTERN GLEANERS.]
We may still see the fields of wheat and barley in the valley below us
from which “Boaz went _up_ to the gate.”[62] We may still hear the very
same greeting as when “Boaz said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you,
and they answered him, The Lord bless thee.”[63] We may see the reapers
resting at noonday, sheltered from the fierce heat of the sun by some
spreading tree, dipping their morsel of bread into the vinegar or eating
their parched corn from the ears,[64] the gleaners bearing home the
wheat and barley they have gathered in the coarse cloth which serves the
peasant women for a veil, or beating it out by the roadside that they
may carry it more easily.[65] Yonder are the threshing-floors in the
field where the master will spend the nights of harvest to protect his
produce from robbers.[66] And here is the gate of the city where Boaz
sat with the elders to redeem the possession that was Elimelech’s and
take the beautiful young widow to wife.[67] Well was the nuptial
benediction fulfilled, “The Lord make the woman that is come into thine
house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of
Israel: and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in
Bethlehem.”[68]
Nearly a hundred years must have elapsed before we hear again of
Bethlehem, for the grandson of Boaz and Ruth is now an old man.[69] He
is the father of eight stalwart sons, the youngest of whom keeps his
father’s sheep upon the mountain-side. Though treated as of no account
by the elders of the family,[70] he is yet called David (the darling),
is described as “ruddy, blue-eyed, and beautiful;”[71] he is already
famous as a musician, and has distinguished himself for strength,
courage, wit, and piety.[72] These qualities commend him to the servants
of Saul, and he is chosen to play before the moody king and charm away
his gloom.[73]
The life of a Bethlehemite shepherd was one of no common toil and
danger, and it remains so down to the present day. Hordes of wandering
Bedouin are waiting to swoop down upon the flocks and herds of the
peaceful inhabitants, and need to be watched against with ceaseless
vigilance and repelled with fearless courage. Bears descend from the
neighbouring mountains. Lions have disappeared, but in the days of David
they came up from their lairs in the valley of the Dead Sea, driven
forth by the swelling of the Jordan. The prowess of the shepherd lad had
been tried against these, familiar perils.[74] Yet, modest and pious, as
he was strong and bold, he ascribes his success to the Lord, who taught
his hands to war and his fingers to fight.[75] No wonder that He who
“seeth not as man seeth, for the man looketh on the outward appearance,
but the Lord looketh on the heart,”[76] should have rejected the elder
sons of Jesse and directed his prophet to anoint the youngest as the
future king.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO CAVE OF ADULLAM.]
His chequered fortunes now lead him away from Bethlehem and we hear of
him no more in his actual birth-place. But the cave of Adullam was not
far distant. The limestone rocks of the district abound in caves, many
of them of great size. The one which is said by tradition to have been
the retreat of David and his followers is about five miles from
Bethlehem, near the base of Jebel Fureidis or the Frank Mountain already
spoken of as so striking an object in the landscape. It is approached by
a savage ravine, after which a steep ascent leads upward by a path so
narrow that a handful of brave men might keep a whole army at bay. The
entrance to the cave is by a small opening through which only a single
person can pass at a time. This leads to a series of chambers, some
large enough to hold several hundred men. A perfect labyrinth of
galleries and passages, never fully explored, stretch in every
direction, and are said by the Arabs to go as far as Tekoa. In one of
them is a large cistern, supplied, probably, by filtration through the
rock above. The largest chamber has an arched roof with numerous
recesses in the sides, reminding visitors of a gothic cathedral. Here
David, living in the midst of his own clan, would be promptly warned of
the approach of danger, and could easily receive supplies of food. The
summit of the hill above commands a view of the whole surrounding
district, so that the movements of his enemies could be watched in every
direction. His familiarity with the wild glens and strongholds of the
district, gained whilst keeping his father’s sheep, would prove an
immense advantage in flying from his pursuers. And the proximity to Moab
secured for him a safe retreat if hard pressed. In Moab, too, he found
friends and relatives, in virtue of his descent from “Ruth the
Moabitess,” to whom he committed his parents when they were exposed to
danger from the vindictive fury of Saul.[77] The phrase that “his
brethren and all his father’s house went _down_ thither unto him,”[78]
which at first suggests a difficulty, from the fact that the cave is
high up on the mountain-side, finds an easy explanation as we observe
that from Bethlehem they must first descend into the Wady Urtas and wind
along down the ravine. In the references to this cave, as everywhere in
Scripture, the narrative is in such exact and minute agreement with the
topography of the district that it could only have been written by an
eye-witness.
[Illustration: CAVE OF ADULLAM.]
It was whilst hiding here with his wild and outlawed followers that the
touching incident occurred of his longing for the “water of the well of
Bethlehem, that is at the gate.”[79] The worn and weary fugitive who
compares himself to “a partridge hunted upon the mountains,”[80] goes
back to the peaceful happy days of his shepherd life. He remembers the
time when, leading his flocks homeward in the evening after a day of
sultry heat on the mountain-side, he had quenched his thirst at the
familiar well, just as we had seen the shepherds doing on the same spot.
Were ever days so happy! Was ever water so sweet! The “three mighty
ones,” eager to gratify the faintest wish of their beloved chief, break
through the beleaguering host of the Philistines, draw the water from
the well, and return. The hero, reproaching himself for his selfish
wish, that had “put in jeopardy the lives of these men,” refuses to
drink thereof, and pours it out for “a drink-offering to the Lord.”
Only once again does the name of Bethlehem occur in Old Testament
history. The reference, though slight and incidental, has an important
bearing on the site of the Nativity. When David was flying from his
rebellious son Absalom into the region beyond the Jordan, amongst those
who showed kindness to the “dim discrowned king” was Barzillai the
Gileadite.[81] When the rebellion had been crushed, and the king was
about to return to his own land, Barzillai accompanied him across the
Jordan. The grateful monarch invited the old man to go up with him to
Jerusalem as his guest. Barzillai declined the honour, pleading his
advanced age, his growing weakness, his failing sight, saying, “How long
have I to live, that I should go up with the king unto Jerusalem? I am
this day fourscore years old: and can I discern between good and evil?
Can thy servant taste what I eat or what I drink? Can I hear any more
the voice of singing men and singing women? Wherefore then should thy
servant be yet a burden unto my lord the king? Thy servant will go a
little way over Jordan with the king: and why should the king recompense
it me with such a reward? Let thy servant, I pray thee, turn back again,
that I may die in mine own city, and be buried by the grave of my father
and of my mother.”
[Illustration: BETHLEHEM FROM THE SHEPHERDS’ FIELD.]
But the honour which he declines for himself he solicits on behalf of
his son Chimham, who accompanied David on his return to Jerusalem.[82]
Chimham seems to have been treated with peculiar favour, and adopted
into the family of the king; for David, on his death-bed, specially
commended him to the care of Solomon, and requested that he be of “those
that eat at his table.”[83] We find further that he came into possession
of property in or near Bethlehem,[84] which he transmitted to his
descendants, for in the prophecies of Jeremiah “the habitation of
Chimham which is by Bethlehem” is spoken of as a place familiarly known.
That this formed part of the patrimony of David, given to him as an
adopted son, is highly probable, for in no other way can we understand a
Gileadite permanently owning land at Bethlehem.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF KHAN.]
But the word, translated “house” in Jeremiah, where the Jews assembled
on their way down into Egypt, means a khan or caravanserai. Elsewhere,
it is translated “inn.” What then are we to understand by the khan of
Chimham? It is, and always has been, the custom throughout the East for
places to be provided for travellers—one in each village—where they
might halt for the night. They are generally at distances of six or
seven miles, so as to allow of an easy day’s march from one to another.
Bethlehem thus formed the first stage from Jerusalem, on the way to
Egypt. The duty and honour of providing and maintaining these khans
devolved upon the sheikh or head man of the village, who was empowered
to levy a tax upon the villagers for their support. Sometimes only a
space of ground was staked out and fenced with thorns, so as to furnish
protection against thieves and wild beasts. But often a wealthy sheikh
would erect a substantial edifice, either defraying the cost himself or
seeking aid in the work from the inhabitants. It seems almost certain,
therefore, that Chimham either became Sheikh of Bethlehem, or else that,
out of gratitude to his benefactor, he built a khan on a portion of the
land he received from the king. Of these, the former is the more
probable, and more in accordance with the custom of the country. One
thing, however, seems clear, that long after the time of David, “the
inn” at Bethlehem was well known as the khan of Chimham, and that it
stood on land which had descended by inheritance from Boaz to Jesse, to
David, and to David’s adopted son.[85] Here was to be fulfilled the
prophecy of Micah, “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little
among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto
Me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of
old, from everlasting.”[86]
We thus come to that event, the glory of which transcends every other
which has yet passed under our review. Here the Eternal God veiled yet
manifested Himself in human form. The King of Glory is found “as a babe
wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.” Omnipotence slumbered
within an infant’s arm. Omniscience lay concealed beneath an infant’s
brow. In the plain below us, the shepherds were keeping their flocks by
night, when they heard the angelic anthem, “Glory to God in the highest,
peace on earth, good will to men.” Up that steep rocky path they came to
see this great sight. Over that mountain-side the Wise Men brought their
gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh to pay homage to “the Desire of
all nations.” As we stand in the rock-hewn Chapel of the Nativity gazing
upon the silver star on the floor, and read the words HIC DE VIRGINE
MARIA JESUS CHRISTUS NATUS EST, even the most cold and apathetic can
scarcely refrain from tears.
But is this the actual spot? Do we really stand on the very place where
the Virgin “brought forth her first-born son and called His name Jesus”?
There is everything in the surroundings of the place to awaken
scepticism. This series of tawdrily decked chapels in which all the
great events which have happened in Bethlehem are huddled together
within one building almost compel incredulity. Here, for instance, is
the altar of the Holy Innocents, and we are asked to believe that the
remains of twenty thousand infants, slain by Herod, lie buried close by
the place of the nativity, and we are shown the preserved tongue of one
of them! However willing we may be to accept the tradition, as to the
site, we find it difficult to do so when it is mixed up with such
preposterous legends as these.
And yet the evidence for its authenticity is strong, though not quite
conclusive. The church stands upon a spot, just outside the village,
which the inn or khan is very likely to have occupied. The “house of
Chimham by Bethlehem” was well known to the Jews, as we have seen, and
when the khan of a village has been once established it is seldom that
its site is changed. It continues to occupy the same spot from age to
age. We know that so early as the second century, Justin described our
Lord’s birth-place as “a cave near Bethlehem.” And Jerome himself, a
native of Syria and familiar with the customs and traditions of the
country, took up his abode in an adjacent cave, that he might be near
his Lord’s birth-place. The fact that the Chapel of the Nativity is a
grotto, though calculated to excite suspicion, is not of itself fatal.
It is by no means improbable that a cave contiguous to the inn might
have served the purpose of a stable. It should further be remembered
that the church may stand upon the site of the inn even though the
Chapel of the Nativity has been placed in a cave in accordance with an
erroneous and misleading superstition. Dean Stanley, summing up the
evidence for and against the authenticity of the site, concludes with
the remark, “There remains the remarkable fact that the spot was
reverenced by Christians as the birth-place of Christ two centuries
before the conversion of the empire—before that burst of local religion
which is commonly ascribed to the visit of Helena.”
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY.]
Whilst feeling that the balance of probability is in favour of the
authenticity of the site, there was one consideration which made me wish
to come to a different conclusion. The degrading superstition and the
disgraceful discord which prevail here are a scandal to the birth-place
of Christianity. Anything more alien to the spirit of the Prince of
Peace can scarcely be conceived than the bitter hostility which rages
amongst the three confessions—Latin, Greek, and Armenian—which share the
sacred shrine. The church—a noble edifice, with stately columns,
probably brought from the Temple at Jerusalem—is no longer used for
worship. It is held by a garrison of Turkish soldiers stationed to
prevent bloodshed amongst the monks and the pilgrims. Passing along the
subterranean gallery, through the long series of gaudy chapels, acts of
idolatry are witnessed the grossness of which recalls the fetish worship
of Africa. Even a coldly scientific geographer like Ritter cannot
refrain from exclaiming, “Bethlehem has thus become a sacred name and a
sacred place, although it is so poor and mean and unimportant; but
unfortunately, to many who visit it, its higher significance is lost:
they kiss the wood of the manger, but it is mere dry wood to them—they
miss the living spirit which once began that earthly career there which
had been prepared for it from before the foundation of the world.”[87]
[Illustration: THE CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY.]
Leaving Bethlehem on the east, the road winds down a rocky slope, past
fields of wheat and barley and terraced vineyards. Innumerable sheep and
goats are seen on the hills around as in the days of Boaz and David. At
the foot a level plain is reached, affording good pasturage, and dotted
over with clumps of olive trees. This is called the Shepherds’ Field,
from the tradition that here they were keeping their flocks by night
when the angels appeared to them. Soon the scenery becomes wild and
desolate. In no part of the world have I seen anything with which to
compare it. If the chalk-downs of the South of England were denuded of
grass, were heaved up and tossed about in the throes of an earthquake,
and the sides of the hills thus formed were cut into ravines by the fury
of winter torrents, it would afford some illustration of the weird
desolation of this Wilderness of Judea. The gorge of the Kedron runs
steeply down from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, a descent of nearly four
thousand feet. The wadies which seam the mountain-sides are dry in the
summer, but in the winter form the beds of roaring torrents. Now and
then a glimpse of the Dead Sea is gained—the deep blue of its waters
gaining an additional intensity from the red or purple of the mountains
of Moab, which form the background of the landscape. The black tents of
the Bedouin, their flocks and herds feeding on the mountain-sides, an
Arab horseman, or a string of camels with their noiseless tread, are the
only signs of life in this region of sterility.
In about three hours from Bethlehem, the CONVENT OF MAR SABA is reached.
It stands on the edge of the gorge of the Kedron, here from a thousand
to twelve hundred feet deep, the rocky sides of which are almost
precipitous, and at the bottom of the ravine are only a few yards apart.
Looked at from beneath, parts of the building are seen to be literally
clamped to the perpendicular walls of rock, and hang perilously over the
abyss. Other portions of the edifice are constructed in chambers cut out
of the mountain-side. The labyrinth of caves, chambers, and passages is
most bewildering. Only an inmate of the convent can find his way from
one part to another. What may be called the land side of the monastery
is enclosed by a high wall of great thickness. The only entrance is by a
massive gate, through which no one is admitted unless vouched for by the
Greek patriarch at Jerusalem. Bedouin and women are not admitted at all.
The former for the obvious reason that on several occasions, having
forced their way in, they massacred all the inmates. Ladies are
excluded, because, as Miss Martineau bitterly expresses it, “the monks
are too holy to be hospitable.” The rule of the monastery is very rigid.
The monks never eat meat, and subject themselves to severe austerities.
Though there is a valuable library, it seems to be entirely unused;
indeed, a majority of the ascetics are unable to read, and their only
recreation consists in drinking _raki_, and in feeding the birds and
Jackals, which are very numerous.
[Illustration: CONVENT OF MAR SABA.]
Only once, when I crossed the _Mer de Glace_ at midnight, have I seen
anything to compare with the wild, unearthly impressiveness of one view
of this famous monastery. We had encamped at nightfall about a couple of
miles above Mar Saba. The stars were shining with extraordinary
brilliancy in a cloudless sky, and the moon was just coming above the
horizon. I suggested an excursion along the bottom of the ravine, so as
to see the convent from beneath. On proposing this to the Sheikh, he of
course declared that it was impossible, no one had ever done it—there
was no road—he would not answer for our heads if we attempted it, with
much more to the same purpose. But finding us determined to make a
start, and that there was a prospect of backshish, he withdrew his
objections and despatched a party of Bedouin as guides and escort. The
bottom of the gorge was in almost total darkness, but we could see the
jagged peaks overhead, silvered with the moonlight. Stumbling along the
bed of the Kedron, now perfectly dry, winding in and out amongst huge
boulders, scrambling over masses of rock which blocked up the narrow
passage, we made our way down the valley. No sound was heard, save our
own footsteps and the howling of jackals. Every now and then, emerging
silently as a ghost from behind a projecting crag or from the mouth of a
cave, a Bedouin, armed with his long gun, would step forward, speak a
few words to our escort, and then silently disappear. At length we
reached a point immediately beneath the convent. The moon had now risen
high enough to pour a flood of intense white light upon it whilst we
were still wrapped in gloom. It seemed to be detached from earth, and to
hang suspended in the heavens. The solitary palm tree, said to have been
planted by St. Saba himself, stood out clear and distinct, every frond
relieved against the deep blue of the sky behind it. Even our Bedouin
escort, usually so insensible to natural scenery, seemed awed and
impressed by the wild weird grandeur of the view.
The Valley of Kidron begins its course on the east side of the Temple at
Jerusalem, and runs down to the Dead Sea, through a barren, arid,
waterless waste. It is thus the probable scene of the prophetic vision
in which Ezekiel beholds the glory of “the latter days,” when waters,
issuing from beneath the altar, shall flow eastward in an ever deepening
stream, bringing with them fertility and beauty wherever they come.
“Very many trees” are seen to spring up along its banks on either side.
Reaching the bitter, stagnant, poisonous waters of the Dead Sea, its
desolate solitudes become the haunts of busy life. Fishers spread their
nets from En-Eglaim to En-Engedi, for the fish have become as “the fish
of the great sea, exceeding many.” “And by the river upon the bank
thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat,
whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed:
it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their
waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be
for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.”[88] Reading such promises
of future blessings amid these desolate and sterile regions, we are
impressively reminded that when “the spirit be poured upon us from on
high, the wilderness shall be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field
be accounted for a forest, ... and the work of righteousness shall be
peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for
ever.”[89]
[Illustration: THE WILDERNESS OF JUDÆA.]
The strange unique conformation of the country which we noticed as we
approached Mar Saba becomes even more extraordinary as we continue our
journey eastward. The soil consists of a soft chalk or white marl,
furrowed in every direction by a labyrinth of valleys and pits from
fifty to a hundred feet deep, cut, ages ago, by torrents long since
dried up, leaving fantastic flat-topped mounds of every conceivable
shape, which Maundrell aptly compares to gigantic lime kilns.
[Illustration: NORTHERN SHORE OF THE DEAD SEA.]
In a little more than three hours we find ourselves descending into the
VALLEY OF THE JORDAN and the DEAD SEA. Reaching the plain, we ride
through an extensive cane brake where the reeds are higher than our
heads, and which is the haunt of wild boars, wolves, jackals, and
leopards, and from which lions were driven out “from the swelling of
Jordan.”[90]
From this point all vegetation ceases, for the bitter, acrid waters are
fatal alike to animal and vegetable life. Even sea-fish turned into the
lake die immediately.[91] The beach is strewn with trunks of trees,
bones of animals, and shells of fish brought down by the Jordan or by
the winter torrents which come from the mountain-sides. After tossing,
perhaps for centuries, in the bitter brine, they are cast ashore so
saturated with salt that the wood will scarcely ignite, and if it burn
at all, only gives a feeble blue flame. Those gaunt skeletons of ancient
trees are all the more ghastly from the fact that they are covered by a
saline deposit of which the fine glittering crystals are found
efflorescing all along the beach. It is caused by the evaporation either
of the receding waters after the winter floods, or of the spray which is
flung ashore by the winds, which rush with extraordinary violence
between the rocky walls which hem in the valley.
[Illustration: SOUTHERN SHORE OF THE DEAD SEA. EXPLORING PARTY OF LIEUT.
LYNCH.]
Whilst the northern shore is thus a flat desolate waste, the view down
the sea, looking southward, is not wanting in a solemn grandeur and
beauty. The water, clear as crystal, is of a deep blue, almost purple;
its waves are crested with foam of a dazzling whiteness. Along the
eastern shore the mountains of Moab stand like a mighty wall, the ridges
and precipices of which slope down “in wild confusion to the shore,
terminating in a series of perpendicular cliffs, from twelve hundred to
two thousand feet above the water.” Though their outline is somewhat
monotonous and unbroken, their marvellous colouring, which varies from a
delicate pink to a rich crimson, invests them with a magical beauty.
Seen, especially in the morning or the evening light, their tints are
quite unearthly. The mountains of the western side, though lower than
those of the eastern, seldom rising above fifteen hundred feet, are more
irregular and broken, at least as seen from the northern end, and assume
forms of striking grandeur. The most characteristic feature of the
southern shore is a vast ridge of fossil salt, called Jebel Usdum, which
is cut into ravines and hollows by the action of winter torrents. Canon
Tristram describes many of these in terms which recall the glacier caves
of the Alps. The light gleaming through the roof produces an exquisite
play of colour—green and blue and white of various shades. Columns of
rock salt are constantly left standing, detached from the general mass.
Travellers—forgetful of the fact that these isolated fragments are but
of short duration, and are, in the course of a few years, washed away by
the same agency which produced them—have often identified one or another
with the pillar of salt referred to in Genesis xix. 26. Sulphur and
bitumen, which are found throughout the whole region, are very abundant,
and traces of ancient igneous action are more obvious here than
elsewhere.
[Illustration: THE DEAD SEA.]
[Illustration: APPROACH TO ENGEDI.]
Whilst the general character of the scenery is one of sterility and
desolation, some of the wadies which run down to the sea are oases of
the utmost fertility and beauty. Chief among these is that of Engedi or
the Kid’s fountain. It runs out on the western side of the sea in the
direction of Hebron. Fertilised by a rill of pure water, and having an
almost tropical temperature, it forms a perfect garden. Even the Arabs,
who are usually so insensible to natural beauty, speak of it with
enthusiasm. My servant Mohammed, on one occasion gathered twenty-five
different varieties of flowers in a few minutes. Solomon sums up his
description of the charms of the Shunammitess by saying, “My beloved is
unto me as a cluster of camphire on the vineyards of Engedi.”[92] The
vineyards, the palms and the balsam trees, which once abounded here,
have disappeared, but traces of ancient cultivation remain to show what
once it was and might be yet again.
Under its original name of Hazezon-Tamar (the pruning of the palm
trees), it was the scene of the first pitched battle in an organized
campaign which history records.[93] Here, and in the adjoining Vale of
Siddim, Chedorlaomer defeated his rebellous tributaries, the kings of
Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Zoar, carrying away Lot and his
family amongst the captives.
Here amongst cliffs and precipices dwelt the Kenites when Balaam,
looking across the valley from a height on the opposite side, uttered
his impassioned prophecy, and said:
“Strong is thy dwellingplace
And thou puttest thy nest in a rock.
Nevertheless the Kenite shall be wasted,
Until Asshur shall carry thee away captive.”[94]
Here, too, David retired when hard pressed by Saul. He had to leave the
neighbourhood of Ziph and Maon, just as many an Arab sheikh is
accustomed to do at the present day, to escape from the tyranny, or the
justice, of the government. In these inaccessible fastnesses he was safe
from pursuit, almost from discovery. Behind him was the wilderness of
Judea. Before him were the mountains of Moab in case further retreat
should seem expedient. And here it was that heroic chief mercifully
spared the life of his pitiless foe when the “Lord had delivered him
into his hand.”[95]
In more modern times the shores of the Dead Sea have been associated
with two tragic events which add to the gloomy memories which enshroud
it. Among the mountains on the eastern side, looking down upon the gorge
of the Callirhoe, is Makaur, the ancient Machærus, in which John the
Baptist took his place among “the noble army of martyrs.” Dr. Tristram,
the first European known to have visited it since the time of the
Romans, says that he found amongst the ruins “two dungeons, one of them
very deep, and its sides scarcely broken in. That these were dungeons,
not cisterns, is evident from there being no traces of cement, which
never perishes from the walls of ancient reservoirs, and from the small
holes, still visible in the masonry, where staples of wood and iron had
once been fixed. One of these must surely have been the prison-house of
John the Baptist.” On the western shore stood Masada, the
palace-fortress of Herod, in which was enacted the last awful tragedy in
the Jewish war of independence. Jerusalem had fallen. One fortress after
another had surrendered to the Romans. This impregnable stronghold alone
remained, held by a band of men who, with the courage of despair,
determined to die rather than to yield. The fatal moment at length
arrived at which further resistance was impossible. Eleazar, son of
Judas the Galilean, called the garrison together and urged upon them
that death was to be preferred to dishonour. Each man thereupon stabbed
his wife and children to the heart, and lying down beside those whom he
loved, bared his neck to the ten who were chosen by lot to consummate
the slaughter. One of these last survivors then slew the other nine and,
having set fire to the building, stabbed himself. When the Romans
entered the breach on the morning of Easter Day A.D. 73, they found
nothing but corpses and smouldering ruins. Two women and five children,
who had hidden themselves in the vaults, alone survived to tell the
tale, nearly a thousand persons having perished.
[Illustration: MAKAUR, THE SITE OF ANCIENT MACHÆRUS.]
But all other historical associations with this district shrink into
insignificance in comparison with that fearful catastrophe, when the
Lord overwhelmed and destroyed the guilty cities with fire from heaven.
When “Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that
it was well watered everywhere, even as the garden of the Lord,”[96] he
not only failed to take account of the licentiousness and “filthy
conversation of the wicked,”[97] choosing temporal wealth at the peril
of his soul’s welfare; but he knew not or cared not that the soil was
one vast arsenal filled with instruments of destruction. The cities
rested upon a bed of sulphur and bitumen. They were built and cemented
from “the slime-pits of Siddim.”[98] When the longsuffering of God was
exhausted and “the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah was very great and their
sin very grievous,” the hour of judgment came. The destruction may have
been altogether miraculous. Or it may have been brought about by miracle
working through natural agencies. The whole region is volcanic.
Lightnings flashing from heaven, and the bursting forth of the
subterranean fires, may have turned the whole plain into “a burning
fiery furnace,” in which not the cities only but the very soil on which
they stood were turned into one vast sea of flame. Imagination shudders
at the awful spectacle when “the smoke of the country went up like the
smoke of a furnace.”
[Illustration: THE DEAD SEA NEAR MASADA.]
The exact site of the cities thus destroyed cannot be decided with
certainty. It has been commonly supposed that the Dead Sea covers the
spot upon which they stood. Of this, however, we have no evidence in
Scripture, and an examination of the geology of the district shows that
it is impossible. Those who would locate them on the plain to the south
of the Sea, urge in proof of their view an early and continuous
tradition to this effect, the presence of a vast mountain of rock-salt
which breaks up into isolated columns, the most remarkable of which has
been called Lot’s wife, and the similarity of names, Usdum being
identified with Sodom, Amrah with Gomorrah, and Zuweirah with Zoar. But
the biblical narrative rather points to the conclusion that they stood
on or near the northern shore where the “well-watered plain” of the
Jordan, even to this day, attracts by its extraordinary fertility.[99]
[Illustration: MAP OF THE DEAD SEA. SOUNDINGS IN FATHOMS.]
It is only within the present generation that the physical conditions of
the Dead Sea have been subjected to scientific investigation. Dean
Stanley truly says, “Viewed merely in a scientific point of view, it is
one of the most remarkable spots of the world.” At some remote period
beyond the range of history or tradition, the Jordan seems to have
flowed onward over what is now the elevated valley of Arabah into the
Red Sea. By geological action, the nature of which cannot as yet be
ascertained, the whole Jordan valley has sunk, so that the Sea of
Galilee is probably six hundred feet, and the Dead Sea about thirteen
hundred feet, below the level of the Mediterranean—a phenomenon without
parallel on the earth’s surface. The sea itself is divided into two
unequal parts by a projecting tongue of land, called by the Arabs _El
Lisan_ (the tongue). The northern portion is very deep; the greatest
depth being given by Lieutenant Lynch at thirteen hundred and eight
feet. Its bed, therefore, at this point would be twenty-six hundred feet
below the level of the sea. The southern portion is much shallower,
nowhere exceeding two fathoms. The depth, however, varies with the
seasons. The total superficial area is about two hundred and fifty
miles, which is nearly that of the Lake of Geneva. Its excessive density
and saltness have been already referred to. Analysis gives the following
results:
Chloride of Magnesium 145·8971
„ Calcium 31·0746
„ Sodium (common salt) 78·5537
„ Potassium 6·5860
Bromide of Potassium 1·3741
Sulphate of Lime 0·7012
---------
264·1867
Water 735·8133
---------
1000
It will thus be seen that one fourth part of the waters of the Dead Sea
consists of various salts.[100] Hence its nauseous, bitter taste and its
extraordinary density. My own experience was that I could not sink,
however much I tried, and after bathing I found an acrid slime left upon
the skin from which I could not rid myself for two or three days.
[Illustration: THE WELL OF BETHLEHEM.]
[Illustration: Head-Piece—Arabs of the Plain]
JERICHO AND THE JORDAN TO JERUSALEM.
LEAVING the sterile desolate shores of the Dead Sea, we ride in a
north-westerly direction over a plain encrusted with salt and sulphur,
through a morass overgrown by a jungle of reeds and rushes, and then
enter upon the plain of the Jordan. The soil is cumbered with clumps of
_nubk_, its thorns sharp as prongs of steel, and thickets of _Zizyphus
Spina Christi_, from which tradition says that the crown of thorns was
made. The _osher_ or apple of Sodom, its flowers resembling those of the
potato, its fruit green or yellow, attracts the eye by its deceitful
beauty. Innumerable pools and rills of water, fed by the perennial
fountains which spring up near the site of the ancient Jericho, nourish
this rank and unprofitable vegetation. The climate is semitropical, in
consequence of the deep depression of this part of the Jordan valley
below the sea level. “Well watered” and with such a climate, the
district once was and might still be, an Eden of fertility and
beauty.[101] Now its only settled inhabitants are a few wild and
lawless, squalid and poverty-stricken Arabs.
[Illustration: ER RIHA, NEAR JERICHO.]
Turning eastward, we soon reach the FORDS OF THE JORDAN, the traditional
site of our Lord’s baptism and the present bathing place of the
pilgrims. The river comes down from the Sea of Galilee in a turbid
impetuous stream. It has cut its channel so deeply in the marly soil,
that throughout the greater part of its course it is hidden from view.
From any elevated point, however, it is easy to trace its course, from
the fringe of bright green which marks it. Innumerable willows,
oleanders, and tamarisks grow upon its banks and overhang the river-bed.
Hence the incident recorded of the sons of the prophets, who, in the
days of Elisha, went down to the Jordan to cut timber, one of whom let
the head of a borrowed axe fall into the river.[102]
[Illustration: PLAIN OF THE JORDAN NEAR JERICHO.]
As we contrast this muddy, turbulent torrent, rushing unprofitably along
its deep cut channel, with the clear bright waters of Damascus, which
spread fertility and prosperity wherever they come, it is easy to
understand the scornful words of Naaman the Syrian: “Are not Abana and
Pharpar rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?... So
he turned and went away in a rage.”[103]
[Illustration: ARABS IN PLAIN OF JERICHO.]
Like the Dead Sea, the physical phenomena of the Jordan are absolutely
unique. Emerging from the Sea of Galilee at a probable depression of six
hundred feet below the level of the Mediterranean, it rushes along a
narrow fissure of sixty miles in length; but doubling and winding as it
goes, its actual course is two hundred miles. Starting from so low a
level, its current might be expected to be slow and torpid. So far from
this, it plunges over a series of rapids,[104] and finally loses itself
in the Dead Sea, to emerge no more, at a depth of thirteen hundred feet
below the level of the Mediterranean. No river famous in history is so
unproductive and useless. Like the Upper Rhone, its rapid torrent and
its sudden violent floods,[105] make it an object rather of dread than
delight to the dwellers on its banks. Yet, even in these physical
characteristics, we can see its admirable adaptation to the divine
purpose. The Israelites were to be cut off from intercourse with the
licentious idolaters on the east bank of the Dead Sea. A river easily
crossed, with numerous fords and bridges, would have failed to answer
this purpose. But the Jordan, though only from twenty to thirty yards
wide, offered an almost insuperable barrier to intimate association, the
fords being few and dangerous, and the floods rendering bridges almost
impossible.
[Illustration: BANKS OF THE JORDAN.]
[Illustration:
THE JORDAN,
FROM THE SEA OF GALILEE TO THE DEAD SEA.
]
Crossing the plain in a westerly direction, we reach, in about an hour,
a wretched village of mud huts, dominated by a single ruinous tower. Its
modern name is Er Riha. Near it was the site of the ancient GILGAL. Here
the column of stones, taken from the bed of the Jordan, was piled; here
the first camp in the promised land was pitched; here the covenant with
God was renewed by the celebration of the passover and the circumcision
of the people; here “the manna ceased” and “they did eat of the old corn
of the land, unleavened cakes and parched corn on the selfsame day;” and
here it was that “the Captain of the Lord’s host,” with “a sword drawn
in his hand,” appeared to Joshua to encourage him in the conflicts which
yet awaited him.[106] It is not to be wondered at that something of
sanctity should attach to a spot hallowed with such memories and
associations as these. Hence we find that the Tabernacle remained at
Gilgal during the stormy period which followed till it was removed to
its resting-place in Shiloh.[107] And in after ages the people still
assembled to offer sacrifices on the spot so memorable in their
history.[108] As this was in a certain sense the cradle, if not the
birth-place, of the national existence, we find that it was at Gilgal
that Saul was made king,[109] and that the men of Judah assembled to
reinstate David upon the throne on his return from exile.[110] From the
residence of Elijah and Elisha in Gilgal, and from the events which are
recorded to have happened there, it is clear that a school of the
prophets continued to exist on the site of the ancient sanctuary down to
a late period of the monarchy.[111]
The sad tendency to apostacy and idolatry which cast so deep a shadow
over the history of the Jews, was specially manifest on this sacred
spot, for we find Hosea and Amos singling out Gilgal for special censure
and denunciation,[112] teaching that no sanctity of place, no hallowed
memories, no outward influences, can avail to check the corruptions of
“an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.”[113]
[Illustration: SITE OF ANCIENT JERICHO, WITH MONS QUARANTANIA.]
About half an hour after leaving Er Riha, we reach some mounds of
crumbling debris at the foot of a range of barren precipitous mountains,
which form the western boundary of the Jordan valley. It is the site of
JERICHO. The soil around it is fertile as ever. Its fountains still pour
forth streams over the “well watered” plain. Nowhere has the primæval
curse fallen more lightly. With the slightest effort on the part of man,
the whole region would become a garden. But alas! it is a desolate
waste. The Bedouin lead their flocks across the plain as did the
patriarchs of old. But there is no other sign of human life. The groves
of palm trees which once stretched for miles around the city and gave it
its name,[114] have disappeared. One solitary survivor lingered up to
the year 1835, but this, too, has now perished. Nothing is left to break
the depressing sense of solitude and desolation. The curse pronounced
upon the doomed city still seems to linger amongst its ruins: “Cursed be
the man before the Lord, that riseth up and buildeth this city of
Jericho: he shall lay the foundation thereof in his first-born, and in
his youngest son shall he set up the gates thereof.”[115]
Standing upon the mounds which mark the site of the ancient city, and
looking eastward, we have immediately behind us the range of mountains
and table-land, which stretching westward, as far as the plains of
Sharon, formed the territory of Judah and Benjamin. Before us is the
plain of the Jordan here at its widest. The long wall-like chain of the
mountains of Moab bounds the view on the east. Numerous ravines, each of
which is memorable in the wars of the Israelites, intersect the range.
The vast plains which stretch northward and eastward afford splendid
grazing ground, now as of yore, when the flocks and herds of the
Midianites wandered over them, when “Gilead was a place for cattle” and
the “oaks,” “the rams,” and “the bulls of Bashan” were symbols of
agricultural and pastoral wealth.[116]
Looking across the valley, attention is arrested by the numerous conical
hills rising from the flat table-land which is supported by the mountain
chain. Many of these attain considerable height, not only from the plain
below, but from the plateau on which they rest. Of these, one holds a
conspicuous place in early Hebrew history. Balak, king of Moab, alarmed
at the rapid and irresistible progress of the children of Israel, and
despairing of checking their advance, sends across the Euphrates to
bring thence the seer whose incantations may seduce or overcome the
mighty God who had given them the victory. He knew not that—
“God is not a man that He should lie;
Neither the son of man that He should repent:
Hath He said, and shall He not do it?
Or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good ...
Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob,
Neither is there any divination against Israel.”
He had brought the seer to the top of Pisgah, whence he might command a
view of the encampment of Israel in the plain below and of the whole
promised land. Vain are all sacrificial rites, all magical arts, all
offers of wealth and power. He who was brought to curse can only bless,
“And Balaam rose up and went to his place: and Balak also went his
way.”[117]
Yet again we find Israel encamped in the plains of Moab, on the eastern
bank of the Jordan. Their forty years’ wanderings are ended. They are
now to go in and possess the good land. But their heroic leader is not
to go before them. Though “a hundred and twenty years old, his eye was
not dim, nor his natural force abated.”[118] He might, therefore, have
looked forward to a further period of active service; at least he might
have hoped to reap with his own hand the harvest for which he had toiled
and waited so many weary years. But it was not to be. He must climb “the
mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against
Jericho”—the very height upon which Balaam had stood. There “the Lord
showed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan, and all Naphtali, and the
land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost
sea, and the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of
palm trees, unto Zoar.”[119] Ignorance of the topography of Palestine
has led many to conclude that this extended vision was physically
impossible, to be accounted for only by miracle; or by the deniers of
miracles, to be rejected as mythical and legendary. So far is this from
being the case, that modern travellers, who have been permitted to
“Stand where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o’er,”
have described the scene in words which only fill up the outline of the
inspired narrative. The whole extent of Palestine lies stretched out
like a map from the snowy summit of Hermon on the north, to the
Mediterranean on the west, and the granite peaks of Arabia on the south.
Innumerable legends have gathered about the death of Moses on Nebo. The
Talmud abounds with them. Josephus rises to true pathos and poetry as he
describes its traditionary incidents. The Mohammedans have wild weird
myths of the war which raged amongst the spirits of good and evil around
his dying form, and they perform pilgrimages to his legendary tomb on
the mountain just above Jericho. All we know is that “Moses the servant
of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the
Lord. And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against
Beth-peor; but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.”[120] Even
in Palestine itself there are few spots upon which the eye rests with a
deeper sense of awe, and mystery, and reverential wonder than as we look
across the Ghor of the Jordan and gaze upon this peak, glowing in the
light of the setting sun, where the prophet of the Lord breathed his
last earthly sigh, and awoke in the presence of his God.
As soon as the days of mourning for their great leader had been
accomplished, his chivalrous successor set the host in motion. Passing,
probably, down the Wady Hesban, they encamped in the valley of the
Jordan. To cross the river in the presence of their enemies would at any
time have been a difficult and dangerous operation. The fords were few,
the river rapid, the banks steep. And Jordan was now in flood. It had
filled up its banks and was absolutely impassable. Confiding, however,
in divine aid, the signal to advance is given. The priests march first,
bearing with them the ark. A mile in their rear are the tribes of
Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh fully armed, so as to resist
any attack made upon them by their foes.[121] No sooner had the feet of
the priests touched the brimming waters of the river, than the stream
ceased to flow downward, being cut off at a point nearly thirty miles
above, at the city of Zaretan, leaving the bed dry till the whole people
had passed safely over. We are told, respecting the similar miracle of
the crossing of the Red Sea, that “the Lord caused the sea to go back by
a strong east wind all that night.”[122] The enquiry suggests itself
whether any natural agency, working under the control of a divine power
can be suggested to account for this drying up of the Jordan. It has
been already remarked that the whole region is volcanic and subject to
earthquakes. It is, therefore, a possible conjecture that such a
convulsion of nature may have occurred at this critical moment, so that
for a time the bed of the Jordan was laid bare “from the city of Adam,
that is beside Zaretan.”[123] We need not, however, feel any anxiety to
explain these divine interpositions by the action of natural laws. He
who instituted the laws of nature and uses them for His purposes as He
pleases, can, when it seems good to Him, dispense with them altogether.
The fact of the miracle is certain, account for it how we please: “this
is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.”
The siege of Jericho speedily followed. The same divine power which
dried up the bed of the river (perhaps working through the same natural
agency) caused the walls of the city to “fall down after they were
compassed about seven days;” and Rahab, who had “received the spies with
peace,” was spared to be enrolled amongst the chosen people, and even in
the ancestry of our Lord, as the reward of her faith.[124]
Whilst still encamped near Jericho, Joshua undertook two important
military exploits. One has been already described—the relief of the city
of Gibeon and the defeat of the Amorites in the valley of Ajalon. The
other has yet to be spoken of. In the mountain range which rises
immediately to the west of the Jordan valley, are several passes which
run up into the interior of the country. At the head of one of these
stood the city of Ai, near to Bethel. It was an important stronghold,
and its acquisition by the Israelites would secure them a firm and
commanding position in central Palestine. A small detachment of men was
therefore ordered to advance up the pass and attack the city, whilst the
main body remained at Jericho. They were, however, defeated with great
slaughter by the men of Ai and had to retreat down the steep defile. The
sin of Achan having been detected and punished, a new assault was
ordered by divine command, which proved successful.[125] The acquisition
of this almost impregnable post made Joshua master of the whole of
Southern Palestine, to the subjugation of which he could now proceed at
leisure.
It was along the same pass that, in after years, Elijah and Elisha went
up from Gilgal to Bethel and again returned to Jericho. Then crossing
the plain, they proceeded to the Jordan, whilst “fifty men of the sons
of the prophets” climbed the mountains in the rear, which command a view
of the whole region, and “stood to view afar off.” At the place where
the children of Israel had crossed the river under Joshua, the prophet
took off his mantle, and smiting the waters they again parted, so that
“they two went over on dry ground.” Here, perhaps, on the very spot
where Moses had died and was buried, Elijah “went up by a whirlwind to
heaven.” The two, who were thus mysteriously associated in their
departure from earth, were to return to it together, and on the Mount of
Transfiguration, to speak with their Lord and ours, “of the decease
which He should accomplish at Jerusalem.”[126]
Yet once again was the Jordan to be miraculously parted asunder at the
same place. Elisha, returning to Jericho, smote the waters with the
mantle of Elijah, and invoking “the Lord God of Elijah, the waters
parted hither and thither, and Elisha went over.”[127]
Reference has been made to the perennial fountains which rise around the
site of Jericho. Most of the springs in the lower part of the Ghor are
either brackish, or absolutely undrinkable. From their salt and acrid
character they cause barrenness rather than fertility.[128] But there is
one at the foot of the mounds which attracts attention from the purity,
sweetness and abundance of its waters. It bears to this day the name of
ELISHA’S FOUNTAIN, and is doubtless the one of which the historian
speaks as having been healed by the word of Elisha speaking in the name
of the Lord, “so the waters were healed unto this day, according to the
saying of Elisha which he spake.”[129]
[Illustration: ELISHA’S FOUNTAIN, NEAR JERICHO.]
Whilst we have no precise indication of the scene of our Lord’s baptism
yet a balance of probabilities seems to confirm the accuracy of the
tradition that it was here, where the river had been thrice divided by
miracle, that the event took place. John had been preaching in the
wilderness of Judea which is just behind us. It was apparently in the
same neighbourhood that he baptized the multitudes who came to him. And
it was in immediate connection with his baptism that “Jesus being full
of the Holy Ghost returned from the Jordan and was led by the spirit
into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil.” Though the
MONS QUARANTANIA, which rises immediately above Jericho, has only a
vague tradition to associate it with the “forty days’” fast, yet it
meets all the requirements of the narrative, and its savage desolate
solitude is in keeping with the spirit of the event.
Once only do we read that our Lord actually visited Jericho. He had
crossed the Jordan and preached “on the further side.”[130] Recrossing
the river, either by the fords or by the Roman bridge some distance up
the stream on his way to Jerusalem, He passed through Jericho. The new
city rebuilt by Herod, was now in the height of its splendour. Josephus
describes the country round as surpassingly beautiful and fertile.
Groves of palms and balsam-trees stretched far and wide. The roads
leading to and from the city were shaded by sycamores. Having healed the
blind man who sat by the wayside begging, He conferred a yet diviner
boon upon Zaccheus, who in his eagerness to see the Lord had climbed
into one of the wayside trees. Amidst the reproachful murmurs of the
people, He went to be the guest of a man that was a sinner, bringing
salvation to his house, “for the Son of man is come to seek and save
that which was lost.... And when He had thus spoken He went before,
ascending up to Jerusalem.”[131]
Thither let us follow Him.
The road at first winds amongst the mounds of débris, so often referred
to, past ruined aqueducts and water courses which in the time of our
Lord conveyed the fertilizing streams to irrigate the plain. The
mountains above us are honey-combed by cells of hermits, who came here
to live useless ascetic lives, where our Lord had fasted, prayed, and
been tempted of the devil. Soon we begin to ascend and find ourselves
skirting the edge of a savage ravine which plunges sheer down to a depth
of five hundred feet. It is the Wady Kelt—once known as the valley of
the CHERITH, where the prophet Elijah was fed by ravens,[132] and, in
still earlier times, as the valley of Achor in which Achan was
stoned.[133]
[Illustration:
_Lent by the Palestine Exploration Fund._
BATHING-PLACE OF PILGRIMS ON THE JORDAN
]
The ascent is continuous and steep. In a distance of about fifteen miles
we rise more than three thousand feet. Hence the constant phrases “going
_up_ to Jerusalem,” “going _down_ to Jericho.” On every side are steep
mountains and wild glens, the haunt of plundering Bedouins, so that a
strong and vigilant escort is needful.
About midway on our journey, we pass the ruins of an ancient khan. In
accordance with oriental custom, noticed before, by which khans seldom
or never change, but occupy the same spot from age to age, a halting
place for travellers has stood here from immemorial antiquity. This then
is the inn to which our Lord referred in his parable of the Good
Samaritan. The road then, as now, was notorious for its insecurity.
Reading on the spot the narrative of the traveller, who going down from
Jerusalem to Jericho, was stripped, wounded, and left for dead on the
road-side, every incident and detail acquired new significance and
appropriateness.
From this point the wild weird desolation of the earlier part of our
journey ceased, and gave place to the rounded featureless hills which
characterise the scenery of Southern Palestine. About midday we reached
the Ain el Haud, or “The Apostle’s Fountain,” and halted awhile. Before
us rose a steep ascent up which wound a rough mountain road. It was the
Mount of Olives. Reaching the summit we should look down upon Jerusalem!
[Illustration: RUINED AQUEDUCT NEAR JERICHO.]
I proposed to one or two of our party that we should walk on alone, so
as to indulge, without restraint, in the emotions which such a view
would excite. The proposal was heartily agreed to, and we started. The
day had been showery, and, though not actually raining at the moment,
the clouds were black and heavy. Scarcely had we commenced the ascent
when the rain began to fall in torrents. The stiff, tenacious mud, and
the slippery sheets of rock over which the track led, made the walk very
difficult; but still we persevered. Soon a miserable, ruinous,
poverty-stricken hamlet came in view, standing on a plateau of rock in a
slight depression on the hill-side. The pasturage around it was good and
abundant, and the olive groves ought to have been a source of wealth to
the inhabitants. Under a better system of government, and with a more
industrious population, it might have been a bright and prosperous
village; but now its only attraction consists in its hallowed
associations. It is Bethany—the home of Martha and Mary and Lazarus—the
one spot on earth where He who “had not where to lay his head” found a
loving welcome and a peaceful home. It has always seemed to me to be not
without meaning that our Lord, on his Ascension, “led his disciples out
as far as to Bethany,” so that the last spot his eyes looked upon, and
his feet pressed before He left the earth which rejected Him should be
the one in which He had been a loved and honoured guest.
The old name of Bethany has disappeared, together with the palm-trees,
which once were in such profusion as to win for it this distinctive
epithet.[134] The memory of the raising of Lazarus has lived so vividly
in Arab legend, that the name El-’Azirîyeh has supplanted the earlier
and biblical one.
Of course traditional sites are pointed out for all the events of the
biblical narrative. The houses of Simon and of Martha and the grave of
Lazarus are shown. The former may be dismissed without a glance or
thought. They are evidently modern erections, certainly not earlier than
the Saracenic period, and probably much more recent. But the tomb of
Lazarus may be authentic. The masonry, indeed, is modern, but the
sepulchre itself, a deep recess cut into the rock, is apparently
ancient, and, so far as I could judge, was originally a tomb. It is
entered by a narrow passage, with twenty-five steps, leading to a
_cubiculum_. The tradition which identifies it with “the cave,” in which
the “friend,” whom “Jesus loved” was buried, has a respectable
antiquity, going back, at least, to the time of Arculf (A.D. 700).
Whether this be the exact spot or not, we know that very near where we
stand the memorable words were uttered: “I am the Resurrection and the
Life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he
live.”[135]
Escaping from the rabble of Arabs clamouring for backshish, we resumed
our journey. The rain had ceased, and a few breaks in the clouds
encouraged a hope that we might gain a view of the city not utterly
disappointing. But we were quite unprepared for the view which awaited
us on reaching the summit of Olivet. Seen under any circumstances, it is
one never to be forgotten. The deep ravine of the Kedron below us—the
city on the opposite hill, with its grey venerable walls, its broad
marble platform, in the centre of which stands the exquisite dome of the
mosque of Omar—the picturesque mass of cupolas and minarets standing out
against the sky—the surrounding valleys and hills dotted with villages
and ruined towers and olive groves—need no aid from the associations of
the spot to make it a most striking view. But when we add those
associations—so sacred, so tender, so sublime—it is not to be wondered
at that every visitor feels himself at a loss to express the emotions
which it awakens.
[Illustration:
_From a Sketch by Capt. Maian._
BETHANY.
]
Nothing, however, which I had heard or read had prepared me for the
view which broke upon us as we ascended the minaret on the summit of
Olivet. The vast marble platform of the Temple, the dome of the
mosque, the roofs of El-Aksa, the innumerable cupolas and flat roofs
of the city, were all running with water from the heavy rain. Through
rifts in the clouds long slanting beams of sunlight fell upon them
with a dazzling splendour. The city flashed and shone like molten
silver. All the meanness and squalor of its degradation was lost in
the radiance which veiled it. The storm-clouds had drifted away
eastward, and settled dark and heavy over the valley of the Dead Sea,
blotting it out from view by their gloomy mass. Above the line of
clouds rose the mountains of Moab, purple in the light of the
descending sun. Only one more touch of beauty, only one more
suggestion of hallowed thought, was possible. This was furnished by a
rainbow—symbol of Divine mercy and compassion—spanning the storm-cloud
which hung above the valley of Sodom. On the one side was the city of
God, radiant in the “clear shining after rain;” on the other the city
of destruction, veiled in darkness and gloom, yet not utterly
abandoned by our gracious and covenant-keeping God.
[Illustration: CHURCH ON THE SUMMIT OF THE MOUNT OF OLIVES.]
Impressive as is the view which bursts upon us from the summit of the
Mount of Olives, even now that Jerusalem lies in its misery and
degradation, it must have been far grander when our Lord, on his way
from Bethany, standing upon this very spot beheld the city and wept over
it, saying, “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day,
the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine
eyes.”[136] The valley at our feet was at least sixty feet deeper then
than it is at present. The accumulation of débris, the result of
repeated sieges, has not only filled it up to that extent, but has
choked up the bed of the Kedron, so that it has either ceased to flow
altogether, or only trickles almost imperceptibly amongst the stones.
The trees which once clothed the hills and the gardens which lay along
the banks of the stream have disappeared. The face of the rock upon
which the Temple stands, then went down almost precipitously, so that,
as Josephus tells us, the spectator, standing upon the walls, grew dizzy
as he looked into the ravine below him. Now mounds of rubbish, through
which Captain Warren sank a shaft to the depth of a hundred feet before
he reached the virgin soil, rest against the rock and rise almost to the
foot of the walls. The Temple itself was a marvel of splendour and
beauty. Built of costly marbles, overlaid with gold, and adorned with
jewels, it shone resplendently when the light of the rising or the
setting sun fell upon it, as though another sun was setting or rising.
Of all this magnificence, nothing remains save the vast marble platform
upon which it stood. Well might the disciples listen with reluctance or
incredulity as our Lord foretold the impending destruction of a city
“beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth.”
Slowly we descended from the summit, lingering at many points to recall
the hallowed associations of the scene, or turning aside to gain some
fresh point of view. We remembered not only that our Lord had often
trodden these very paths in his journey between Bethany and Jerusalem,
or gone out to spend the night upon the Mount of Olives, “as he was
wont,”[137] but that David, in his flight from the city “went up by the
ascent of Mount Olivet and wept as he went up, and had his head covered,
and he went barefoot: and all the people that was with him covered every
man his head, and they went up, weeping as they went up.”[138]
[Illustration: ST. STEPHEN’S GATE.]
Passing the Garden of Gethsemane, and crossing the Kedron, we entered by
St. Stephen’s Gate. Skirting the Temple area, traversing the length of
the Via Dolorosa, slipping on the slimy stones or plunging ankle deep
into the mud of the wretched streets, we emerged at the Jaffa Gate and
found our camp pitched on the edge of the Valley of Hinnom.
[Illustration: Head-Piece—Church of the Holy Sepulchre]
JERUSALEM.
“OUR feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem.”[139] Drawn by an
irresistible attraction, pilgrims flock hither from the very ends of the
earth. The crumbling walls, the squalid filthy streets, the mouldering
ruins, are regarded with a profound and reverential interest by millions
of mankind, such as no other spot on earth can excite. To the Jew it is
the centre alike of his patriotism and his religion. The Christian
remembers that here the Son of God was crucified for the sins of the
world. The Mohammedan, retaining in a mutilated and distorted form, the
great facts of Jewish and of Christian scripture, and adding to them the
legends of his own prophet, regards Jerusalem as second, and hardly
second, in sanctity to Mecca itself. Nowhere else are the
representatives of such various nationalities to be found as in this
meeting-place of the three great monotheistic faiths which have spread
so widely over the habitable globe. Jews who have travelled on foot from
Poland or Morocco, may be seen weeping outside the temple walls. Greeks,
Latins, Armenians, Copts, kneel side by side with worshippers from
America, from Australia, and from every nation in Europe. Nubians,
Hindoos, Affghans, Persians, Tartars, Arabs, prostrate themselves before
the sacred rock from whence their prophet commenced his fabled journey
to heaven, or gaze with awe on the spot to which he will, as they
believe, return to judge the world.
[Illustration: TOMB OF ABSALOM.]
[Illustration: PLAN OF JERUSALEM, FROM THE ORDNANCE SURVEY.]
The city, which holds so conspicuous a place in the later Scriptures, is
in the earlier ones only referred to incidentally or obscurely. It is
commonly identified with the Salem of which Melchizedec was king; and
Mount Moriah, upon which Abraham was about to offer up Isaac, is thought
to be the same with that on which the Temple was afterwards built. Dean
Stanley argues strongly against this view, and would transfer the city
of Melchizedec to a town, the site of which is marked by a village still
bearing the name of Salem, near the ancient Shechem. The sacrifice of
Isaac he would likewise place in the same neighbourhood on the summit of
Gerizim. Though his arguments are weighty and deserve serious
consideration, they cannot be accepted as conclusive. That the king of
Jerusalem, in the days of Joshua,[140] bore a name or title almost the
precise equivalent of that of the king of Salem, who was Abraham’s
friend, is an important fact in the discussion. Adonizedec, the Lord of
righteousness, would be a probable successor of Melchizedec, the King of
righteousness.
But whilst Jerusalem was thus probably associated with two most
memorable events in the life of Abraham, it was not till the time of
David that the city rose into prominence. In his day it was regarded as
an impregnable stronghold. The Jebusites, confident in the strength of
their position, treated the attacks of the besiegers with derision, and
placed upon their walls, the blind and the lame as an adequate garrison,
“thinking, David cannot come in hither.... Nevertheless David took the
stronghold of Zion.”[141] Stung by the taunt and incited by the promise
of the king, Joab stormed the citadel and received the command-in-chief
of the army as a reward of his desperate exploit. David, who had
hitherto reigned in Hebron, now removed his capital to Jerusalem. The
reasons for this are obvious. At Hebron he was isolated from the great
bulk of his subjects; Jerusalem, though not central, was yet not very
remote from the Northern tribes; it was on the frontier of his own tribe
of Judah and partly within that of Benjamin, whose allegiance he thus
secured. Military considerations were even more decisively in favour of
the new capital. Nor must we overlook the divine guidance which thus
prepared the way for the erection of the Temple on the chosen and
favoured spot. Little did the rude rough soldier, when “getting up by
the gutter and smiting the Jebusites,” think for what mighty events he
was preparing the way.
The city fortified by David, enriched and adorned by Solomon,[142] has
continued, with varying fortunes, to occupy the same spot to the present
day. Its continuity, however, like that of the human body, is a constant
sequence of destruction and reconstruction, ever perishing yet ever
renewed. In addition to the corroding influence of time and the
destructive agencies of earthquake and fire, it has suffered yet more
severely from the violence of man. Perhaps no city in the world has
undergone so many or such disastrous sieges. Roman, Persian, Saracen,
Christian, Turk, have succeeded one another in the work of devastation.
Again and again it has been laid utterly waste, and continued for years
to be desolate and forsaken.
The result of this long succession of destructive agencies is, that of
ancient Jerusalem scarcely a trace or vestige remains. The city of David
and Solomon lies buried far beneath the ruins of edifices which have
succeeded it. It is even difficult to say, with certainty, that we can
find undoubted remains above the soil of the city of Herod. The great
Tyropæan valley which divided Zion from Acra has been filled up with
débris, leaving only a slight depression. We cannot even trace the line
of the ancient walls except where they ran along the edge of the ravine,
which bounds the city on the east and south. The whole topography of
Jerusalem is hence involved in the utmost confusion. The most elementary
facts as to the localities indicated by the inspired narrative, have
been for years the theme of keen and angry dispute. Whilst the
controversial literature on the subject might fill a moderately-sized
library, we seem almost as far from a satisfactory settlement of the
question as ever.
[Illustration: RUINS NEAR THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.]
The general outline of the country and the great natural features of the
landscape are, indeed, distinct and unmistakeable. The mountains round
about Jerusalem, the valleys which encompass it, and the ridge on which
it stands, remain as they were in the days of the patriarchs and
prophets and apostles. Looked at from any of the surrounding heights, we
feel no difficulty in identifying the objects which meet our view. The
scene which lies outstretched before us from the summit of the Mount of
Olives, has been so truthfully and graphically sketched by Lady
Strangford, that we cannot do better than reproduce her description:
“Let us sketch in slightly what we see: the bare hill to the south of
the city, with one miserable wind-worn tree on its brow, is the Hill of
Evil Counsel (where Caiaphas and the elders are said, upon no authority,
however, to have taken counsel together[143]). It is rocky and
irregular, sloping off to the west and dying down in the Plain of
Rephaim. On the north, long ridges of low barren hills or plains, stony
and bare, though dotted with olives here and there, stretch one behind
another. They seem to rise gently from the city until the monotony is
broken by the low peak of Neby Samwil, marked by a tower, the ruin of an
old convent church, since converted into a mosque.
[Illustration: JERUSALEM FROM THE MOUNT OF OLIVES.]
[Illustration:
WALLS OF JERUSALEM.
_From a Photograph._
]
“Between these two sides of the picture the Holy City stands, apparently
on a square, rocky hill, enclosed in crenelated walls, with here and
there a bastion or a zigzag—very quaint and very sad those old walls
look, and yet something proudly, too, they stand—while beyond them a
long, dull, flat ridge rises slightly towards the west, and two deep
narrow ravines sweep round the holy mountain—the one is the valley of
Jehoshaphat, or of the Kedron, commencing from some distance to the
north of the city, and running along the eastern side of it to the
south. The other is the Valley of Hinnom, coming round from the western
side and uniting with the Kedron at the south-east corner, embracing at
that point, between them, the spur of Mount Moriah, which is called
Ophel. Farthest from us, on the western wall, is the Tower of Hippicus.
Near it, to the right, is the Latin Convent and the two domes of the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. To the left, on Mount Zion, the extensive
Armenian Convent, the domes of some new synagogues, the English Church,
and the tomb of David are seen (the last outside the wall). These are
almost the only buildings on which the eye can rest among the confused
mass of little brown and white domes and grey walls: nor are any of
these seen at first, for the Mosque of Omar, in the famous Harâm, the
second most beautiful building in all the world, rivets all the
spectator’s attention. The wall enclosing the mosque occupies more than
half the eastern side of the city—in the centre of which stands the
mosque, an octagonal building, pierced with seven windows on each side,
narrowing above into a small circle also pierced with windows, and
surmounted by a most graceful dome, bearing aloft the gilt crescent of
Islam; the whole building is cased entirely in encaustic tiles—chiefly
blue, green, purple, and yellow, formed into intricate and delicate
arabesques, and so mingled that it is impossible to say whether the
building is green or blue. The cornice is replaced by an Arabic
inscription in large and prettily interlaced letters. The mosque stands
on a marble platform, which is reached by broad flights of steps, and
round the edge of which are several groups of slender arches and small
houses, while little circular _mihrabs_, or praying-places, shaded by a
light canopy of fretted stone, are dotted over its surface. Round this
platform are grassy slopes, with noble cypresses and a few other trees,
the bright and dark green of which contrast beautifully with the white
and coloured marbles of the buildings.
[Illustration: STREET OF MODERN JERUSALEM.]
“At the southern end of the enclosure is the mosque of El Aksa,
ornamented with a dome and covered by a sloping roof. The mosque of the
Mogharibeh, the college of the Dervishes, and the Serai, the residence
of the pasha, stand on the west and north sides—while the whole extent
of the eastern side of the city is only broken by St. Stephen’s Gate,
and the long-closed ‘Golden Gate,’ with its two round arches and small
domes.
“This is the view over which Jesus wept, when He beheld its beauty, and
thought upon its ruin and desolation; and strange and thrilling, indeed,
is the feeling it gives to one now: the gloomy ravines lose much of
their effect seen from above: the surrounding hills are, one and all,
the very dreariest, barrenest, and ugliest one can find anywhere, and
yet the whole is beautiful, and even the fastidious and trifling are
impressed by it.”
[Illustration:
SKETCH PLAN OF SITE OF JERUSALEM.
_After Robinson._
]
It is when we endeavour to fill in the details of the city itself that
our difficulties and perplexities commence. They are caused partly by
the vague and indefinite language of ancient historians and
topographers, and partly by the fact that valleys have been filled up,
hills have been levelled and successive cities have arisen upon the
ruins of those which have preceded them, thus effacing the landmarks
which would otherwise have guided us. Mediæval and monkish traditions
have likewise done much to obscure and pervert the true topography of
Jerusalem. Learning and labour have been wasted in the endeavour to
defend theories which have nothing in their favour but ecclesiastical
authority. Theological controversies have thus been imported into
questions which ought to have been discussed only in the light of
historical and geographical science.
We know from Josephus that the city stood on two hills, divided by the
Tyropæan Valley. One of these was Zion, the other Acra. We read likewise
of Bezetha, Moriah, and Ophel. Did these last form a separate ridge or
were they names given to parts of one of the former? If so, to
which—Zion or Acra? The sketch plan given above shows the conclusion
arrived at by Dr. Robinson, who maintains that there were three separate
hills. Other writers of scarcely inferior authority identify the Temple
ridge with Zion—others again with Acra. Notwithstanding the confident
dogmatism with which each of these views has been maintained, I cannot
say that any of them have carried full conviction to my own mind. It is
to be hoped that the explorations now in progress may throw some light
upon these obscure questions.
No less conflicting are the views as to the sites of the SEPULCHRE and
of the TEMPLE. Though the Temple claims priority in the order of
historical sequence, yet, for reasons which will subsequently appear, we
first consider the site of the Sepulchre.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE OF CHURCH OF HOLY SEPULCHRE.]
The church of the Holy Sepulchre stands in a crowded part of the city,
at some distance to the north-west of the Temple area. It is a
comparatively modern structure, no portion being probably older than the
period of the Crusades. It is entered through a courtyard, in which a
market is now held for the sale of trinkets, rosaries, pictures and
curiosities. And just inside the principal entrance a Turkish guard is
stationed to keep order, and repress disturbances amongst the hostile
sects and nationalities who visit it.
[Illustration: THE POOL OF HEZEKIAH AND THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY
SEPULCHRE.]
In passing round the church, attention is distracted and incredulity
excited by the aggregation under one roof of numerous shrines and holy
places. Here are shown not only the sites of the crucifixion and the
resurrection, but the tombs of Adam, Melchizedec, Joseph of Arimathea,
and of Nicodemus; the place where our Lord was crowned with thorns, and
where He appeared to Mary Magdalene; the pillar to which he was bound
during the scourging; the slab upon which His body was laid for the
anointing; the spot where He first appeared to His mother after the
resurrection; the centre of the world; the place whence the earth was
taken from which Adam was made, with many other marvels. Even those who
come, with simple faith, to “see the place where the Lord lay,” depart
indignant at the frauds and lying legends palmed off upon them. This
feeling is increased by the tinsel and frippery which abound everywhere.
The very Chapel of the Resurrection is made offensive by puerile
ornamentation and tawdry finery. Yet in spite of all, it is strangely
affecting to see the agony of earnestness, the passionate fervour of
devotion, displayed by pilgrims, many of whom have travelled on foot
from incredible distances to pray at the sacred shrines.
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.]
a. Entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
b. Divan of the Turkish Guards.
c. Staircase of the Latins, leading to Golgotha.
c'. Ditto of the Greeks.
d. The Place of Crucifixion.
e. Greek Altar, where is found the Hole of the Cross.
f. Cleft of the Rock.
gg. Greek Chapels.
g'. Parting of Garments.
g". Crowning of Thorns.
h. Stone of Anointing.
i. Position of the three Maries.
kk. Staircase and Armenian Chapels.
ll. Chapels attached to Latin Convent.
m. Chapel of the Angel.
n. Inner Chapel.
o. The Holy Sepulchre.
p. Coptic Chapel.
q. Ditto of Schismatic Syrians.
r. Tombs of Joseph and Nicodemus.
ss. Greek, Armenian, and Coptic Chapels.
t. Staircase to Latin Church.
u. Station of Mary Magdalene.
v. Place where Christ appeared to Mary Magdalene.
x. Christ’s Prison.
y. Steps leading to Chapel of the Finding.
z. Place where the Cross was found.
A. Entrance Court.
B. Chapel of Calvary.
C. Great Cupola.
D. Chapel of Holy Sepulchre.
E. Greek Church.
F. Church of the Franciscans.
G. Chapel of St. Helena.
H. Chapel of the Finding of the Cross.
K. Ruined Steeple.
α. Centre of the World.
β. Most Holy Place of the Greeks.
δ. Chapel of Longinus.
δ. Place of Abraham’s Sacrifice.
ε. Place where Melchisedek blessed the Bread.
We may dismiss, without a moment’s hesitation, the legends which cluster
around the main central tradition; but have we reasonable ground for
believing that our Lord was crucified and buried upon this spot? What is
the evidence upon which the authenticity of the site rests?
In the reign of Constantine the city had been laid utterly waste; its
very name had ceased to be used, and Christians and Jews had been
banished from it for generations. The superstitious zeal of the Empress
Helena, prompted her to visit the sacred places, and the site of Calvary
had been fixed by the alleged discovery of the three crosses which were
found in a pit, and their authenticity is said to have been attested by
the miracles which were worked. Constantine now resolved to recover the
Sepulchre and to erect a church, the splendour and beauty of which
should surpass all others. Eusebius tells us, that the pagans had piled
a mound of earth over the cave, had paved the surface and placed upon it
a temple to Venus; the emperor caused these to be removed, when “as soon
as the original surface of the ground, beneath its covering of earth
appeared, immediately and contrary to all expectation, the venerable and
hallowed monument of our Saviour’s resurrection was discovered.” The
cave was adorned with marbles, a colonnade was erected round it, and a
basilica was built in honour of the _Anastasis_, or Resurrection.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.]
[Illustration: CHAPEL OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.]
Two questions at once suggest themselves. Did Constantine discover the
true site? Does the present church stand upon the same spot with his
basilica? To these questions the most contradictory answers are given.
By some it is maintained that the emperor was guided, in his search, by
accurate information, that a continuous tradition connects his edifice
with the present church, and that, consequently, we have the very places
of the entombment and resurrection fixed beyond reasonable doubt.
Others, holding that the true site was discovered by Constantine, yet
assert that during the intervals in which Christians were banished from
Jerusalem by Persian and Mohammedan conquerors, the original edifice was
destroyed, the locality forgotten, and that a new church sprang up upon
a different site, around which legends have clustered in the lapse of
ages which have no historical basis. Others, again, assert that
Constantine was the dupe either of superstition or of imposture, and
that there was absolutely no evidence that the sepulchre was where he
sought for it.
[Illustration: THE PLACE OF SCOURGING.]
Into the protracted and angry discussions which have raged upon these
questions, I do not propose to enter here. But after a careful
examination of the site and of the arguments urged by the various
disputants, I come to the conclusion that the place of the crucifixion
and entombment must be sought elsewhere, and not on the spot which
tradition points out. Though the indications of Scripture may be
insufficient to show us where it was, they are yet quite adequate to
tell us where it was not.
1. It was outside the city, yet near to it (John xix. 20; Hebrews xiii.
12).
2. It was a place where interments were permitted, and as a matter of
fact did take place (Matt. xxvii. 59, 60; Mark xv. 46, 47; Luke xxiii.
53; John xix. 41, 42).
3. There was a garden in “the place” (John xix. 41).
4. It was by the side of a road leading up from the country (Matt.
xxvii. 39; Mark xv. 21, 29; Luke xxiii. 26).
5. It was a spot capable of being seen by a considerable number of
persons from a distance (Matt. xxvii. 55; Mark xv. 40; Luke xxiii. 49).
[Illustration: CAVE UNDER THE CHURCH.]
6. It was within sight and hearing of a place whence the priests could
stand without danger of defilement (Matt. xxvii. 41; Mark xv. 31; John
xviii. 28).
7. It was not far from the barracks of the Roman soldiers, some of whom
ran and fetched the vinegar—the ordinary _posca_, or sour drink of the
legionaries—when Jesus on the cross cried, “I thirst” (Matt. xxvii. 48;
Mark xv. 36).
8. The language of the evangelists seems to imply that the procession,
on leaving the judgment hall, passed not through the city but outside it
(Matt. xxvii. 31, 32; Mark xv. 20; Luke xxiii. 26; John xix. 17).
The present site fails to satisfy any one of these conditions. It is not
only far within the walls, but apparently must have been so in the time
of our Lord when the city was much larger and more populous than now,
though in the time of Constantine, when the walls were demolished and
the city desolate, it may have been outside the inhabited district.[144]
Even if by any sudden bend, or re-entering angle the line of
circumvallation left it outside, which, however, is very unlikely, it
must still have been in the midst of houses, for we find that Agrippa,
twelve years afterwards, constructed a third line of wall to enclose an
extensive suburb which had sprung up on this side; and we know that the
ceremonial law and social usages of the Jews forbad the formation of
graves among the abodes of the living.
[Illustration: VIA DOLOROSA.]
Where could the priests have stood who so feared[145] defilement, that
they would not enter the judgment hall amongst a crowd of Roman soldiers
and rabble? In a place of public execution and interment, they must have
been defiled.
If, as seems certain, houses were all round the present site, where
could the great multitude have watched from “afar off?”
The judgment hall and the barracks are believed to have been in the
Castle of Antonia. In this case the Via Dolorosa must have led, as
tradition now marks it, through the heart of the city, crowded at the
time to its utmost capacity by the multitudes who had come up to the
feast. The rulers feared “an uproar among the people,” many of whom
“believed on Him;” hence the need for taking Him by subtlety, and for
hurrying over the trial in an illegal and stealthy manner. Is it likely
that they would run the risk of a disturbance and a rescue in the
crowded street? especially with a guard of only four soldiers.[146] We
can hardly doubt that, in accordance with the indications of the
narrative the rulers would choose some place for the execution to which
they could pass immediately from the prætorium into the open country.
We have but to transfer the scene of the crucifixion from the northern
to the eastern side of the city, in the valley of the Kedron, to find
all the requirements of the narrative satisfied. It is, and always must
have been, outside the walls. It was a recognised place of interment,
the valley to this day being full of graves, many of them very ancient
and cut in the rock. Irrigated by the river, by wells and fountains,
there were numerous gardens. The slope of Olivet would allow a great
multitude to watch the scene afar off, and the priests, standing on the
Temple cloisters, would be within sight and hail of Calvary without fear
of defilement. One of the two main roads leading from the country into
Jerusalem passed close to the spot. And the procession, leaving the
prætorium, would emerge at once from the city into the open country.
Assuming then that the site of Calvary is to be sought on the eastern
side, the whole narrative becomes clear and consistent.
If this be conceded a new and unexpected conformity between the type and
the great Antitype is discovered. The Epistle to the Hebrews, written at
a time when the Temple was yet standing and its sacrifices were being
offered, says, respecting the sin-offering, “the bodies of those beasts
whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the High Priest for sin,
are burned without the camp; wherefore Jesus, also, that He might
sanctify the people with His own blood suffered without _the
gate_.”[147] Not merely “a gate,” but “_the_ gate,” through which the
bodies of the sacrifices were carried out to be burned. The great
sin-offering for the world was thus led forth to be crucified through
the very gate and in sight of the very spot in which the typical
sacrifices had been burned in the valley of Hinnom.
Again the rending of the veil at the moment of our Lord’s death gains a
new significance if this view be adopted. The Temple, as we know, opened
to the east. It would be within sight of Calvary. How striking, how
suggestive that the typical veil should thus be “rent in twain from the
top throughout” just when we received “boldness to enter into the
holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which he
consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.”[148]
And yet further, the fact that the place of our Lord’s death, burial,
and resurrection was in close proximity to the Temple, would give
additional significance to the taunt of those “that passed by saying,
Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days save
thyself.”[149] Here again the type and the antitype come into close
juxtaposition.
The site of the TEMPLE claims our next attention.
In any view of Jerusalem from the eastward the vast enclosure known as
the Haram esh Sherîf, or the Noble Sanctuary, arrests the eye from its
size, its beauty, and the profound interest which attaches to it. Within
its limits stood the Temple, and the world can hardly afford a nobler,
worthier site for the house of the Lord. Standing on a ridge, guarded by
valleys on every side, it formed a natural and almost impregnable
fortress. Psalmists and prophets only gave expression to the feelings of
the whole people when they celebrated, in exulting and rapturous
strains, the strength, the beauty, and the glory of the city of God. It
was a saying of the Rabbis that “the world is like an eye. The ocean
surrounding it is the white of the eye; the earth is the coloured part;
Jerusalem is the pupil; but the sanctuary is the image within the pupil.
There the being of God is at once mirrored and beheld.”
The walls of the Temple area enclose a rectangle of about fifteen
hundred feet from north to south by nine hundred feet from east to west.
Its stones are many of them of great size; Capt. Warren measured one
which was thirty-eight feet nine inches in length. The peculiar bevel
which characterises early Jewish and Phœnician work may be observed on
most of them. Occasionally, especially in the lower courses, they appear
to occupy their original position, though whether placed there by
Solomon, Nehemiah, or Herod, cannot be ascertained at present; more
frequently the stones have been replaced by later and more modern hands
than those of the original builders. A careful examination often shows
that the original materials have been used over and over again in
successive walls, and commonly reduced in size so as to be worked more
easily. Columns of the finest marble, porphyry and serpentine built in
amongst the blocks of limestone, are by no means rare. These are
sometimes whole and erect, but more often broken across and laid in
horizontally with the ends projecting. They evidently formed part of the
Temple, and have been used by later builders as being ready to hand.
Examining these massive remains of ancient power and wealth it was
impossible not to remember the words of the disciples, “Master, see what
manner of stones and what buildings are here.” The stability of the
edifice seemed to be ensured not only by the size of the blocks but by
the excellence of the Jewish masonry, which was so perfect that it is
often impossible to insert the point of a knife between the joints. Yet
the dilapidated condition of the walls shows how wonderfully our Lord’s
words have been verified, “Seest thou these great buildings? there shall
not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.”[150]
[Illustration: THE MOSQUE OF OMAR.
_From a photograph by Mr. Bergheim, Jerusalem._
]
Starting at the north-east angle, and going eastward, with the valley of
the Kedron and the Mount of Olives on our left hand, the Temple area on
our right, we come to the Golden Gate, a remarkable double gateway the
date and purpose of which are unknown. Some have supposed it to be the
Beautiful Gate at which the lame man sat begging,[151] but from the
style of architecture it can hardly be older than the age of
Constantine. It is now walled up, in consequence of a Mohammedan
tradition that the Christians will again take possession of Jerusalem,
and that their King will enter victoriously through this gate. Another
tradition is that the last judgment will take place in the valley of
Jehoshaphat or of Kedron, just below us, and that Mohammed will stand
upon one of the projecting pillars over the entrance, and Issa—their
name for Jesus—on the Mount of Olives opposite, and together judge the
world.
[Illustration: THE GOLDEN GATE.]
Along the southern side there is little to detain us. We have on our
right the wall surmounted by the roof of the mosque of El Aksa and on
our left the slope of Ophel running down to the point at which the
Valleys of Hinnom and Kedron meet. But immediately after turning the
south-west corner we come upon an object of profound interest. The
Temple was on this side divided from the city by a valley, now nearly
filled up. From the wall which here bears traces of extreme antiquity
and appears to be a part of the original structure, some huge blocks of
stones are seen to project. These were found by Robinson to form the
first courses of an arch. Captain Wilson, acting on behalf of the
Palestine Exploration Fund, caused a line of shafts to be sunk due
westward from this point, and discovered a series of piers upon which
other arches had rested, so that we have here the remains of a bridge
which ran across the valley connecting the Temple with the city. We
learn from Josephus that the valley was spanned by a bridge leading from
the Temple to the palace. All subsequent researches have tended to
establish the conclusion at which Robinson arrived that, “This arch
could only belong to THE BRIDGE, and it proves incontestably the
antiquity of that portion of the wall from which it springs.” The only
difficulty in the way of ascribing this great work to Solomon or his
successors is that the principle of the arch was not then known. A more
thorough acquaintance with Egyptian architecture, however, proves that
this statement is not strictly true. Examples of the arch, though rare,
may yet be found in buildings of undoubted antiquity. In the narrative
of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon we read that, “When she
had seen ... his ascent by which he went up unto the house of the Lord,
there was no more spirit in her.”[152] This seems to be spoken of as the
climax of all the wonders which were shown her. If we may venture to
identify the arched bridge across the valley with “the ascent” thus
spoken of it will adequately explain the astonishment with which it was
regarded.
[Illustration: PROJECTING STONES OF ROBINSON’S ARCH.]
[Illustration: WAILING-PLACE OF THE JEWS.]
A little farther along the western wall we come to the Wailing Place of
the Jews. It is close to the Jewish quarter—the foulest, most squalid
and wretched part of the city. The masonry here is the finest, and in
the best preservation, of any part of the enclosure. Many of the stones
are twenty-five feet in length and apparently have remained undisturbed
since the time of the first builder.[153] Here the Jews assemble every
Friday to mourn over their fallen state, especially their exclusion from
“the holy and beautiful house,” where their fathers worshipped God. Some
press their lips against crevices in the masonry as though imploring an
answer from some unseen presence within, others utter loud cries of
anguish. Here is one group joining in the prayers of an aged rabbi;
yonder another sitting in silent anguish, their cheeks bathed in tears.
The stones are in many places worn smooth with their passionate kisses.
The grief of the new-comers is evidently deep and genuine. But with the
older residents it has subsided into little more than a mere ceremonial
observance and an empty form. But in either case the scene is strangely
affecting, leading back our thoughts to the self-invoked curse of
eighteen hundred years ago—“His blood be on us, and on our
children.”[154]
[Illustration: JEWISH ALMSHOUSES, ERECTED BY SIR MOSES MONTEFIORE, NEAR
THE JAFFA GATE.]
The northern wall has nothing to detain us, except the pool of Bethesda,
so called, but of which the identification is doubtful.[155] There are
still traces of what may have been “the five porches,” but the pool is
now little more than a pit or ditch choked with filth and ordure, and,
only after heavy rains, containing a little stagnant, fetid water.
We now enter the Temple area and find ourselves in an enclosure of
extraordinary beauty. In spring and early summer the turf is of a
brilliant green, enamelled with a profusion of wild flowers, and dotted
over with trees, most of them cypresses, many of which are of great
size. The birds, free from molestation, are exceedingly tame. Doves and
sparrows are especially numerous, reminding us of the words of the
psalmist, when, “longing, yea, even fainting for the courts of the
Lord,” “the sparrow hath found a house, and the swallow a nest for
herself, where she may lay her young; even thine altars, O Lord of
hosts, my King and my God.”[156] Cloisters, colonnades, fountains,
cupolas and shrines, are seen here and there within the spacious area.
But the eye is arrested and detained by a marble platform from the
centre of which rises one of the most exquisite domes in the world. This
is the _Kubbet es Sakhrah_, “the Dome of the Rock,” better known to
Europeans as “the MOSQUE OF OMAR,” next after Mecca the most sacred,
next after Cordova the most beautiful of all moslem shrines.[157] There
are several other mosques within the Temple area, but none that claim
special notice except the one at the south end—that of El Aksa. This is
a large building, the date and original purpose of which, however, is
involved in much obscurity.
[Illustration: THE POOL OF BETHESDA.]
The rock itself is honey-combed with excavations, most of them cisterns
or conduits. Some of these are supplied with water from Solomon’s Pools
beyond Bethlehem. The aqueduct may yet be traced along the edge of the
Wady Urtas. It is said that, in addition to the water brought from a
distance, there are natural springs within the rock itself; this,
however, is doubted. From whatever source the supply was derived it was
so abundant that it was never known to be exhausted. In some of these
vast underground reservoirs which I visited, I found the water to be
deliciously cold, sweet and clear. It was in reference to these
inexhaustible stores from which the priests drew so plentifully, that
our Lord, “in that great day of the feast ... stood and cried, If any
man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He that believeth on Me, as
the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
water. This spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him
should receive.”[158]
Among the subterranean chambers is one dedicated to the Lord Issa, or
Jesus. Here according to Mohammedan tradition he was born; his cradle is
shown, and the chapel, for such it is, is regarded as one of peculiar
sanctity.
[Illustration: SUBSTRUCTIONS UNDER THE SOUTHERN END OF THE TEMPLE AREA.]
Beneath the southern end of the area is an extraordinary series of
substructions which used to be called Solomon’s stables, and were
believed to have been erected for that purpose by the magnificent king.
Their real design is obvious, though when and by whom they were built
cannot be determined. The Temple area is constructed on the summit of
Mount Moriah. As the hill sloped downward on the east, west, and south
it was necessary to level the top to secure a plane surface. But on the
southern side or Ophel, the descent was rapid. To have secured a level
platform here, it would have been necessary to cut away so much from the
summit as seriously to have reduced its height. These arches were,
therefore, built up from beneath. The same method was adopted at Rome to
enlarge the level area of the Palatine.
In what part of the extensive area thus formed did the Temple stand? It
has been commonly assumed that the marble platform in the centre marks
the site, and that the Mosque of Omar stands over the spot occupied by
the altar or the Holy Place. This view, however, is beset with doubts.
The mosque encloses a mass of rock sixty-feet in length, fifty-five in
breadth, and standing up about fifteen feet above the earth around it.
Now we know that the Temple was built upon the threshing-floor of
Araunah the Jebusite.[159] This mass of rock, however, with its
inequalities of surface could never have been a threshing-floor. It has
been said that probably the rock was cut away around it, leaving this
portion untouched. But this explanation is equally inconsistent with the
facts of the case. For the rock is unhewn, and only in one or two places
bears marks of the chisel. Besides which, if it had stood within the
precincts of the Temple it could hardly have escaped mention, yet
neither the Scriptures, the writings of Josephus, nor those of the
Talmudists allude to it.[160] Where could it have stood? What purpose
could it have served? Its size is fatal to the theory that it was in the
most Holy Place, which was a small chamber. It is possible, though not
very probable, that being covered with plates of brass it formed the
core of the altar of burnt-offerings. Standing on the summit and in the
centre of the ridge of Moriah, it is the likeliest place for the site of
the Temple, yet the difficulties, in the way of placing the Temple over
it, are very great.
[Illustration: THE TEMPLE AREA AND MOUNT OF OLIVES, FROM THE CITY WALL.]
Another theory propounded by Mr. Fergusson, and ably supported by
Messrs. Lewin and Sandie, finds the Temple site on the south or
south-west of the Haram area. But this theory is likewise beset with
great difficulties. For the threshing-floor must then have been in a
deep hollow, contrary to the invariable practice of the Easterns, who
constructed them on the tops of hills where the wind might winnow the
grain as it fell from the ears. Besides which, the language of the
psalmist and prophets implies that the Temple stood on an elevated site;
they speak invariably of going up to the house of the Lord. It is true
that the southern end of the Temple area is now on the same level with
the rest, but this is secured by the vast substructions which have been
built up from the valley below; and it can hardly be pretended that the
threshing-floor of Araunah occupied this artificial elevation; nor has
any reason been suggested why, with the whole ridge of Moriah to choose
from, a site should have been selected which either buried the Temple in
a hollow, or required an amount of work below the surface greater than
that above it to bring up the platform to the necessary level.
The startling theory of Mr. Fergusson as to the site of the Holy
Sepulchre demands brief notice here. He maintains that the Mosque of
Omar is the basilica of Constantine, that the mysterious rock which it
encloses is that of which the evangelist speaks, and that a cave about
fifteen feet square in the side of the rock is the very cave in which
our Lord was entombed. His argument, to which full justice cannot be
done in a brief summary, may be thus stated. He pledges his professional
reputation that the Kubbet es Sakhrah is a building of the date of
Constantine, that it is not and never could have been intended for a
mosque, that it does not possess a single characteristic of Saracenic
architecture, but that in its main features it is identical with the
sepulchral basilica of Diocletian, at Spalatro, a type which Constantine
is likely to have followed. The Golden Gate he regards as the grand
entrance from the eastern side to the area of the basilica, and
maintains that it is of the same style and date with the Dome of the
Rock. Assuming the accuracy of his theory that the Temple occupied the
south-western angle of the present area, he shows that there was ample
space for places of the crucifixion and entombment to have been here
without entrenching upon the Temple precincts from which it was then
separated by a deep fosse or valley, now filled up. He then seeks to
show that the indications of the Gospel narrative, the statements of
Eusebius, and the language of early pilgrims agree in fixing upon this
as the true site of the burial and resurrection of our Lord. The absence
of any tradition pointing to this spot and the fact that for nearly a
thousand years the site of the sepulchre has been supposed to be where
the church now stands, he explains by the statement that after the rock
with its dome, had been appropriated by the Mohammedans, the Christians
were banished for a long period from the city; even on their return they
were not allowed to approach the Holy Place; a new church in another
site was therefore built for the use of the pilgrims around which the
legends sprang up in mediæval fashion, so that what was at first a mere
myth or pious fraud, came at last to be accepted as an historical fact.
There is much that is attractive in this theory, and it is supported by
a great weight of argument and learning. But it will hardly bear the
test of examination. The basilica of Constantine was not built over the
sepulchre but near it; the Kubbet es Sakhrah encloses and covers the
rock. Constantine’s building was destroyed by Chosroes II., and the
church that rose upon its site suffered the same fate under El-Hakem.
This, therefore, cannot be it. Constantine constructed a colonnade
eastward from the church at the end of which was an _agora_, or
market-place. The Kubbet es Sakhrah is so near the eastern wall over the
valley of the Kedron that space cannot be found for this arrangement.
[Illustration: TUNNEL AND SHAFT OF THE PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND
OUTSIDE THE WALL OF THE TEMPLE.]
Whilst, therefore, the site of the sepulchre must, in my judgment, be
sought somewhere on this side of the city, I cannot accept Mr.
Fergusson’s identification as accurate or sustained by facts. It is with
reluctance that we yield ourselves to the conclusion that accurate
knowledge is, at least, for the present beyond our reach. Most eagerly
and gratefully should we welcome any means of determining the spot so
endeared by hallowed memories and associations. But our very ignorance
may have been designed or permitted for wise purposes. A superstitious,
an almost idolatrous, worship has been fostered by pilgrimages to the
holy places. We shall do well to remember the conversation by Jacob’s
well: “The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a
prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say that in
Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her,
Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this
mountain nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father ... the hour cometh
and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.”[161]
[Illustration: THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE.
_From a Photograph, 1866_
]
Light may ultimately be thrown upon these difficult and perplexed
questions by the labours of the Palestine Exploration Fund. Hitherto,
however, the obstacles thrown in their way by the Turkish government,
have been almost insuperable. It is only by extraordinary energy and
ingenuity that they have been able to accomplish anything in Jerusalem.
The sketch on the preceding page will illustrate this. Not being allowed
to excavate within a certain distance of the Temple area, a shaft was
sunk through the mass of débris, to the depth of eighty feet, just
outside the proscribed limit. A tunnel was then run from the bottom of
the shaft to the wall of the Temple. The result was the discovery of
courses of masonry of the original edifice, and upon some of the blocks
of stone, mason’s marks in ancient Phœnician characters were found.
It now only remains for us to notice briefly some of the memorable spots
in the immediate neighbourhood of Jerusalem. These, for the most part,
lie along the valley of the Kedron.
First in interest is the Garden of Gethsemane. Leaving the city by St.
Stephen’s Gate, a steep path leads us down into the valley and across
the bed of the Kedron. Soon after beginning the ascent of Olivet, we
come to an enclosure about eighty yards square. Knocking at a low door,
we are admitted by an aged monk, the guardian of the place, and find
ourselves in a trim garden. The flower-beds are neatly kept and fenced
with sticks. A number of olive-trees stand among them, hollow, gnarled,
and, apparently, extremely old. They yet bear a few berries, which are
carefully gathered and given to pilgrims, for which, of course,
backshish is expected in return. Old as the trees are it cannot be
supposed that they have stood here for eighteen centuries, though it is
quite credible that they may have sprung as suckers from the roots of
yet older trees. The passion for localising all the incidents of the
narrative is not absent here. We are shown the bank upon which the
disciples slept, the grotto—all mediæval legends select a grotto—where,
as a Latin inscription informs us, “the sweat like blood ran down upon
the ground,” and the place where Judas betrayed his Master with a kiss.
The _Custode_ however, with a courtesy and consideration very rare in
his class, does not pester us with talk, but, retiring to a distance,
leaves us to our meditation.[162] On this spot then, or near it,
happened the most solemn and pathetic event in the life, even of “the
man of sorrows.” Under the shade of these grey olives, he endured his
bitter and heart-breaking agony; along yonder path, lighted by the full
passover moon, “with lanterns, and torches, and weapons,” came the
betrayer, leading “a band of men and officers;”[163] here, deserted and
forsaken by all, He meekly surrendered Himself to his murderers, and was
led away to be condemned and crucified. Callous must that heart be
which, on such a spot as this, does not breathe the prayer: “By Thine
agony and bloody sweat; by Thy cross and passion; by Thy precious death
and burial: Good Lord deliver us!”
Leaving the scene of our Lord’s bitter agony, we pass along the Valley
of the Kedron, sometimes called the Valley of Jehoshaphat. Jews and
Mohammedans, alike, believe that this will be the scene of the final
judgment. Hence has arisen an eager desire to be buried here, and the
soil is, in many places, literally paved with tombstones, and the whole
valley is one vast cemetery. Shortly before reaching the point of
junction of the valleys of Hinnom and Kedron, we reach a cluster of
remarkable tombs, called by the names of Zacharias, Absalom, and St.
James. The tradition respecting them is quite modern, and has no
historical basis. Those of Zacharias and Absalom are similar in design,
being cut out of the solid rock. The former is said to be the
burial-place of the Zacharias who was “slain between the temple and the
altar.”[164] The latter, tradition asserts to be the pillar which the
rebellious son “reared up for himself during his lifetime in the king’s
dale, for he said, I have no son to keep my name in remembrance.”[165]
Its base is now buried beneath a heap of stones, upon which each Jew, as
he passes, throws one in detestation of his memory.
[Illustration: MOUNT OF CORRUPTION IN THE VALLEY OF JEHOSHAPHAT, WITH
THE TOMBS OF ABSALOM, ST. JAMES, AND ZACHARIAS.]
The tomb of St. James is a remarkable chamber, cut out of the side of
the hill, with rock-hewn Doric columns in front. A modern tradition
declares that here St. James retired after our Lord’s crucifixion, and
vowed neither to eat nor drink till He had risen again. On the third day
the risen Saviour appeared to him, saying, “Arise and eat, for I have
now risen from the dead.” The marked resemblance between this sepulchre
and the temple-tombs at Beni-hassan, in Egypt, has given rise to the
suggestion that here we have the idol temple constructed by Solomon for
his queen, the daughter of Pharaoh, in “the hill that is before
Jerusalem.”[166] The site and the style of architecture afford a certain
measure of probability to the conjecture.
[Illustration: THE TOMB OF ZACHARIAS.]
Just above us on the left is Silwan, the ancient Siloam—a collection of
wretched hovels, inhabited by peasantry, who have the reputation of
being the most dangerous, turbulent, and thievish in the district.
Though I have often passed through the village alone, or with only a
single companion, I have never had anything to complain of, beyond a
demand for backshish, more than usually clamorous. In this village, and
in other places round Jerusalem, I found many of the peasantry occupying
old tombs which formed abodes at least as commodious as the huts in
which their neighbours lived. The pool of Siloam is at the foot of the
hill on our right. It and the neighbouring well of En Rogel are still
much used, not only by the villagers, but by the water sellers of
Jerusalem.
[Illustration: ACELDAMA.]
Turning to the right up the Valley of Hinnom, we see, on the dark and
gloomy Hill of Evil Counsel, Aceldama. Down to a very late period, it
continued to be used as “a field to bury strangers in.”[167] Skulls
brought away from this spot and submitted to the examination of
competent ethnologists, have been pronounced to be those of negroes and
other non-semitic races.
Another tomb, on the north side of the city, demands brief mention here.
It used to be called the tomb of the kings, but it has now been
identified as that of Queen Helena, a Jewish Proselyte, who in the first
century of our era died, and was buried at Jerusalem. It is remarkable
not only for the extent and perfect preservation of the sepulchral
chambers, but for the ingenious mechanism by which the entrance was
closed or opened—a huge stone being rolled to or from the mouth of the
entrance. It thus affords an interesting contemporary illustration of
the words of the evangelists, “Who shall _roll_ away the stone from the
door of the sepulchre? And when they looked they saw the stone rolled
away, for it was very great.”[168]
[Illustration: THE TOMB OF HELENA.]
But it would be impossible, with the space at our disposal, to describe,
however briefly, all the objects of interest in and around Jerusalem.
Whole volumes have been devoted to the subject without exhausting it.
This brief and inadequate sketch may be brought to a close by recalling
to memory a Sabbath morning service in Christ Church on Mount Zion, as
the Protestant church, recently erected there, is called. The liturgy
had gained a deeper significance and impressiveness from the
associations of the place. The sermon had set forth Christ crucified as
the hope alike of Jew and Gentile. And the concluding hymn brought tears
to many eyes; solemn penitential thoughts to many hearts. Not a few of
the congregation, overcome by emotion, were unable to join audibly as we
sang:—
Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
Enthronéd once on high,
Thou favoured home of God on earth,
Thou heaven below the sky;
Now brought to bondage with thy sons,
A curse and grief to see,
Jerusalem, Jerusalem!
Our tears shall flow for thee.
O hadst thou known the day of grace,
And flocked beneath the wing
Of Him who called thee lovingly,
Thine own anointed King:
Then had the tribes of all the world
Gone up thy pomp to see,
And glory dwelt within thy gates,
And all thy sons been free.
“And who art thou that mournest me?”
Jerusalem may say,
“And fear’st not rather that thyself
May prove a castaway!
I am a dried and abject branch,
My place is given to thee;
But, woe to every barren graft
Of thy wild olive-tree!
“Our day of grace is sunk in night,
Our time of mercy spent,
For heavy was my children’s crime,
And strange their punishment:
Yet gaze not idly on our fall,
But, sinner, warnéd be;
Who sparéd not His chosen seed,
May send His wrath on thee!
“Our day of grace is sunk in night,
Thy noon is in its prime;
O turn, and seek thy Saviour’s face,
In this accepted time!
So Gentile, may Jerusalem
A lesson prove to thee,
And in the new Jerusalem
Thy home for ever be.”
[Illustration: The Valley of Jehoshaphat]
CENTRAL PALESTINE, OR SAMARIA.
[Illustration: CENTRAL PALESTINE, OR SAMARIA.
_Enlarged from Keith Johnston’s Map._
]
[Illustration: Head-Piece]
JERUSALEM TO SHILOH.
FROM Jerusalem northward as far as Bethel, a distance of ten or twelve
miles, we pass through the territory of Benjamin. The topography of the
district illustrates the prophecies of Jacob and Moses as to the
destinies of this small but warlike tribe, and explains the peculiar
position which it held in the Jewish commonwealth. From the central
plateau, which runs north and south, a succession of rugged and
difficult passes lead east and west, debouching on the fertile
Philistine plain on the one side, and on the yet more fertile valley of
Jericho on the other. Its barren rocky soil, ill-adapted for
agriculture, gave birth to a race of hardy warriors, whose military
prowess was often called into exercise in protecting Jerusalem against
invaders from the north, in guarding their own mountain fastnesses, or
in making forays upon the territories of their eastern or western
neighbours. Almost every hill-side has been the scene of a battle;
almost every mound of ruins marks the site of some ancient village
memorable for the heroic deeds there enacted. “Benjamin shall ravin like
a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall
divide the spoil.”[169] “And of Benjamin he said, The beloved of the
Lord (_Jerusalem_) shall dwell in safety by him; and the LORD shall
cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between his
shoulders:”[170] a prophecy fulfilled when centuries afterwards the Lord
took up His earthly abode among the mountains of Benjamin. With its
barren soil and numerical inferiority it yet won for itself the proud
title of “little Benjamin their ruler;”[171] it gave the first king to
Israel, and the great Apostle of the Gentiles boasted, with a lawful
pride, that he was “of the tribe of Benjamin.”[172]
[Illustration: MOSQUE OF DAVID.]
[Illustration: JERUSALEM AND THE MOUNT OF OLIVES FROM SCOPUS.]
For some miles along the road, or from the eminences which skirt it,
Jerusalem is visible. Age after age, invading armies, or bands of
pilgrims, approaching from the north, as they have turned the crest of
Scopus, have gained their first view of the city—a view in some respects
even finer than that from Olivet. Here the first crusaders halted at
break of day, and as Jerusalem burst upon their view, they knelt, and
with tears of gladness, kissed the sacred soil. Richard Cœur de Lion,
leaving his camp at Ajalon, pressed forward alone, and as he ascended
one of these hills, buried his face in his mailed hands, and exclaimed,
“Oh! Lord God, I pray Thee that I may never look upon Thy holy city, if
so be that I rescue it not from Thine enemies.”
[Illustration: RAMAH.]
A complete itinerary of the villages along this route is given us by the
prophet Isaiah, describing the march of the Assyrian army. Beginning at
Ai, near Bethel, about twelve miles north of Jerusalem, “he is passed to
Migron, at Michmash he hath laid up his baggage; they are gone over the
passage; they have taken up their lodging (_i.e._ halted for the night),
at Geba; Ramah is afraid; Gibeah of Saul is fled. Lift up thy voice, O
daughter of Gallim: cause it to be heard unto Laish, O poor Anathoth.
Madmenah is removed; the inhabitants of Gebim gather themselves to flee.
As yet shall he remain at Nob that day.” Having thus seized all the
villages on his line of march, he has reached the immediate precincts of
the city, where the camp of the Assyrians is yet pointed out. Confident
of victory, “he shall shake his hand against the mount of the daughter
of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem;” but “the Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall
lop the bough with terror, and the high ones of stature shall be hewn
down, and the haughty shall be humbled.”[173]
Nearly all the villages here enumerated can be identified, and not a few
of them still bear their ancient names. A Concordance or a
reference-Bible will show what an affluence of historical associations
lie all around us—Ai, the scene of Joshua’s first great battle—Migron,
where the army of Saul encamped in his campaign against the
Philistines—Michmash, the scene of Jonathan’s heroic exploit—Ramah, the
home of Samuel—Gibeah, the birth-place of Saul—Gallim and Laish the
abode of Phalti the husband of Michal, when torn away from
David—Anathoth, the residence of Jeremiah, and Nob where in the house of
Ahimelech the priest, the sword of Goliath was laid up, and the
shew-bread was placed before the Lord, of which David “did eat when he
was a hungred, and they that were with him.”
[Illustration: ANATHOTH.]
Apart from its historical associations, there is little to interest in
the district through which we pass. A bleak, wind-swept, rock-strewn
moor or a series of rounded hills where the grey limestone comes up to
the surface, with only a few patches of meagre vegetation on the shallow
soil, make up the scene. There is, however, one steep conical hill
rising above the others, which arrests attention. Like the Jebel
Fureidis near Bethlehem, it is conspicuous from every direction. Its
modern name Neby Samwil—THE TOMB OF SAMUEL—embalms the memory of the
prophet, who here judged Israel. With very strong probability it is
identified with Mizpeh, _i.e._ the Watch-tower, a name exactly
appropriate to this lofty eminence, from which a view is gained over the
whole of Southern Palestine. Here the prophet summoned Israel to war
against their oppressors, or convened them for judgment; here “he took a
stone and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it
_Eben-ezer_, saying, Hitherto, hath the Lord helped us;” and here was
heard, for the first time, the cry of devout loyalty, so often repeated
since, “God save the king.”[174]
About two hours after leaving Jerusalem, we reach a small town, Bireh,
the Beeroth of the Gibeonites,[175] but which has a deeper interest from
its connection with the life of our Lord. It was the first stage for the
pilgrims returning northward from Jerusalem, where they halted for the
night. The stragglers who had lingered in the city here rejoined their
companions and resumed their journey to Galilee on the following
morning. The Child Jesus having tarried behind in Jerusalem, “Joseph and
His mother knew not of it; but they, supposing Him to have been in the
company, went a day’s journey; and they sought Him amongst their
kinsfolk and acquaintance. And when they found Him not, they turned back
again to Jerusalem seeking Him.”[176]
A little to the north-west of Beeroth, we approach an Arab village,
standing on the ridge of a hill with a valley on either side. To the
eastward the ridge rises considerably, giving an extensive view over the
Jordan valley. A desolate moorland, strewn with ruins, stretches away to
the north. As we enter the village, the first of the wretched and
squalid houses which comprise it, makes some pretension to architectural
decorations in a form not uncommon through central Palestine—over the
doorway a couple of willow-pattern plates are let into the wall. The
modern name, Beitîn, is but a reminiscence of its ancient and venerable
one BETHEL. But except the name there is little to remind us that we are
on a spot so memorable in Jewish history. A large reservoir, similar to
those at Solomon’s Pools and Hebron,—three hundred and fourteen feet
long by two hundred and seventeen wide, constructed of massive Jewish
masonry, may not improbably go back to a very early period. It is now
empty except after heavy rains; but it was formerly filled by the
springs at which Abram doubtless watered his flocks and herds when,
entering the land of Canaan, “he pitched his tent, having Bethel on the
west, and Hai on the east, and there he builded an altar unto the Lord,
and called upon the name of the Lord.”[177]
The patriarch after his journey into Egypt, returned “unto the place
where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai unto
the place of the altar which he had made there at the first, and there
Abram called upon the name of the Lord,” for wherever he pitched his
tent there he built an altar—an example to all future ages of household
piety and domestic worship. It was here and now that the strife occurred
between his herdsmen and those of his nephew Lot. Standing on the high
ground already spoken of, the younger man “lifted up his eyes and beheld
all the plain of the Jordan that it was well watered everywhere ... even
as the garden of the Lord ... then Lot chose him all the plain of the
Jordan, and Lot journeyed east; and they separated themselves the one
from the other.” As one contrasts the barren rocky hills around us with
the rich and fertile plain of Sodom, the self-denial of “the Father of
the faithful,” becomes very striking and instructive. A new meaning is
thus given to the promise which followed upon the choice of Abram: “And
the Lord said unto him, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up
thine eyes, and look from the place where thou now art, northward, and
southward, and eastward, and westward; for all the land which thou
seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.... Arise, walk
through the land, in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I
will give it unto thee.”[178] The blessing which thus came upon
“faithful Abraham,” will surely be inherited by all who, like him, are
content to forego present advantages in the service and at the call of
God.
Of the city which once stood upon this site scarcely any trace remains.
A careful examination of the ruins of a Christian church, probably of
the date of the Crusades, shows that it has been built out of an older
edifice. The size of many of the stones and the peculiar bevel on the
edge shows that the original edifice was Jewish.
The foundations of other ancient structures may be traced on the
hill-side, and near its summit are the remains of a tower which still
rises to a considerable height. Nothing has yet been discovered to fix
the site of the temple which Jeroboam built here to rival that at
Jerusalem, or of the altar where, as he stood to offer incense, he was
rebuked by the fearless prophet, followed by the withering of the
monarch’s arm, and the miraculous overthrow of the altar.[179] A Jewish
tradition tells us that the temple was so built that the idol-priests
could look down upon that of Solomon on Mount Moriah. From the top of
the tower this cannot now be done, but the Mount of Olives is distinctly
visible almost to its base. Jerusalem is hidden by an intervening hill.
I was told by my dragoman that a few years ago, before the upper courses
of masonry had been removed, the temple platform could be seen, and it
was evident that a very small addition to the height at which I stood
would render this quite practicable.
It was somewhere in the rock-strewn moorland, which stretches around the
city, that Jacob, travelling northward, a fugitive from his father’s
house at Beersheba, received the mysterious vision, which formed the
turning point in his career. Standing amongst these heaps of stones and
sheets of smooth, bare rock, it is easy to realize the scene as “he
tarried there all night because the sun was set, and he took of the
stones of the place and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that
place to sleep.”[180]
[Illustration: RUINS OF BETHEL.]
[Illustration: STONE CIRCLE NEAR BETHEL.]
The historian goes on to tell us that “the name of that city was called
Luz at the first,” implying an earlier Canaanitish settlement. A curious
and interesting trace of this fact is found in the stone-circles,
resembling those in our own country, which still exist on the east of
the city. There are numerous instances in Palestine of the occurrence of
dolmens and rude stone circles. We must doubtless refer them to the
early settlers, antecedent to the Hebrew conquest.
We now leave the sterile rocky heights of Benjamin and Judah, and shall
soon enter upon the fertile plains and valleys of Samaria. The soil is
richer and better cultivated. The hills are terraced up to their
summits, and are covered with corn-fields and orchards. In the days of
prosperity and plenty, when “every man sat under his own vine and
fig-tree,” even the barren slopes of Southern Palestine were brought
under cultivation. They drew “honey from the rock, and oil out of the
flinty rock.” Even yet we can trace the lines of these ancient terraces
showing what the land once was, and what it may yet become again when
“the time to favour Zion, yea, the set time, is come.” But now these
long lines or scattered heaps of stones only add to the general sense of
desolation. In the country north of Bethel, however, we come to many
districts in which something of the former fertility and prosperity may
yet be found. From our camp in Ain Haramiyeh, or Robbers’ Fountain, a
few miles north of Bethel, we could see the hills clothed to their very
summits with fig-gardens, now in their bright spring greenery. A Syrian
gentleman, who was my frequent companion through this part of Palestine,
plucked the young figs as he passed without stint or scruple. His reply
to my question as to his right to do so was instructive as throwing
light upon an incident in the life of our Lord as to which some
difficulty has been felt. In the early spring, when the first leaves
appear, an immense number of small figs are produced, which do not ripen
but fall from the branches, crude and immature, to the ground. To these
we find a reference in the Apocalypse “as a fig-tree casteth her
untimely figs.”[181] The true crop is not produced till later in the
year. This first crude “untimely” growth, though of no commercial value,
is yet plucked and eaten by the peasantry, sometimes with a pinch of
salt, sometimes with bread. Like the wild fruit of our hedgerows it is
free to all passers-by. It was just at this early season, before the
feast of the passover, that our Lord and His disciples, having walked
from Bethany, “hungered.” Seeing a fig-tree “afar off having leaves,”
they sought fruit and “found nothing thereon but leaves only, for the
time of figs was not yet.”[182] That is to say, seeing leaves they had a
right to expect fruit. Finding fruit they would have had a right to
pluck it, “for the time of figs was not yet,” the true and valuable crop
was not yet produced. This incident He turned into a solemn lesson of
warning to the Jews. It was at the close of His public ministry.
“Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit and finding
none,”[183]—nothing but the leaves of mere profession and outward
privilege. The time of forbearance and patient pitying delay had
passed—that of rejection and destruction had come; “and He said unto it,
Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the
fig-tree withered away.”
“On the north side of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goeth
up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah,”[184] stood
SHILOH, exactly on the spot thus precisely indicated is the village of
Seilûn, the Arabic form of its ancient name. It stands on a slight
eminence, rising from an extensive plain. An ancient well probably marks
the spot where “the daughters of Shiloh came out to dance in dances” at
their annual festival, and were carried away as brides by the Benjamites
who had crossed the frontier.[185] Of the tabernacle in which the ark
rested, from the time of Joshua to that of Samuel, no trace, of course,
remains. But on the summit of a little knoll we find the remains of what
was once a Jewish synagogue, afterwards used as a church, and
subsequently as a mosque. On the lintel over the doorway, between two
wreaths of flowers, is carved a vessel shaped like a Roman amphora; it
so closely resembles the conventional type of the “pot of manna” as
found on coins and in the ruins of the synagogue at Capernaum, that it
doubtless formed part of the original building. It is a not improbable
conjecture that the synagogue may have been erected on the sacred spot
which for so many generations formed the centre of Jewish worship. And
in the rock sepulchres with which the neighbouring hill-sides are
honey-combed, the remains of Eli, and of the high-priests who had
ministered before him at the altar were doubtless laid to rest.
[Illustration: RUINS OF A SYNAGOGUE AT SHILOH.]
There are few spots in Palestine of which the identification is more
certain, or the associations more interesting than Shiloh. Here the
childless wife prayed; and when her prayer had been heard she brought
the infant Samuel (_Asked of the Lord_), and said to the aged priest,
“Oh my lord, as thy soul liveth, my lord, I am the woman that stood by
thee here, praying unto the Lord. For this child I prayed; and the Lord
hath given me my petition which I asked of Him: therefore also I have
lent him to the Lord: as long as he liveth shall he be lent to the
Lord.” The incidents which followed—the annual visit of the happy
mother, the little coat, made with such loving care, for the absent boy,
the child Samuel “growing in stature and in favour both with the Lord
and also with men,” the aged, sorrowful priest, the mysterious voice in
the silence of the night, the mournful tragedy of Eli’s death, and the
universal recognition of “all Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba that
Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord,”[186]—have delighted
infancy and instructed manhood throughout the civilized world for three
thousand years.
[Illustration: THE SITE OF SHILOH.]
The subsequent history of this favoured spot is very mournful. Partaking
in the wickedness and idolatry of Samaria, and then deserted by the
apostate people for more favoured shrines, it soon sank down into ruin
and desolation, so that in the time of the later kings it became a
conspicuous instance of the fate which awa
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