from the invasion of warlike rome we turn to that “peace and her huge invasion” which came to the holy land during the later days of the roman empire. before the time of constantine the church in syria had grown and spread with such startling vitality and promise of even more abundant life as to bring down upon her the cruelty of persecutions. in the north the christian communities were mainly gentile, in the south jewish christians. they must have been intellectually as well as spiritually vigorous, for the curious speculations and mystic dreams of the gnostics had already, in the second century, gained footing in syrian christianity.
with constantine (324-337) roman persecution ceased for ever. the jews were permitted to return to jerusalem, and the construction of the written talmud began its career of three centuries. julian, the last emperor on the throne before the empire divided into east and west, had apostatised from the christian faith{116} before his ascension, and in 361 he attempted the restoration of the temple in jerusalem as a strength to judaism against christianity. but the galilean had conquered, and it was the day of christ. the recognition of christianity as the religion of the state began a new era, which ran on for a thousand years in the eastern empire, until the siege of constantinople changed the face of europe in 1453. the words of dante will often recur to the student of early christian days in palestine:—
ah! constantine, what evil came as child
not of thy change of creed, but of the dower
of which the first rich father thee beguiled.
the reference is to the legend of “the donation of constantine,” by which he transferred rome and the states of the church to the papal see. christianity in syria has run a strange career.
up to the time of constantine the church was at bay, fighting a desperate battle against the pagan world. at c?sarea especially, but in many another roman town besides, native syrians were forced underground into caves and catacombs, or brought to the death in the public games. many records of this period survive. at sidon, searching about among the tombs which renan has recently explored, we came upon a broken marble slab—evidently the lintel of a church raised in memory of a local massacre of christians—with the{117} word marturion inscribed on it. the martyr monuments of syria are wonderfully full of peace, hope, and assurance. like marius the epicurean you feel, when first you come upon them, that for the first time you are seeing the wonderful spectacle of those who believe. you understand his impression of every form of human sorrow assuaged—desire, and the fulfilment of desire working on the very faces of the aged, and the young men obviously persons who had faced life and were glad. and the same wistful sense of a sure word of revelation comes upon the beholder as that which appealed to him. surely here the earth was for once not forsaken of the higher powers, but visited and spoken to and loved!
after constantine the pilgrim takes the place of foremost interest, which the martyr previously held. from 451, when an independent patriarchate was established at jerusalem, pilgrimages became very frequent; and a century later there were hospices with 3000 beds in them within jerusalem, while trade of many sorts flourished by their aid. in the oldest itineraries there are very curious accounts of these pilgrimages; but two, which colonel conder gives, are especially quaint and interesting. they refer to later pilgrimages, but are appropriate enough to earlier ones. the first one is from saewulf, giving an account of his {118}landing at jaffa: “from his sins, or from the badness of the ship,” he was almost wrecked, and his companions were drowned before his eyes. the other is sir john maundeville’s—most fascinating, if most unscrupulous, of travellers: “two miles from jerusalem is mount joy, a very fair and delicious place. there samuel the prophet lies in a fair tomb; and it is called mount joy because it gives joy to pilgrims’ hearts, for from that place men first see jerusalem.”
from the first, pilgrimage seems to have had its moral disadvantages and special temptations. the turkish proverb runs, “if your friend has made the pilgrimage once, distrust him—if he has made the pilgrimage twice, cut him dead.” and it would seem that the christian pilgrim is not altogether in a position to throw stones at his moslem brother. apart from any sins to which the freedom of travel in a far land may be supposed to tempt poor human nature, there are some which are par excellence pilgrim sins. thus we find in the seventeenth century the armenian patriarch complaining that the seat in the chapel of st. helena in which he used to sit had been so hacked to pieces by relic-hunting pilgrims that he was “frequently obliged to renew it.” the case was all the harder because it was not from its association with the patriarch, but because st. helena had sat in it, that it was so much in request! if mark twain be a true reporter, there are pilgrims who have inherited {119}that particular kind of moral frailty with remarkable fidelity to the manners of their predecessors. then again, the pilgrimages, which everywhere stimulated trade, created an amazing amount of fraud in the sale of false relics and other such traffic. dr. conan doyle’s picture of the pilgrim in france, who takes a nail from the box of a blacksmith and sells it to unsuspecting soldiers as one of those which were driven into the wood of the true cross, is drawn from the life. even on the sacred spots themselves the simplicity of pilgrims has always been a temptation to custodians. a tale is told of some one who, only a year or two ago, dropped by accident a bible down the dry shaft of jacob’s well. the bible was reclaimed within a few days, but when brought up it was a mere mass of pulp. a large party of pilgrims had visited the place in the interval, and had professed a strong desire to drink water from the famous well. a small stream, conveniently diverted to the well mouth, had enabled the priest in charge to gratify their desire by draughts of water drawn from the depths before their eyes.
the pilgrim is still extant. for well-nigh two thousand years he has come and gone, a tourist who has always had an immense commercial value for the holy land. the levy made on pilgrims at the gate of jerusalem was one of the principal causes of the crusades, and it is hardly more than a hundred years since a heavy tax was imposed upon every pilgrim when he reached the gate of the church of the holy sepulchre. the greater part of those who come now are russians. jaffa is full of them, but they are to be seen in long caravans{120} of pedestrians, with a donkey or two bearing all their scanty luggage, as far north as samaria and galilee. the men are typical russian peasants, in the blouses and caps that are so familiar. their long hair may be fair or dark, but it is always matted and coarse. the women, with their good, weather-beaten faces, are uncommonly like old-fashioned peasant women from the northern scottish countrysides. their head-dress is a simple kerchief, and their hands grasp a rude pilgrim staff polished with much wear. the privations of such pilgrimages must be very great. they involve the expenditure of a lifetime’s savings, and a journey in many cases of at least six months. most of this is done on foot, and largely by people who are growing old. there is no nation that could send forth such multitudes except “rough but believing russia.” the belief is everything. they are very poor people, and very ignorant and simple. yet many whose minds’ conflict seems only to grow sterner in this land of contradictions, may own without shame to a touch of something like envy as they see the exaltation of their childish faith. they encompass the walls of jerusalem to the strains of psalms, and march triumphantly to the sand south of jaffa for shells to authenticate their travels, such as those which appear on the coats-of-arms of some european families, telling of former pilgrimages. mere children in intellect, the gleam in their eyes tells that in their own pathetic way they have entered here into a veritable kingdom of heaven.
the objects of pilgrimage are somewhat gruesome in{121}
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the dome of the rock (mosque of omar), as seen from the porch on the north side of the mosque el aksa.
their way. a favourite ambition used to be that of measuring the “stone of anointing” in the holy sepulchre, in order to have the pilgrim’s own winding-sheet made the same length. the great goal, however, is the jordan, whose banks at the period after constantine used to be paved with marble. in the old time a wooden cross was erected in mid-stream, and the waters were blessed by a priest, after which the pilgrims tumbled in with such haste that numbers of them were drowned. here, too, the winding-sheet is in evidence. besides the flask of jordan water which they fill, they dip their own winding-sheets and those of friends at home who have been unable to come in person, but have sent these pale substitutes. it was not our good fortune to see the merry band of pilgrims at the jordan, though we met scattered groups of russians in many places. one other pilgrim we saw, and he accompanied us through several days’ march northward. he was a jet-black abyssinian—a lonely and silent figure clad from head to foot in a loose robe of pure white sackcloth. he went with us to nazareth, the destination of his pilgrimage. his only word in common with us was “christianus,” and he always bowed and crossed himself when he said it. all day long he walked in silence in our company. he asked for nothing, but ate the meat he received in singleness of heart, and sat apart watching the loading and unloading of the baggage with the eyes of a great child.
while so many christians paid a passing visit to{122} palestine in the early days, there were some who came to stay. it was the time of the rise of monastic institutions, which first appear in the beginning of the fourth century. their history from the first is peculiarly associated with syria, into which they spread almost immediately after their start in egypt. some of the most famous of the early recluses, including even st. symeon stylites himself, were of syrian origin.[20] these ascetics were the natural successors of the martyrs. the first hints of them are given during the time of earlier martyrdoms, for it is recorded that christians as early as the decian persecutions fled to the wilderness and led a life there which was soon to become popular beyond all possibility of forecast.
it was not, however, until constantine’s favour had secularised the church, or at least had made easy that life which hitherto had been so dangerous, that the reaction set in which gave monasticism its great hold on the world. this is generally explained as a matter solely of protest against growing worldliness, or a development of that curious kind of “other-worldliness” which finds in asceticism the surest means of attaining earthly fame and heavenly reward. no doubt both these elements are true. in the early ascetics there was a self-denial prompted by the purest desire for escape from the defiling society of their time into the spiritual cleanness of the faith, and from its hard and coarse materialism into the delicate ideality and refinement of christian thought and feeling. it was{123} also, on the other hand, a refuge and an outlet for much of the inefficiency and moral worthlessness of the time, which found in its freedom from social restraint and its wide leisure things exactly to their own taste. but behind all this there is another fact which is really the most significant of all. monasticism was “the compensation for martyrdom.” readers of the letters of ignatius are familiar with that mania for martyrdom which during persecuting times took possession of so many in the church. in abnormal and extreme conditions such as these, certain minds grow hysterical and lose their perspective and sense of proportion altogether. in such minds a morbid and passionate delight in pain develops into a sort of lust—a religiosa cupiditas—for suffering torture, just as in the persecutors cruelty becomes a lust for inflicting it. so asceticism offered itself when martyrdom could no longer be had—“a voluntary martyrdom, a gradual self-destruction, a sort of religious suicide.”[21]
the new ideal passed through several successive phases. from an unorganised and individual way of life within the church, it developed first into anchoretism about the beginning of the fourth century. in barren and solitary places, where life at best was precarious and physical enjoyment impossible, every cave and den had its tenant. on mount sinai one hermit is said to have lived for fifty years in absolute solitude, silence, and nakedness. as you ride down the terrific gorges from mar saba to the dead sea, you{124} pass along precipitous hillsides and rock-faces which appear literally riddled with small caves and holes in the rock and sand. these, which now serve for a covert from the heat for passing shepherds, or for the lairs of jackals, were once populated by hermits. saint saba is said to have collected the bones of no fewer than 10,000 solitary dwellers in this district, who had fallen victims to the carismians. and in many parts of syria even now, a hillside which during the day has seemed barren of all human habitation, is unexpectedly illuminated with hermits’ lights—those “hands praying to god”—in the dark. the enthusiasm with which this dreary life has filled some of its devotees may be realised in the following lines from an epistle of st. jerome:—“o desert, where the flowers of christ are blooming! o solitude, where the stones for the new jerusalem are prepared! o retreat, which rejoices in the friendship of god! what doest thou in the world, my brother, with thy soul greater than the world? how long wilt thou remain in the shadow of roofs, and in the smoky dungeon of cities? believe me, i see here more of the light.”[22]
it was in cloister life, however—at first in smaller communities and then on the large scale of many cloisters gathered under a common rule—that early christianity reached its full development. besides the native establishments, there was, in the first centuries after constantine, a cloud of religieux, flying like homing doves across the sea to alight and quietly settle down{125} on holy soil. these establishments had many faults. they perpetuated little sectarian differences and exaggerated them into quite ridiculous importance. the very lamps that hang in the oldest churches are denominational, and are divided with a childish arithmetic among rival sects. the insistence of these on their respective rights is such that a guard of armed moslem soldiers has to be kept perpetually on the spot to keep the peace. yet there is a splendid dash of courage in this part of church history, which cannot possibly have been all in vain. it must have been an exciting life in some of the outpost stations in these old days. “it is true,” says warburton of one monastery, “the monks were occasionally massacred by the saracens, turks, and carismians, but their martyrdom only gave fresh interest to the spot in the eyes of their successors.” no doubt these establishments drained the world of some of its best manhood, and diverted much greatly needed energy from family life and state loyalties; yet, on the other hand, these were the soldiers of the cross who then fought the paganism of the world and conquered it.
monastic establishments still remain, and supply much-needed inns to many thousands of poor travellers in syria. they vary by very wide degrees of difference from one another. by far the worst place we saw in palestine—one of the worst perhaps that could be seen anywhere—is the convent of mar saba near the dead sea. coming out on the high ridge of the judean mountain country, we caught a glimpse of two towers,{126} which we have already described,[23] square and blind, and so pitilessly unsuggestive that they seemed, as it were, built into the desert, or part of its fantastic offspring. they were the most unhomely buildings we had ever seen, and they are the nearest point to which women are allowed to approach the monastery, lady travellers being accommodated with cells there if they have not tents. by and by we passed between them, down a road so steep as to be practically a stairway, on every step of which loathsomely dirty beggars sat plying their trade. in the courtyard to which this entrance led were two monks, fat and stupid-looking, who brought out strings of beads, rosaries, and crosses of their own manufacture for sale. having, apparently, absolutely nothing to do, the making of these things may be taken for sign of enterprise and commercial genius, but as time is evidently valueless, they sell their work very cheap. to the right is a rock, hollowed out into a chamber or broad gallery, which is sacred as having been the shrine of saint saba’s devotions. the entrance is violently coloured in washes of blue and white paint, so crude and aggressive that it quite robs the pictures in the interior of their horror, and prepares you to look with unclouded eye upon the skulls which fill the grilled recesses. one of these skulls is set in front, to receive the kisses of devout pilgrims. it is deeply worn and polished. when it has actually been worn through to a hole it will be replaced, as others{127} have been before it. across the courtyard you follow narrow stairs and galleries that run irregularly along the edge of a precipice; for the monastery has affixed itself to the face of a cliff four hundred feet high. it clings there, supported by huge flying buttresses that spring from the depths below in a fashion which, as one writer says, remind you of pictures of belshazzar’s feast. the cells of the monks, little disconnected “lean-to” sheds or caves, have the greek cross upon their doors, and the often-repeated inscription, “o christ, abide with us!” here and there are a few plants in pots, or a feeble attempt at rearing vegetables in little garden patches which fill in any foot of level among the many-cornered buildings; while in one cranny grows the solitary date-palm which saint saba planted more than 1300 years ago. at every few yards you pause to look over a low balustrade into the gorge, which here is a sort of yellow-ochre gulf, with all the horror but none of the rich depth of colouring that belongs to frightful abysses. over these walls the monks throw meat to the jackals which come and fight for it below. occasionally, as we passed, a face was visible at a window, generally either wizened and dried up, or with a white, neurotic appearance that was almost more repulsive. everywhere dirt reigned supreme—unspeakable filth in open drains and putrid litter. in one place, where the smell was sickening, a monk was lying asleep by the side of a broken drain, covered with flies in great black masses on his face and arms.{128} in another place an abominable-looking dish of food, fly-blown and disgusting, was pushed with a spoon in it half through a hole broken in the bottom of a cell door. and everywhere throughout this palace of disgust was to be read the prayer, “o christ, abide with us!”
that was the worst. mar saba is a sort of combination of prison and asylum, where lunatics are kept under the charge of monks condemned to this place for heresy or immorality. other monasteries we saw, of a very different kind. our tents precluded the necessity for our making any of these our home for the night, but in many cases it would have been very pleasant to do so. on the top of tabor, at tell hum on the sea of galilee, and in other places, we were received and entertained with the most cordial and generous hospitality. the clean and spacious guest-chambers are open to all comers. they are adorned with photographs of various sorts, and often contain a cabinet of rare local curiosities. the brothers in charge of these establishments were fine genial men, courageously facing the risks of fever in deadly spots, or varying their hospitable labours on the heights by long seasons of study (for some of them are distinguished scholars); but always ready to meet a stranger as a friend, and to chat with him in french or german, over a pipe of western tobacco, about the great world from which they had gone so far.
in all these ways the many-sided life of the old christian days lingers and may still be seen. but it{129}
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the dome of the rock (mosque of omar).
from the barracks near the site of the tower of antonia. the north porch of the dome of the rock is towards the spectator; to the left is the dome of the chain; to the right, in the middle distance, is the mosque of el aksa.
lingers more impressively in the most ancient of the churches which date from this period. there is in palestine an astonishing number of ruins of old christian churches, many of them dating back, at least so far as their foundations go, to the byzantine period. there are many modern churches, but they are not as a rule impressive. even when, as in the russian church at gethsemane, the building is in itself rich and costly, it is so irrelevant as to rouse a feeling of rebellion.
most of the ancient churches have utterly vanished, like that roofless basilica which constantine built on the supposed scene of the ascension on the mount of olives. in other cases they are mere heaps of ruin, like the remaining fragments of the church of jacob’s well, which was built about the middle of the fourth century, and has been several times rebuilt since then. this church takes most travellers by surprise. they go expecting an out-door scene, with all the harvest breeze of the scripture story on it. they find a newly built white wall, glaring in the sunshine. through a gate in this wall they are admitted by certain broken-down-looking persons in the greenish-black garments of the greek clergy. within the gate, a few steps bring them to the edge of a sort of oblong pit full of masonry. it is the nave of the old church, and the splendidly carved pillars of its white stone show how beautiful it must have been. a door in the sunk side-wall opens upon a groined vault newly rebuilt. in the dim light you can discern in the centre a rough stone altar, with candles and lamps and a couple of execrable pictures of{130} christ and the woman of sychar. on the ground before the altar is a flat stone perforated with a hole two feet in diameter. this is the cover of the well, and a second clerical person, badly marked with smallpox, lets down a twist of lighted candles by a long rope, while a little green lamp of silver hangs above, dripping oil steadily down the well. surely this is the infatuation of reverence! if there is any memory of jesus which is essentially of the open air, it is this incident of the well of samaria. yet reverence must build its dark chamber, and proceed to illuminate with candles the spot where jesus sat and saw the miles and miles of waving fields, white already to harvest. no doubt the church dates from the fourth century; but what right had even the ancients to build a church here, to keep men busy with their sectarianism on the very spot where they and all the world were told that the hour was come when neither in this mountain nor yet at jerusalem would the father be worshipped, but in spirit and in truth?
there are, however, two great churches of this ancient time which waken feelings very different from these; they have been for centuries the centres of christian interest and devotion in the land, covering, as they are supposed to do, the sites of the birth and death of jesus christ. in some respects they are alike. the outsides of them are huddled and packed together, a heterogeneous mass of apparently unrelated buildings. the insides are not, like the houses, rembrandt studies in intense light and shadow. by some skilful arrangement, the sunlight seems to be caught and diffused in a pale{131} luminous twilight that sinks gradually to darkness in chapels and recesses, and blends with the light of many lamps and candles not unpleasingly. the church of the holy sepulchre is the gift of st. helena, mother of constantine, and was consecrated by her in a.d. 336. tradition relates how, at the age of seventy-nine, she made her pilgrimage to jerusalem, was baptized in jordan, discovered the true cross, and built the church upon the spot of its discovery. our guide-book tells us of an ante-chamber “where oriental christians are in the habit of removing their shoes, though we need not follow their example.” yet the crusaders entered it barefooted, though with songs of praise, a thousand years ago; and the impulse of most christians, however little they may be disposed to believe in the identity of the sacred sites within, will be to share the veneration of the easterns. not that what we see now is the original building. that was a rotunda and a basilica, the former quite other than the present rotunda, as we know from the fact that it formed the model for the mosque of omar. it has suffered many things from assault, from decay, from fire, and from rebuilding. in the twelfth century the whole group of detached shrines and monuments was included for the first time in one huge and complicated building. probably no such patchwork in stone is to be seen elsewhere in the world. yet each rebuilding found many of the older materials ready for its use, and incorporated them in the newer work. thus the columns at the eastern door are supposed to have come from some ancient{132} pagan temple, and the present foundations of the pillars belong to the old rotunda. the capitals of many pillars are byzantine, while the pink limestone column which is embedded in the wall to the right of the eastern entrance is also very ancient.
it is a strange conglomeration of imaginary associations and real value of material. the atmosphere is at times dreadful enough within to justify that daring little touch of realism in the french bas-relief over the door, where some of the spectators at the raising of lazarus are holding their noses with their hands! the chapel of the empress adjoins the altar of the penitent thief; adam and abraham jostle each other for standing ground under the sacred roof; the stone of anointing has been “often changed” according to the guide-book, and the column of scourging “judging from the narratives of different pilgrims, must frequently have changed its colour and its size”—yet pilgrims poke a stick at it and kiss the part that has touched the stone to-day. every incident of the world’s great tragedy is commemorated there, from the footprint of jesus to the silver socket in the rock where his cross was erected. futile enough all this, and even wearisome. but the worship of fifteen hundred years is neither futile nor wearisome. and that worship seems to detach itself from the legends and find its embodiment in the marvels of precious stone that are gathered there. as one sees the slabs of costly stone with which the rock is overlaid—the ruddy yellow slab of the “anointing,” the red and white polished limestone of the central shrine,{133} the green serpentine and the black basalt—one remembers the tomb which the roman bishop ordered in st. praxed’s, with its “peach-blossom marble,” its lump of lapis lazuli, “blue as a vein o’er the madonna’s breast,” and its block of jasper, “pure green as a pistachio-nut.” but there is a difference. the stones of the holy sepulchre were given in love: they are the tribute of many souls whose adoration was the noblest feature of their times.
the church of the holy nativity at bethlehem is a simpler and, to many minds, a more impressive structure. it consists of a broad nave, entirely screened off from what lies beyond, with two rounded transepts and a rounded apse behind the screen—this trefoil-shaped inner building being the church proper. one of the transepts is the property of the armenians; the other, together with the great altar in the apse, belongs to the greeks. below the great altar-rail (“in the breast of god,” in dante’s language) is the cave of the nativity, with steps leading down to it from either transept. a mohammedan soldier stands at the bottom to keep the peace between christians. the transepts and apse are ablaze with lamps and hangings. below, the “manger” is overlaid with coloured marble, and the rock is entirely covered with yellow silk cloth, on which are stamped the insignia of the franciscans—an arm of christ crossed with an arm of st. francis, both shewing the print of nails in the palms of their hands. all this, and the air of raree-show that exhibits so many spots where somebody or other stood, destroy any{134} lingering credulity of which a man may still find himself capable; they make one rather ashamed, and glad to escape. but the nave is mighty in its simplicity, and no less mighty in its wealth of historical association. it is a great severe oblong basilica, with four rows of massive pillars giving double aisles. old glass and old mosaics add their appropriate wealth of sombre beauty. the rafters, replacing constantine’s beams of cedar from lebanon, are the gift of philip of burgundy. lead for the roof was sent by edward iv. of england. most impressive of all is the old plain font of polished stone, with its greek inscription—not, like so many such inscriptions, a record of the donor’s name, but a prayer for god’s blessing upon those who gave it—“whose names are known to thee only.” opinions differ as to the plausibility of the claim to the site of our lord’s nativity; but this church was built by constantine, and the vulgate was written in it by jerome. and since that time the feet of countless millions of worshippers have trodden its stone pavement—a consecration in itself worth many traditional sanctities.
in this chapter we have sought to gather the most obvious survivals of that old christian invasion of palestine which followed next after the roman. almost inevitably we find ourselves quarrelling with the legendary lore that has stultified so many venerable buildings and associations. yet in its legends too the early church survives, and some of them embody eternal truths in forms of rare beauty. take three of the legends of the holy sepulchre by way of example. they show the{135} spot where the one-eyed soldier longinus, who pierced the side of christ, received back the lost eyesight at the touch of a drop of the blood. there, too, is the cleft in the rock through which blood flowed from the cross down into the tomb of adam, whose corpse came to life at once. and there, on easter eve, the sham miracle of the “holy fire” has been enacted annually for at least a thousand years. who can miss the underlying truth beneath these legends? they are, for all but the ignorant and the gross, symbols of the eternal healing and quickening power that the love and sacrifice of christ exert on humanity and even on his enemies. the torch-bearers, who kindle their fires at the blaze on easter eve, and speed thence to bethlehem and other towns to light from it the candles waiting on many altars, tell their own exhilarating lesson. two other legends may be mentioned, which the western world owes to the syrian church—those of st. george and st. christopher. st. george, who was a roman soldier under diocletian, was martyred in a.d. 303. his memory, mixed up with the greek myth of perseus and andromeda, and with crusader stories of richard c?ur de lion, stands for the victory of faith over paganism. st. christopher would only follow the strongest, and finding that his master the devil was afraid of christ, renounced his service and set out to seek him who was strongest of all. the point of the story is that, after seeking christ far and wide, he found him while he was performing the humble task of carrying passengers across a river. it is characteristic{136} of the pilgrim point of view that legend has fixed this scene not by some homely german stream but at the fords of jordan, where he is said to have carried the infant christ across upon his shoulder. even of such legends no wise man will speak with scorn. they, too, are monuments of that conquest of christ which gives its meaning and its glory to the christian invasion.
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interior of the mosque of el aksa, from the south-east.