BETHLEHEM
During my several trips to Palestine I have visited Bethlehem, where our
Saviour was born, and have lived for days in Nazareth, where His boyhood
was spent. I have gone over much of the road Joseph and Mary followed
when they carried the child into Egypt, and have crossed the mountains of
Samaria from Galilee to Jerusalem, where He went as a boy of twelve and
was found teaching the doctrine in Solomon’s Temple.
I have even climbed the hills and gone into the wilderness where our Lord
was tempted of the devil after those forty days of hunger and thirst.
At Capernaum I saw the recently excavated marble synagogue where some
of His first preaching was done. I have climbed to the top of the hill
above the Sea of Galilee, where He delivered the Sermon on the Mount, and
have picked flowers from the rolling green sward below, where the miracle
of the loaves and fishes was performed. Not far from that place, on the
opposite shore, may be seen a steep hill down which rushed the swine
possessed of the devils our Saviour had cast out of the Gadarene man. I
have been in Bethany, where lived Mary and Martha, and have sat under the
trees in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Many of these places are about the same as they were when our Saviour
was alive. Some have been covered with churches and convents, but the
warring sects of Christians have not been able to change the bright sky.
Nature is the same now as it was then. The same flowers bloom and the
same birds sing. Besides, it is not so long, after all, since Jesus was
born in Bethlehem. The average lifetime of a man is not much more than
was that of our Saviour. He lived thirty-three years. It would take only
fifty-eight such lifetimes to cover the period between now and the birth
of Christ. Each of us has a relative who is, perhaps, sixty-five years
old. The lives of thirty such men would, if joined together, reach back
to the days of King Herod.
We shall take carriages for our trip from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. We
start at the Jaffa Gate, next David’s Tower, on the top of Mount Zion,
near where, it is claimed, the Crucifixion took place. The gate was
widened by the breach in the wall made in honour of Kaiser Wilhelm of
Germany, so all sorts of vehicles can now go through it. As we leave
the gate we pass coffee houses where people of a dozen different
nationalities are drinking, go by the railroad station, where a puffing
locomotive is just in from the Mediterranean, skirt the valley of Hinnom,
in which is the Pool of Gihon, where David was anointed, and a little
later on stop near the village where King Saul was crowned.
The road is excellent. It is of hard limestone walled on each side by
limestone fences and backed by green fields now covered with the dust of
the highway. The traffic is constant, so that the air is white with dust.
It fills our eyes, mouths, and nostrils, and makes us look like millers.
We cover our eyes with smoked glasses to keep out the glare. The road
is dazzling white, the fences are white, a white dust covers the green
of the fields. As we are going toward the south, the sun is full in our
faces. It is hot, although a cold wind is blowing over these hills of
Judea which whirls the dust around and sends columns of it into the air.
Soon after leaving Jerusalem we cross a depression carpeted with green,
which is known as the Valley of Roses. Farther on are olive groves, and
as we near Bethlehem there are great fields of green. At the left we can
see the plain where the young widow Ruth garnered wheat for old Boaz and
thus got food and a husband.
All the way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem crops are growing. There are
signs of increased cultivation, and every bit of available land is being
set out in orchards and gardens. I went over the same road twenty-odd
years ago. Then the country was bare rocks with bits of grass here
and there. To-day the land is divided into fields. The surface rocks
have been gathered together and laid up in fences as high as my head.
The cleared land is now planted in wheat, corn, and barley. New olive
orchards are rising, while many of the old ones still stand. The trunks
of the old trees are knotted and gnarled, but the leaves are of green
dusted with silver, and I am told they still bear fruit. I photographed
one tree not more than thirty feet high which had a trunk as thick as a
hogshead and branches which shaded a large tract of ground. The soil of
Palestine is as fertile to-day as it was when Joshua led the Israelites
across it, and barring the fences, I doubt not the landscape is about the
same now as it was when Christ was born.
[Illustration: Christmas is long drawn out at Bethlehem. First come the
Latin ceremonies on December 25; fourteen days later the Greek Church
celebrates; and thirteen days later comes the Armenian feast]
[Illustration: Young women in Bethlehem proudly wear their
dowries—necklaces and fillets of coins, and beautifully embroidered
shawls, which may mean over a year of painstaking needlework]
Every bit of the way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem is historic ground. Over
this same road Abraham travelled to Mount Moriah. Along it came the
Wise Men of the East following the Star on their way to the stable where
Jesus was born. They had called upon crafty King Herod at Jerusalem to
ask about the King of the Jews. He had told them to find where He was
born, that he might come and worship Him. The road goes by a well where
it is said these Wise Men stopped to drink. It is known as the “Well of
the Magi,” and is near an olive grove on the east side of the road. It is
covered with a marble slab as big around as a cart wheel with a hole cut
in the centre through which the water is raised by a bucket and rope. The
stone is polished by the kisses of pilgrims.
The story is that the Wise Men as they trudged along in the gathering
twilight sat down by this well to rest. When they stooped forward to draw
some water to drink, they saw reflected in its mirror-like surface the
guiding Star. They looked toward the heavens, and then, in the words of
the Scripture:
Lo, the star which they saw in the East went before them, until
it came and stood over where the young child was.
It was not far from here that I caught my first sight of the field where
the shepherds lay when the angel and the heavenly host announced Christ’s
birth to them. It is said to be the field of Boaz upon which Ruth gleaned
her wheat. It lies across the valley to the east of Bethlehem. There is a
little village in front of it, and a part of the field is covered by an
olive grove. I saw the sheep feeding upon it, and as I rode to Bethlehem
I passed flocks of them being driven to the Jerusalem markets. They were
of the fat-tailed variety, some of their tails weighing, I venture,
fifteen pounds each. The drivers were kind-eyed and gentle in their
manners and as they went by us they cried out _Neharak sa’id_, or “May
thy day be happy!” To this we replied _Neharak sa’id umubarak_ which in
Arabic means “May thy day also be happy and blessed.”
The shepherds were dressed in long gowns and wore handkerchiefs about
their heads as turbans. Some of them wore sheepskins, and it is probable
that they were clad much the same as those who “came with haste” and
found the infant Jesus lying in a manger. There is a chapel now in the
Field of the Shepherds, and for centuries a church and a monastery stood
on the spot.
Soon after leaving Jerusalem we pass a hill on the left of the road,
where, the guide says, stood the building in which Judas Iscariot sold
his Lord for thirty pieces of silver. Not far away is an old olive tree
upon which the pilgrims are told Judas hanged himself in his remorse
after the Crucifixion.
Going onward about four miles from Jerusalem we come to a building which
has just received a fresh coat of whitewash. It is known as the Tomb
of Rachel, and covers the spot where she is said to be buried. Not far
from it David had his fight with Goliath, the ten-foot giant of the
Scriptures. I am not sure as to the locality, but there are millions of
stones there to-day, and plenty of ammunition for the slings of an army
of Davids. Indeed, there is hardly a field on the hills of Judea which
is not covered with stones of one size or another, and the shepherds use
slings to this day.
And speaking of stones reminds me of the Field of Peas, which lies not
far from Bethlehem. It is a tract on the side of a hill where the stones
are so thick that if it were planted to corn you would have to carry
earth to cover the grains. As the story goes, our Lord was passing by
here when He saw a man sowing grain. He stopped and asked him what he
was sowing. The man replied “stones.” And thereupon the seed peas in his
bag turned to stones, and all that he had sown did the same. Some of the
stones now on the field are gathered up and peddled to pilgrims as relics.
I had one such pedlar follow me half the way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem.
He was a turbaned Syrian boy on a donkey, who had to gallop to keep up
with my carriage. To this the donkey objected, and the boy kept him up
to his work with a stick as long as a husking peg and equally sharp. He
inserted this under the saddle, behind him, and then using it as a lever,
pulled on the other end of the peg, forcing its sharp point into the
animal’s flesh. At every such pull the donkey kicked up its heels and
increased its speed, while the rider bobbed up and down, and his long,
full-trousered legs stood straight out.
Climbing the hill, we come into the town of Bethlehem. We find ourselves
in a maze of box-like, one-, two-, and three-story limestone houses.
They stand close to the edges of winding streets, which are here and
there arched over to shut out the sun. The town, which has about fifteen
thousand inhabitants, is probably ten times as large as it was when
Christ was born. Its chief revenue comes from its association with the
Christian religion and the fact that Christ was born here. There are
thousands of tourists who visit the birthplace of the Saviour every year,
and the chief business of the Bethlehemites is making rosaries, crosses,
and articles of wood and mother-of-pearl for sale to the pilgrims as well
as for shipment abroad. I was surprised to learn that the mother-of-pearl
used is imported from the United States, where it is known as “pearl
waste.” Shells are carved and sold to tourists in Jerusalem and
elsewhere, and the Palestine beads, so largely used as rosaries, both
by Mohammedans and Christians, are made here. These beads are filed out
of oyster shells until they are the right size. Holes are then drilled
in them and they are polished by shaking them about in crockery vessels
with a little water. After this they are treated in a weak solution of
nitric acid, polished again, and strung on cords of silk or wire. Crosses
and hearts are made of mother-of-pearl, and sometimes a little image
of the Saviour is attached to the rosary. Much of this work is done by
women and girls, who receive from twelve to twenty-five cents a day. It
is estimated that the total production of such wares sells for in the
neighbourhood of two hundred thousand dollars a year, and that something
like thirty thousand dollars’ worth are shipped to the United States
annually.
The grotto or cave in which Christ was born is in the very heart of the
Bethlehem of to-day. There is an open square in front of it surrounded
by stores and schools, and a great church known as the Church of the
Nativity has been built over it. The church is entered by a door which
looks like a square hole cut through a stone wall. It is so low that
all who enter, even the children, must stoop. As I started to go in I
saw a Bethlehem woman with a baby in her arms standing outside. The
baby was small, and I could imagine the woman as Mary and the child as
the Saviour. Taking a coin out of my pocket, I asked her to pose for
my camera. She did so, carrying the child into the sun. Near by, in the
shadow of the church, was a bearded Syrian in turban and gown, and at
first I thought he might make a good Joseph to pose with my Mary. Upon
bringing him into the light, however, I found that he was a beggar and
would not fit into the picture, so I enriched him with a gift of five
cents and sent him back to his seat.
[Illustration: Ropes used by generations of drawers of water have
furrowed the stones of Jacob’s Well where Christ talked with the woman of
Samaria. Over it the Greeks have recently erected a stone chapel]
[Illustration: There are left in Palestine less than two hundred
Samaritans, whose High Priest guards the ancient scroll of the first
five books of the Bible, which they claim is the original version of the
Pentateuch]
One part of the Church of the Nativity is controlled by the Armenians and
Latins, another by the Greeks, and there are soldiers on hand to keep the
worshippers in order. These two sects fight for the right to take care of
the birthplace of Jesus, and not long ago a controversy arose over which
should clean one of the windows. Both the Armenians and the Greeks were
quarrelling over it when the Mohammedan authorities came in and forbade
either sect to touch it. Therefore, that window remained unwashed.
The stable is under the church. It is reached by a winding staircase
going down into a cave floored with marble about twelve feet wide and
forty feet long. Thirty-two lamps burn day and night within it. Set in
the marble pavement is a star over which there is an inscription stating
that on that spot the Virgin Mary gave birth to Christ. This star is
held down by nails. Once the Armenian who had the right to clean it was
working away when he knocked off the head of one of the nails. This
caused a great commotion. The Greeks, Latins, and Armenians began to
fight over it, and the governor of Jerusalem, to settle the dispute,
called in a blacksmith to drill out the old nail and put in a new one.
The blacksmith proved to be a member of one of the quarrelling sects. In
order to settle the trouble the governor called in a gypsy, who had no
religious standing whatever, and he replaced the nail without opposition.
At one side of the cave is a recess called the Chapel of the Manger,
where it is said the Saviour was laid after His birth. The manger is
of brown-and-white marble, and a wax doll lies in it representing the
Christ. The Latins claim that they have the original manger in one of
their cathedrals in Rome. It is shown every Christmas.
As I stood in the stable not far from the manger, a party of twenty
Franciscan monks came in and knelt down and sang a service concerning the
Nativity. They were burly men with shaved heads and long beards. They
wore long gowns and their heads and feet were bare. They knelt upon the
floor as they sang, and at the end each bowed down and kissed the star
marking the spot of Christ’s birth.
This Bethlehem grotto, if indeed it was ever used as a stable, has been
so changed by the decorations that it is impossible to conceive it to be
the place of the Nativity. It is probably a fraud, as is also the well at
one side of the crypt where the water is said to have burst forth from
the naked rock for the use of the Holy Family. I looked down into this
well. It is said that the star, that guided the Magi fell into it, but
that it is only visible to the eye of a virgin.
I tried in vain to imagine the scenes of Christ’s birth. The decorations
were out of all keeping with the place, and the warring Christians
prevented reverent thought. I got a better idea by going into some of
the actual stables which are in use in Palestine to-day, and which
are just about the same now as they were nineteen hundred years ago. I
remember one such stable near Jerusalem. It was a cave with a floor of
rough stone, divided into chambers or stalls, which opened into a sort
of court. There were men and women sleeping on the floors of the courts,
with the animals eating out of their stone boxes or mangers about them.
The people had no bedclothing except their blankets, and ate their meals
on the floor. It was on such a floor that Mary had to lie, because there
was no room at the inn, and the manger in which the baby Christ lay was
probably a hollowed-out stone box such as those in which the donkeys were
eating. Within this stable I saw a Bedouin woman with a sleeping baby on
her knee. She had just been feeding the child and one breast peeped out
between the folds of her coarse, rough gown. Her arms were bare to the
shoulders and there were bracelets upon her wrists. Her face was as sweet
as that of any Madonna I have ever seen upon canvas, and her baby, still
in its swaddling clothes, looked as pure and as innocent as the most
famous representation of the infant Christ.
It was in such stable that the Wise Men knelt and presented their gifts.
It was there that the shepherds came, and it was there that our Redeemer
first saw the light of this world.
Here at Bethlehem occurred the slaughter of the innocents. King Herod had
learned that the Saviour was born, and he thought that if this infant
King of the Jews still lived at Bethlehem he would make sure of His
death. So his soldiers killed all the children under two years of age. In
a place here, which the guides tell you was used for storing the bodies,
there are oil paintings horribly done depicting the killing. Bethlehem
was so small that it must have been difficult to hide the infant Christ
from the men sent by King Herod to search for Him, and it is no wonder
that Joseph and Mary took the Holy Child and fled with Him to Egypt.
The Bethlehem of to-day has entirely recovered from the massacre of
Herod. Its streets swarm with babies many of whom are not as clean as
they should be. There are many older children as well, and all howl for
_baksheesh_. The Bethlehemites are noted for their beauty, especially the
girls, who are fair-skinned and bright-eyed. Their plump, well-rounded
forms are clad in long gowns of white linen so beautifully embroidered in
silk that one dress requires many months’ work. The main part of their
costume is much like a lady’s nightgown. The gown falls to the feet,
being open at the front in a narrow slit as far down as the breast. Over
the gowns they wear sleeveless coats of dark red stripes and cover their
heads with shawls of linen embroidered in silk. Each girl has necklaces
of coins and a headdress decorated with coins of silver or gold. They do
not cover their faces, and their features are usually refined. They are
very intelligent, and in trading with them I find that they generally get
the best of the bargain.
[Illustration: The Samaritans dress in white for the Feast of the
Passover on their holy hill of Mt. Gerizim, where lambs are killed as
in the days of Aaron. They are very poor and greatly despised by the
orthodox Jews]
[Illustration: Pulling tares from the wheat is the children’s task. If
they are not removed the bread will be bitter]
[Illustration: The camel blubbers and bawls as his hair is clipped off to
make tents for his master]