hastened to explore the premises a little, before the light should fade.
We followed our guide up stairs and down stairs, sometimes cut in the
stone, sometimes wooden stairways, along hanging galleries, through
corridors hewn in the rock, amid cells and little chapels,—a most
intricate labyrinth, in which the uninitiated would soon lose his way.
Here and there we came suddenly upon a little garden spot as big as a
bed-blanket, a ledge upon which soil had been deposited. We walked also
under grape-trellises, we saw orange-trees, and the single palm-tree
that the convent boasts, said to have been planted by St. Sabas himself.
The plan of this establishment gradually developed itself to us. It
differs from an ordinary convent chiefly in this,—the latter is spread
out flat on the earth, Mar Saba is set up edgewise. Put Mar Saba on a
plain, and these little garden spots and graperies would be courts and
squares amid buildings, these galleries would be bridges, these cells or
horizontal caves would be perpendicular tombs and reservoirs.
When we arrived, we supposed that we were almost the only guests. But
we found that the place was full of Greek and Russian pilgrims; we
encountered them on the terraces, on the flat roofs, in the caves, and
in all out-of-the-way nooks. Yet these were not the most pleasing nor
the most animated tenants of the place; wherever we went the old rookery
was made cheerful by the twittering notes of black birds with yellow
wings, a species of grakle, which the monks have domesticated, and which
breed in great numbers. Steeled as these good brothers are against the
other sex, we were glad to discover this streak of softness in their
nature. High up on the precipice there is a bell-tower attached to a
little chapel, and in it hang twenty small bells, which are rung to
call the inmates to prayer. Even at this height, and indeed wherever we
penetrated, we were followed by the monotonous chant which issued from
the charnel-house.
We passed by a long row of cells occupied by the monks, but were not
permitted to look into them; nor were we allowed to see the library,
which is said to be rich in illuminated manuscripts. The convent belongs
to the Greek church; its monks take the usual vows of poverty, chastity,
and obedience, and fortify themselves in their holiness by opposing
walls of adamant to all womankind. There are about fifty monks here at
present, and uncommonly fine-looking fellows,—not at all the gross and
greasy sort of monk that is sometimes met. Their outward dress is very
neat, consisting of a simple black gown and a round, high, flat-topped
black cap.
Our dinner, when it was brought into our apartment, answered very well
one's idea of a dessert, but it was a very good Oriental dinner. The
chief articles were a piece of hard black bread, and two boiled eggs,
cold, and probably brought by some pilgrim from Jerusalem; but besides,
there were raisins, cheese, figs, oranges, a bottle of golden wine, and
tea. The wine was worthy to be celebrated in classic verse; none so good
is, I am sure, made elsewhere in Syria; it was liquid sunshine; and as
it was manufactured by the monks, it gave us a new respect for their
fastidious taste.
The vaulted chamber which we occupied was furnished on three sides with
a low divan, which answered the double purpose of chairs and couch. On
one side, however, and elevated in the wall, was a long niche, exactly
like the recessed tombs in cathedrals, upon which, toes turned up,
lie the bronze or wooden figures of the occupants. This was the bed of
honor. It was furnished with a mattress and a thick counterpane having
one sheet sewed to it. With reluctance I accepted the distinction of
climbing into it, and there I slept, laid out, for all the world, like
my own effigy. From the ceiling hung a dim oil-lamp, which cast a gloom
rather than a light upon our sepulchral place of repose. Our windows
looked out towards the west, upon the court, upon the stairs, upon the
terraces, roofs, holes, caves, grottos, wooden balconies, bird-cages,
steps entering the rock and leading to cells; and, towards the south,
along the jagged precipice. The convent occupies the precipice from the
top nearly to the bottom of the ravine; the precipice opposite is nearly
perpendicular, close at hand, and permits no view in that direction.
Heaven is the only object in sight from this retreat.
Before the twilight fell the chanting was still going on in the cavern,
monks and pilgrims were gliding about the court, and numbers of the
latter were clustered in the vestibule of the church, in which they
were settling down to lodge for the night; and high above us I saw three
gaudily attired Bedaween, who had accompanied some travellers from the
Dead Sea, leaning over the balustrade of the stairs, and regarding the
scene with Moslem complacency. The hive settled slowly to rest.
But the place was by no means still at night. There was in the court an
old pilgrim who had brought a cough from the heart of Russia, who seemed
to be trying to cough himself inside out. There were other noises that
could not be explained. There was a good deal of clattering about in
wooden shoes. Every sound was multiplied and reduplicated from the
echoing rocks. The strangeness of the situation did not conduce to
sleep, not even to an effigy-like repose; but after looking from the
window upon the march of the quiet stars, after watching the new moon
disappear between the roofs, and after seeing that the door of St.
Sabas's tomb was closed, although his light was still burning, I
turned in; and after a time, during which I was conscious that not even
vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience are respected by fleas, I fell
into a light sleep.
From this I was aroused by a noise that seemed like the call to
judgment, by the most clamorous jangle of discordant bells,—all the
twenty were ringing at once, and each in a different key. It was not
simply a din, it was an earthquake of sound. The peals were echoed from
the opposite ledges, and reverberated among the rocks and caves and
sharp angles of the convent, until the crash was intolerable. It was
worse than the slam, bang, shriek, clang, clash, roar, dissonance,
thunder, and hurricane with which all musicians think it absolutely
necessary to close any overture, symphony, or musical composition
whatever, however decent and quiet it may be. It was enough to rouse the
deafest pilgrim, to wake the dead martyrs and set the fourteen thousand
skulls hunting for their bones, to call even St. Sabas himself from his
tomb. I arose. I saw in the starlight figures moving about the court,
monks in their simple black gowns. It was, I comprehended then, the
call to midnight prayer in the chapel, and, resolved not to be disturbed
further by it, I climbed back into my tomb.
But the clamor continued; I heard such a clatter of hobnailed shoes on
the pavement, besides, that I could bear it no longer, got up, slipped
into some of my clothes, opened the door, and descended by our winding
private stairway into the court.
The door of St. Sabas's tomb was wide open!
Were the graves opening, and the dead taking the air? Did this tomb open
of its own accord? Out of its illuminated interior would the saint stalk
forth and join this great procession, the reveille of the quick and the
slow?
From above and from below, up stairs and down stairs, out of caves and
grottos and all odd roosting-places, the monks and pilgrims were pouring
and streaming into the court; and the bells incessantly called more and
more importunately as the loiterers delayed.
The church was open, and lighted at the altar end. I glided in with the
other ghostly, hastily clad, and yawning pilgrims. The screen at the
apse before the holy place, a mass of silver and gilding, sparkled in
the candlelight; the cross above it gleamed like a revelation out of the
gloom; but half of the church was in heavy shadow. From the penetralia
came the sound of priestly chanting; in the wooden stalls along each
side of the church stood, facing the altar, the black and motionless
figures of the brothers. The pilgrims were crowding and jostling in at
the door. A brother gave me a stall near the door, and I stood in it, as
statue-like as I could, and became a brother for the time being.
At the left of the door stood a monk with impassive face; before him on
a table were piles of wax tapers and a solitary lighted candle. Every
pilgrim who entered bought a taper and paid two coppers for it. If he
had not the change the monk gave him change, and the pilgrim carefully
counted what he received and objected to any piece he thought not
current. You may wake these people up any time of night, and find their
perceptions about money unobscured. The seller never looked at the
buyer, nor at anything except the tapers and the money.
The pilgrims were of all ages and grades; very old men, stout,
middle-aged men, and young athletic fellows; there were Russians from
all the provinces; Greeks from the isles, with long black locks and
dark eyes, in fancy embroidered jackets and leggins, swarthy bandits and
midnight pirates in appearance. But it tends to make anybody look like
a pirate to wake him up at twelve o'clock at night, and haul him into
the light with no time to comb his hair. I dare say that I may have
appeared to these honest people like a Western land-pirate. And yet I
should rather meet some of those Greeks in a lighted church than outside
the walls at midnight.
Each pilgrim knelt and bowed himself, then lighted his taper and placed
it on one of the tripods before the screen. In time the church was very
fairly illuminated, and nearly filled with standing worshippers, bowing,
crossing themselves, and responding to the reading and chanting in low
murmurs. The chanting was a very nasal intoning, usually slow, but
now and then breaking into a lively gallop. The assemblage, quiet and
respectful, but clad in all the vagaries of Oriental colors and rags,
contained some faces that appeared very wild in the half-light. When
the service had gone on half an hour, a priest came out with a tinkling
censer and incensed carefully every nook and corner and person (even the
vestibule, where some of the pilgrims slept, which needed it), until the
church was filled with smoke and perfume. The performance went on for an
hour or more, but I crept back to bed long before it was over, and fell
to sleep on the drone of the intoning.
We were up before sunrise on Sunday morning. The pilgrims were already
leaving for Jerusalem. There was no trace of the last night's revelry;
everything was commonplace in the bright daylight. We were served with
coffee, and then finished our exploration of the premises.
That which we had postponed as the most interesting sight was the cell
of St. Sabas. It is a natural grotto in the rock, somewhat enlarged
either by the saint or by his successors. When St. Sabas first came to
this spot, he found a lion in possession. It was not the worst kind of a
lion, but a sort of Judæan lion, one of those meek beasts over whom the
ancient hermits had so much control. St. Sabas looked at the cave and at
the lion, but the cave suited him better than the lion. The lion looked
at the saint, and evidently knew what was passing in his mind. For the
lions in those days were nearly as intelligent as anybody else. And
then St. Sabas told the lion to go away, that he wanted that lodging
for himself. And the lion, without a growl, put his tail down, and
immediately went away. There is a picture of this interview still
preserved at the convent, and any one can see that it is probable that
such a lion as the artist has represented would move on when requested
to do so.
In the cave is a little recess, the entrance to which is a small hole,
a recess just large enough to accommodate a person in a sitting posture.
In this place St. Sabas sat for seven years, without once coming out.
That was before the present walls were built in front of the grotto, and
he had some light,—he sat seven years on that hard stone, as long
as the present French Assembly intends to sit. It was with him also a
provisional sitting, in fact, a Septennate.
In the court-yard, as we were departing, were displayed articles to
sell to the pious pilgrims: canes from the Jordan; crosses painted, and
inlaid with cedar or olive wood, or some sort of Jordan timber; rude
paintings of the sign-board order done by the monks, St. George and the
Dragon being the favorite subject; hyperbolical pictures of the convent
and the saint, stamped in black upon cotton cloth; and holy olive-oil in
tin cans.
Perhaps the most taking article of merchandise offered was dates from
the palm-tree that St. Sabas planted. These dates have no seeds. There
was something appropriate about this; childless monks, seedless dates.
One could understand that. But these dates were bought by the pilgrims
to carry to their wives who desire but have not sons. By what reasoning
the monks have convinced them that fruitless dates will be a cause of
fruitfulness, I do not know.
We paid our tribute, climbed up the stairways and out the grim gate into
the highway, and had a glorious ride in the fresh morning air, the way
enlivened by wild-flowers, blue sky, Bedaween, and troops of returning
pilgrims, and finally ennobled by the sight of Jerusalem itself,
conspicuous on its hill.
VII.—THE FAIR OF MOSES; THE ARMENIAN PATRIARCH.
THE Moslems believe that their religion superseded Judaism and
Christianity,—Mohammed closing the culminating series of six great
prophets, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed,—and that they
have a right to administer on the effects of both. They appropriate
our sacred history and embellish it without the least scruple, assume
exclusive right to our sacred places, and enroll in their own calendar
all our notable heroes and saints.
On the 16th of April was inaugurated in Jerusalem the fête and fair of
the Prophet Moses. The fair is held yearly at Neby Mûsa, a Moslem wely,
in the wilderness of Judæa, some three or four hours from Jerusalem
on a direct line to the Dead Sea. There Moses, according to the Moslem
tradition, was buried, and thither the faithful resort in great crowds
at this anniversary, and hold a four days' fair.
At midnight the air was humming with preparations; the whole city buzzed
like a hive about to swarm. For many days pilgrims had been gathering
for this festival, coming in on all the mountain roads, from Grath and
Askalon, from Hebron, from Nablous and Jaffa,—pilgrims as zealous and
as ragged as those that gather to the Holy Sepulchre and on the banks
of the Jordan. In the early morning we heard the pounding of drums, the
clash of cymbals, the squeaking of fifes, and an occasional gun, let off
as it were by accident,—very much like the dawn of a Fourth of July
at home. Processions were straggling about the streets, apparently lost,
like ward-delegations in search of the beginning of St. Patrick's Day;
a disorderly scramble of rags and color, a rabble hustling along without
step or order, preceded usually by half a dozen enormous flags, green,
red, yellow, and blue, embroidered with various devices and texts from
the Koran, which hung lifeless on their staves, but grouped in mass
made as lively a study of color as a bevy of sails of the Chioggia
fishing-boats flocking into the port of Venice at sunrise. Before the
banners walked the musicians, filling the narrow streets with a fearful
uproar of rude drums and cymbals. These people seem to have inherited
the musical talent of the ancient Jews, and to have the same passion for
noise and discord.
As the procession would not move to the Tomb of Moses until afternoon,
we devoted the morning to a visit to the Armenian Patriarch. Isaac,
archbishop, and by the grace of God Patriarch of the Armenians of
Jerusalem, occupant of the holy apostolic seat of St. James (the
Armenian convent stands upon the traditional site of the martyrdom
of St. James), claims to be the spiritual head of five millions of
Armenians, in Turkey, Syria, Palestine, India, and Persia. By firman
from the Sultan, the Copts and the Syrian and the Abyssinian Christians
are in some sort under his jurisdiction, but the authority is merely
nominal.
The reception-room of the convent is a handsome hall (for Jerusalem),
extending over an archway of the street below and looking upon a
garden. The walls are hung with engravings and lithographs, most of them
portraits of contemporary sovereigns and princes of Europe, in whose
august company the Patriarch seems to like to sun himself. We had not to
wait long before he appeared and gave us a courteous and simple welcome.
As soon as he learned that we were Americans, he said that he had
something that he thought would interest us, and going to his table took
out of the drawer an old number of an American periodical containing
a portrait of an American publisher, which he set great store by. We
congratulated him upon his possession of this treasure, and expressed
our passionate fondness for this sort of thing, for we soon discovered
the delight the Patriarch took in pictures and especially in portraits,
and not least in photographs of himself in the full regalia of his
sacred office. And with reason, for he is probably the handsomest
potentate in the world. He is a tall, finely proportioned man of fifty
years, and his deportment exhibits that happy courtesy which is born of
the love of approbation and a kindly opinion of self. He was clad in
the black cloak with the pointed hood of the convent, which made a fine
contrast to his long, full beard, turning white; his complexion is fair,
white and red, and his eyes are remarkably pleasant and benignant.
The languages at the command of the Patriarch are two, the Armenian and
the Turkish, and we were obliged to communicate with him through the
medium of the latter, Abd-el-Atti acting as interpreter. How much
Turkish our dragoman knew, and how familiar his holiness is with it, we
could not tell, but the conversation went on briskly, as it always
does when Abd-el-Atti has control of it. When we had exhausted what the
Patriarch knew about America and what we knew about Armenia, which did
not take long (it was astonishing how few things in all this world of
things we knew in common), we directed the conversation upon what we
supposed would be congenial and common ground, the dogma of the Trinity
and the point of difference between the Armenian and the Latin church.
I cannot say that we acquired much light on the subject, though probably
we did better than disputants usually do on this topic. We had some
signal advantages. The questions and answers, strained through the
Turkish language, were robbed of all salient and noxious points, and
solved themselves without difficulty. Thus, the “Filioque clause”
offered no subtle distinctions to the Moslem mind of Abd-el-Atti, and he
presented it to the Patriarch, I have no doubt, with perfect clarity. At
any rate, the reply was satisfactory:—
“His excellency, he much oblige, and him say he t'ink so.”
The elucidation of this point was rendered the easier, probably, by the
fact that neither Abd-el-Atti nor the Patriarch nor ourselves knew much
about it. When I told his highness (if, through Abd-el-Atti, I did tell
him) that the great Armenian convent at Venice, which holds with the
Pope, accepts the Latin construction of the clause, he seemed never to
have heard of the great Armenian convent at Venice. At this point of
the conversation we thought it wise to finish the subject by the trite
remark that we believed a man's life was after all more important than
his creed.
“So am I,” responded the dragoman, and the Patriarch seemed to be of
like mind.
A new turn was given to our interview by the arrival of refreshments, a
succession of sweetmeats, cordials, candies, and coffee. The sweetmeats
first served were a delicate preserve of plums. This was handed around
in a jar, from which each guest dipped a spoonful, and swallowed it,
drinking from a glass of water immediately,—exactly as we used to take
medicine in childhood. The preserve was taken away when each person
had tasted it, and shortly a delicious orange cordial was brought, and
handed around with candy. Coffee followed. The Patriarch then led the
way about his palace, and with some pride showed us the gold and silver
insignia of his office and his rich vestments. On the wall of his
study hung a curious map of the world, printed at Amsterdam in 1692, in
Armenian characters. He was so kind also as to give us his photograph,
enriched with his unreadable autograph, and a. book printed at the
convent, entitled Deux Ans de Séjour en Abyssinie; and we had the
pleasure of seeing also the heroes and the author of the book,—two
Armenian monks, who undertook, on an English suggestion, a mission to
King Theodore, to intercede for the release of the English prisoners
held by the tyrant of that land. They were detained by its treacherous
and barbarous chiefs, robbed by people and priests alike, never reached
the headquarters of the king, and were released only after two years
of miserable captivity and suffering. This book is a faithful record of
their journey, and contains a complete description of the religion
and customs of the Abyssinians, set down with the candor and verbal
nakedness of Herodotus. Whatever Christianity the Abyssinians may once
have had, their religion now is an odd mixture of Judaism, fetichism,
and Christian dogmas, and their morals a perfect reproduction of those
in vogue just before the flood; there is no vice or disease of barbarism
or of civilization that is not with them of universal acceptance. And
the priest Timotheus, the writer of this narrative, gave the Abyssinians
abiding in Jerusalem a character no better than that of their countrymen
at home.
The Patriarch, with many expressions of civility, gave us into the
charge of a monk, who showed us all the parts of the convent we had not
seen on a previous visit. The convent is not only a wealthy and clean,
but also an enlightened establishment. Within its precincts are nuns
as well as monks, and good schools are maintained for children of both
sexes. The school-house, with its commodious apartments, was not unlike
one of our buildings for graded schools; in the rooms we saw many cases
of antiquities and curiosities from various countries, and specimens of
minerals. A map which hung on the wall, and was only one hundred years
old, showed the Red Sea flowing into the Dead Sea, and the river Jordan
emptying into the Mediterranean. Perhaps the scholars learn ancient
geography only.
At twelve the Moslems said prayers in the Mosque of Omar, and at one
o'clock the procession was ready to move out of St. Stephen's Gate.
We rode around to that entrance. The spectacle spread before us was
marvellous. All the gray and ragged slopes and ravines were gay with
color and lively with movement. The city walls on the side overlooking
the Valley of Jehoshaphat were covered with masses of people, clinging
to them like bees; so the defences may have appeared to Titus when he
ordered the assault from the opposite hill. The sunken road leading from
St. Stephen's Gate, down which the procession was to pass, was lined
with spectators, seated in ranks on ranks on the stony slopes. These
were mostly women,—this being one of the few days upon which the
Moslem women may freely come abroad,—clad in pure white, and with
white veils drawn about their heads. These clouds of white robes were
relieved here and there by flaming spots of color, for the children and
slaves accompanied the women, and their dress added blue and red and
yellow to the picture. Men also mingled in the throng, displaying
turbans of blue and black and green and white. One could not say that
any color or nationality was wanting in the spectacle. Sprinkled in
groups all over the hillside, in the Moslem cemetery and beneath it,
were like groups of color, and streaks of it marked the descent of
every winding path. The Prince of Oldenburg, the only foreign dignitary
present, had his tents pitched upon a knoll outside the gate, and other
tents dotted the roadside and the hill.