In The Levant 25

In The Levant 25

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.