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THE HOLY LAND. 
 
THE 
 
 HOLY LAND 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM HEPWORTH DIXON. 
 
 Wiit\i lUnstraltons from ©riginal grafabgs anb ^^otograpbs. 
 
 FOURTH EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY. 
 
 1869. 
 
 [ The right of Translation is reserved, ] 
 
lONDON PBINTKD BY WILLIAM CLOWKS AND SONS, STAMFORD STREF.T 
 AND CHARING CKOSS. 
 
TO 
 
 THE HON. FREDERICK WALPOLE, 
 
 THIS PICTURE OF A COUNTRY 
 
 WHICH HE KNOWS SO WELL 
 
 IS INSCRIBED 
 
 BY HIS FRIEND, 
 
 W. H. D. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 n^HESE studies of the Scenery and Politics of the Sacred 
 Story were made in the Holy Land — in the tent, the 
 saddle, and the wayside khan — and were sent home from 
 Palestine, not as chapters of a book, but as Notes for a few 
 fireside friends. In offering them to the public, I renounce 
 the dream of instructing scholars in their craft ; avoid dogma 
 as beyond the province of a lay waiter ; and leave contro- 
 versy for the most part to critics. My aim is to afford the 
 untravelled reader a little help in figuring to himself the 
 country and the events which occupy so many of his 
 thoughts. 
 
 In reading my camp Bible (with the help of Philo and 
 Josephus), on the spots which it describes so well, I was 
 surprised to find how much good history lies overlooked in 
 that vast treasury of truth. My book is a picture of what I 
 then saw and read. Hardy speculators will decry some of 
 
via 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 my views as conservative ; but I leave my results with the 
 reader, under a sure conviction that unless they are found to 
 be true in the main they will very soon perish out of men's 
 thoughts. 
 
 A few errors of the press have been corrected in this 
 edition, but no considerable change has been made in the 
 text. 
 
 .5"^. James's Ten-ace, 
 
 December, 1867. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 OFF JAFFA .... 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 MOHAMMEDAN JAFFA . 
 
 CHAPTER ni. 
 
 MY ARAB MASTER 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PLAIN OF SHARON 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE CONVENT OF RAMLEH . 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 NIGHT RIDE TO MODIN 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE GREAT SEPARATION 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE ORAL LAW . 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE WADY ALY . 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE HILL COUNTRY . 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 15 
 
 21 
 
 28 
 
 35 
 44 
 51 
 
 57 
 64 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ROAD TO HEBRON 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 BETHLEHEM . 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE HOUSE OF CHIMHAM 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SYRIAN KHANS . 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE INN OF BETHLEHEM 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 CARMEL 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 AKEEL AGA . 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 PROVINCE OF GALILEE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 HEROD THE GREAT 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 JUDAS THE GALILEAN . 
 
 PAGE 
 70 
 
 77 
 
 86 
 
 92 
 
 98 
 
 104 
 
 III 
 
 117 
 
 124 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE HOLY FAMILY . . I38 
 
 CHAPTER XXn. 
 
 ROMAN JUDEA . . . I47 
 
 CHAPTER XXni. 
 
 THE WILDERNESS . . I54 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 JOHN THE BAPTIST . . 163 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 JEWISH PARTIES . . . 169 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE DEAD SEA . . .177 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE JORDAN . . . 182 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE ADOUAN AND SALHAAN 
 
 TRIBES .... 187 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 JESUS AT BETHABARA . . I93 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 CANA IN GALILEE . . 200 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 JERUSALEM UNDER THE PASHA 207 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 STREETS OF JERUSALEM , 21$ 
 
 CHAPTER XXXin. 
 
 JERUSALEM UNDER THE HIGH 
 
 PRIEST .... 223 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE TEMPLE - . . 23O 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 THE GREAT COLLEGE . 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 PURGING THE TEMPLE . 242 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIL 
 
 SAMARIA .... 250 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 Jacob's well . . . 258 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 SEA OF GENNESARETH. . 264 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 IN THE lake COUNTRY . 271 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 A JEWISH SABBATH . . 277 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 ANTIPAS HEROD . . . 282 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 HERODIAS .... 287 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 THE SYNAGOGUE . . . 293 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 EXPULSION FROM NAZARETH 3O1 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 CAPERNAUM. . . . 306 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 THE BREAD OF LIFE . • 313 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 PHARISAIC RITES. . . 321 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XI 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 LIGHT OF THE GENTILES 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 BETHANY 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 THE SANHEDRIN , 
 
 CHAPTER LII. 
 
 BOTH SIDES OF JORDAN 
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 
 AFTER EVENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 328 
 
 333 
 
 340 
 
 346 
 
 CHAPTER LIH. 
 
 GATHERING FOR THE FEAST 355 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 OLIVET. .... 365 
 
 CHAPTER LVL 
 
 REVOLT AND CIVIL WAR 
 
 CHAPTER LVH. 
 
 THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 
 
 CHAPTER LVHI.l 
 
 JEWS 
 
 CHAPTER LIX. 
 
 SYRIAN CONVENTS 
 
 CHAPTER LX. 
 
 LYDDA 
 
 PAGE 
 
 373 
 
 382 
 
 390 
 
 397 
 
 405 
 
 411 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Bethlehem . . Photographed by Graham ; engi-aved by Saddler. 
 
 Country of the Maccabean War, drawn by Author ,, Malden. 
 
 Hill Country of Judea ,, ,, ,, ,, 
 
 Hill Country of Galilee ,, ,, ,, ,, 
 
 Syrian Booths ,, Goodall, R.A. ,, 
 
 Jerusalem . . . Photographed by Graham ; engraved by Saddler. 
 
 Plan of Jerusalem, drawn by Author ,, Malden. 
 
 Sea of Galilee ,, ,, 
 
 Ruins of a S)niagogue ,, 
 
 Ruins of Capernaum Synagogue. Photo, by Graham 
 
 Syrian Houses, drawn by Ward, R.A. 
 
 Sacred Shekel. Coin in British Museum 
 
 Roman Denarius ,, 
 
 English Church at Lydda. Photo, by Graham 
 
THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OFF JAFFA. 
 
 73 LASH goes the anchor ! 
 
 -*■ " Port?" cries a voice from the berth under mine in the 
 smart ship II Vapore, an Austrian boat, with a Ragusan 
 captain, a Smymiote crew, and an ItaUan name. In less 
 than a pulse of time, a head is butting against the pane of 
 glass which serves to let in light and keep out drench. 
 
 Yes : port. The light of dawn is opening on a long dark 
 line of hills, standing back about eighteen miles from the 
 shore ; the stars are filming out of sight ; the sky is paling 
 to a thin blue ; and a grey sea goes lapping and parting 
 round the keel with a sullen sough, except in our front, 
 towards the land, where it appears to rise and cream over a 
 rugged wall of rocks. High above the rugged rocks and 
 whitening surge stands a cone of houses — a town, having a 
 low-lying beach, dark walls, and on either side of these walls 
 a clump of wood. 
 
 It is the Holy Land on which we gaze : — the country ot 
 Jacob and David, of Rachel and Ruth ; the scene of our 
 sweetest fancies, of our childish prayers, and of our house- 
 hold psalms. Among yon hills the prophets of Israel taught 
 and the Saviour of all men lived and died; that stony 
 hillock of a town is the Joppa to which Hiram sent the 
 
 B 
 
THE HOLY LAND 
 
 cedar wood ; this roadstead is the port from which Jonah 
 sailed on his tempestuous voyage ; down by the shore to the 
 south hides the flat roof on which it is said that Peter slept. 
 The stretch of sand, mth its dunes and crests blown over 
 from the Nile, tricked here and there by a palm, a fig-tree, a 
 pomegranate, is the fore-part of that plain ol Sharon on 
 which all the roses of imagination bloom and shed their 
 scent Yon towering chain of earth — dark, swelling, ridge- 
 like — flushing into pink and amber, growing out i'to your 
 grasp as you stand peering towards it, is that mountain 
 home of Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim, which boasts of 
 having Hebron, Zion, Bethel, and Gerizim for its most 
 eminent and most holy peaks. 
 
 Priests, soldiers, laymen, pilgrims are astir in the saloon ; 
 in the dim nooks of which a Turkish effendi is kneeling at 
 his prayers, a Moldavian papa is making love to a fair 
 sinner, a French author appears to be copying facts from a 
 guide-book into his own, and a Saxon seems bent on filching 
 a pint of fresh water for his difficult morning bath. Young 
 men who have no time to wash — having to land in less than 
 five hours — are twisting cigarettes for the day. Young 
 women are wisping up those hoops of steel which are soon 
 to become a burden in the saddle, if not a danger in the 
 fierce Syrian sun. Nearly all our guests of the cabin are 
 roaring for their boots, their coats, their coffee, their pipes ; 
 but they are roaring to no end, for the steward of II Vapore 
 is — asleep. 
 
 Our steward is a genuine Oriental in a place of trust. 
 Oil is not softer, air not more buoyant, than his spirits. No 
 noise disturbs him ; no sarcasm stings him ; no shout, no 
 threat ever ruffles the calm good-nature of his smiling face. 
 For one who smokes in bed and breaks his fast on pickles, 
 he has a roundness in his cheek, a music in his laugh, which 
 tell you he belongs to that happy band of men whose 
 dreams agree with them. Ring and rave as you list, this 
 easy man, snug in his sheets, will not only forgive the noise 
 you make, but take no eager and unkindly notice of your 
 
OFF JAFFA. 3 
 
 passion of tongue and feet. Why should he ? Does he not 
 send you a cup of tea at seven ; serve up a meal of sardines, 
 pickles, and uncooked swine at eight ; indulge you with a 
 refresher of rusk and cheese, and a dash of cognac in your 
 drink about the hour of noon ; provide a table of twelve 
 good dishes and one poor wine (some old Pomard in a bin 
 — as an extra fare) at four ; make tea for you at eight ; 
 produce a kettle, a lemon, and a familiar spirit about nine ; 
 amuse you with chess and books, and put out your lamp 
 at ten ? What more would you have ? Such is your bill 
 of the feast. Nothing can be added, nothing can be 
 changed, unless (a word in your ear, Eccellenza) you would 
 like to arrange with him for some acts of friendship by a 
 private tip. A steward who does his duty from seven 
 in the morning until ten at night should not be dis- 
 turbed in his dreams, except by the chink of zwanzigers 
 and francs. 
 
 You pay ten pounds at an office : — for which sum of 
 money you are lodged and fed while being carried in the 
 steamer from port to port. It is cheap ; being less than the 
 cost of bed and board on land ; but when you have paid 
 ten pounds to II Vapore's owners, their steward is still your 
 lord. Pay ten francs more in the shape of vails, and he 
 becomes your slave. Is it not worth the price ? For ten- 
 pence a day, dropt deftly into the proper palm, you may 
 buy this ship and all its uses. One small coin makes you 
 lord of everything on board : of the pantry, the kitchen, and 
 the cellar ; of the cherry sticks, the jebile, and the easy 
 chairs; of the books, the piano, the chess-board, and the 
 ship charts ', of the telescope, the soda-water, and the 
 freshly-frozen snow. Pay down that fee, and you shall dine 
 in the highest seat, go ashore in the captain's gig, enjoy the 
 first peep at journals, sleep in the best berth, and when the 
 company is scant have a cabin to yourself. 
 
 The sun, coming up over the ridge of Ephraim, is gilding 
 and purpling the mountain range from Ramah to Carmel. 
 Solomon must have seen this chain of heights in some such 
 
THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 morning glow, when, in his Arab dehght in colour, he 
 exclaimed to his darling Shulamite — 
 
 Thine head upon thee is like Carmel, 
 And the hair of thine head like purple. 
 
 Moving through the crowd of Arab sheikhs, Frank pil- 
 grims, Nilotic slaves, Greek traders, and Armenian priests — 
 this motley of all creeds and nations, which adorns and 
 cumbers the quarter-deck — two figures seem to stand from 
 the rank as types of East and West. The first is a fat 
 young fellow, dressed in a white turban, a yellow cloak, and 
 a scarlet band ; the second is an aged lady, in a black 
 gown without hoop, and a dark straw hat. 
 
 Hassan (if his name be Hassan), a Cairene trader, 
 suddenly puffed out with cotton, finding himself rich in 
 paras and high in flesh, has been to Galata, where rosy 
 cheeks and brilliant eyes may still be bought by true 
 believers from the Italian merchants ; and in that suburb of 
 the splendid city he has purchased comfort for his age in 
 the shape of four plump wives. The rewards of virtue and 
 a good crop are penned amidships, in a cabin of four berths, 
 under lock and key, while Hassan reclines on his bit of red 
 carpet at their prison door. Night and day he there holds 
 watch and ward. To be sure that none of the crew shall 
 see his hareem, he waits on them himself; like a slave he 
 fetches them bread and fruit; prepares and lights their 
 pipes ; fills and removes the water jars ; and, after his long 
 and earnest evening prayer, lies down on his mat across the 
 opening of their berths. It is pleasant to watch the white 
 turban bobbing in among its beauties, and on the sound of 
 a Frank footfall, to see its pursy little owner slamming the 
 door and twisting the hasp on his gazelles. 
 
 This happy man has paid for a berth of his ov/n, opening 
 on that state-room in which lemons and hot water are 
 produced about the time of rest : but the lightness of his 
 charge sits heavy on his soul ; and when night comes down 
 upon him, and sleep ought to close his lids, he has to mount 
 
OFF JAFFA. 5 
 
 guard over his fair mischief ; distrusting that holy verse ot 
 the Koran which tells him that when the sun has gone 
 down into the sea — 
 
 All is peace until the breaking of the mom. 
 
 In spite of much flesh, and of the good spirits which 
 should attend on flesh, he seems haunted by the dread lest 
 four such darlings, all young, all fat, all new to the world 
 and its ways, must fall into peril, even behind bolts and 
 bars. Happy little wretch ! He has spent many piastres 
 on the desire of his heart ; on that which is the desire of 
 every Oriental heart ; yet he dares not sleep. Munching 
 apples all day, smoking jebile all night, he frets and pines, 
 his shadow falls less and less ; and it is an open question 
 with the crew how long he may live to enjoy the consola- 
 tions he has bought. At present his share of the world 
 seems hard to bear. 
 
 With Marie, the aged lady, a missionary, and the wife of 
 a missionary, there is not a man on board who is not in 
 love. When age is lovely, it is supreme in loveliness. 
 This dame, a Swiss and not mercenary, a Genevese and yet 
 comely, has spent thirty of her best years among Dyaks 
 and Malays; humbly and hopefully striving, in a far off 
 corner of the globe, to win over a few dark souls to God. 
 After thirty years of toil she asked for a little rest ; came 
 home to her own bright lake ; and having kissed old friends, 
 and wept over many graves, she is carrying her white hair 
 and her brave spirit back to that sultry field of labour; 
 knowing that she will see her home among the vines, her 
 Alps and streams, the companions of her youth, the graves 
 of her people, no more — no, never more. The rest of her 
 life is given up to God. On her way back to the Indian 
 ocean, she is going up the Wady Aly to Bethlehem and 
 Jerusalem, that her last thoughts of a hemisphere she is 
 quitting for ever may be connected with her Saviour's cradle 
 and her Saviour's tomb. 
 
 May peace go with her in this sacred toil ! I am able to 
 
THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 give her an olive twig and a few wild flowers from the valley 
 cf Nazareth. She says they will be a sign and a comfort to 
 her mider a southern sun, and perhaps may be laid upon 
 her shroud when she has done her duty and gained her 
 rest. 
 
 The town has now crept into light. Two or three flags 
 are drooping in the air, and a mob of boats comes paddling 
 through a slit in those rocks over which the surf keeps 
 creaming high and white. Strong Arab rowers pull deep 
 and hard ; tall fellows, with bare black arms, small heads, 
 and lustrous eyes ; clothed in a loose sack or shirt, perhaps 
 bound at the waist by a belt, perhaps not ; an easy, inex- 
 pensive costume, apt to many uses, though inclined to mis- 
 behave itself, in English eyes, as a mere article of dress. 
 
 Skimming along the brine like birds, huddHng upon each 
 other, the light Arab canoes dance and dip round the com- 
 panion ladder, while the dark men who handle them grin 
 and chatter and display their teeth. They have plenl^y of 
 leisure to joke and beg, for the day is still young, though 
 the heat is stifling, and the people of Jafla are in no great 
 hurry with their morning meal. You spend two or three 
 hours in buying oranges from one boat, throwing jebile into 
 a second, salaaming to a sheikh in a third. Then a barge 
 slips alongside, and a smart young man in a Syrian accent 
 and a London coat bids us welcome to his house and to 
 the East. A brief exchange of civilities and cigarettes, 
 and we step into his barge, squat down under the red cross, 
 kiss hands to our fair friends on board, and feel the waves 
 slip away from beneath our keel. 
 
 As we near that wall of rock, one of the dirtiest bits of 
 reef in the world, the crests of foam break high above its 
 top and cover it from our sight. Hot and blinding glares 
 the sun ; the slit is about twelve yards wide ; and to miss 
 it as we roll through the breakers in our tiny shell would be 
 instant death. Our Arabs draw with an easy confident 
 stroke, in part the effect of skill, in part of fate. What 
 cares Abdallah for yon reef of rock ? Is it sharper than 
 
OFF '^AFFA. 
 
 the bridge of Sirat, over which he must one day march? 
 And what if he should fail to. strike the gap ? 
 
 For the pious there is a place of bliss ; 
 Gardens and vineyards girt with walls, 
 And damsels with high bosoms, ever young ; 
 And a full cup. 
 
 Why, then, should a believer quake? Are yon groves of 
 myrtle more delicious than the gardens of Paradise ? Can 
 his homely hareem vie with the celestial houris ? For him, 
 to die is to live — and, praise be to Allah, he knows no fear. 
 
THE II OL V LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MOHAMMEDAN JAFFA. 
 
 JAFFA can boast a wall, a port, a bazaar, a convent of 
 each rite, a soap-mill, a couple of gates, ten guns, three 
 mosques, six consuls, two Jewish converts, a pasha, an 
 orange-grove — all of which sounds soft and homely to a 
 reader of the Bible and the Arabian Nights — the two books 
 from which nearly all of us learn the little that we know in 
 our youth of the Morning Land. Yet Mohammedan Jaffi 
 is a town in the last degree new and strange to a Frank. 
 
 Jaffa is the genuine East ; a town in which all that is 
 dark and bright in the Syrian genius seem to have met. 
 
 It is not only that here, in Jaffa, the churches are 
 mosques, the pumps are fountains, the streets are tunnels, 
 the men are brown and the women veiled ; for all these 
 lorms and signs which belong to a comparatively rainless 
 zone may be found from Cairo on the Nile to Beyrout on 
 the sea. Jaffa is a city of ancient type. Though the 
 oldest houses are not more ancient than those of Soho 
 Square, yet, unlike cities which have been made the toys 
 of kings, it has undergone no change since the remotest 
 times. Destroyed in war, rebuilt in peace, it has remained 
 the same in aspect and in site — in the days of Solomon 
 and Pompey, of Saladin and Napoleon, of Mohammed All 
 and Abdul Aziz — a town on a hill, on a cape jutting out 
 into the waves ; built up like a cone, house rising upon 
 house to a central peak ; havmg a bad roadstead in its 
 
MOHAMMEDAN JAFFA. 
 
 front, and a magnificent orange grove in its rear. Though 
 Jaffa is the chief town of a rich district, it has no streets, 
 no sewers, no markets, no shops. Though it has always 
 been the sea gate of Jerusalem, it has no docks, no quays, 
 no jetties, no landing-stairs, no lights. No road leads into 
 it, not even by the open ways of the sea. A steamer may 
 now and then stand off the town a mile or more from the 
 rocks ; but she will only come thus near when the winds 
 are low and the waters calm. A puff of storm from the 
 west or south warns the sailor away from this perilous coast, 
 and for week after week of bad weather the place is cut off 
 from communication with the world. The open sea is not 
 open to Jaffa. On the land side, fields creep close to the 
 walls, and sand drifts in at the gates. Beyond the line of 
 wall spreads the great plain ; a film of creamy-pink sand 
 lying on a bed of black loam, here and there dotted by 
 Bedaween tents and by ruined towns once bright in song 
 and story, though they have passed away, leaving little 
 behind them on the plain except mounds and graves. 
 
 Leaning on the roof-screen of a house, having the hills 
 in front, the sea behind, you may range over the fields of 
 I>ydda, a town in which St. Peter healed Eneas, in which 
 St. George was born, and about which Lion-Heart pitched 
 his tents. To the south stands Ramleh in the sands, with 
 its great cistern, its famous convent, and its beautiful 
 tower of the White Mosque. Beyond Ramleh, at the 
 mountain base, and out of ken, stands the hill of Modin, 
 the princely seat of Simon Maccabeus. Still more to the 
 south, among the drifts and dunes, spring the minarets of 
 Gaza and Ashdod, and near these living cities crouch the 
 ruins of that Askalon in which Herod the Great was born. 
 In the rear of these places, through the region in which 
 Samson caught the foxes and David fought with the giant, 
 corn lands and pastures roll with a waving undulation to 
 the mountain chain. 
 
 Falling back on the space round Jaffa, you perceive that 
 not a house clings fondly to the rampart, not a flight of 
 
to THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 steps weds the country with the town. Through a single 
 gateway, which is barred at nig^t, the great tides of land- 
 ward life and commerce have to ebb and flow. A ditch, a 
 market, a few wells and graves, lie beyond this portal, 
 making an oriental suburb ; in the daytime busy v/ith 
 crowds and gay with colours, but from sundown to sunrise 
 a place of ghosts, untenanted save by ravening vultures and 
 more savage dogs. In a white field, fenced round by 
 brambles and prickly pears, lie the ashes of a hundred 
 generations of men — Philistines, Hebrews, Macedonians, 
 Saracens, Franks, and Turks. 
 
 As a city, Mohammedan Jaffa is hot, sad, silent, and 
 forlorn. The crow of a child, the snarl of a cur, the coo of 
 a bird, the song of a muezzin calling on the faithful to come 
 and pray, will sometimes startle and charai your ear; the 
 quick gleam of a lance, the plumage of a bird, the white 
 veil of a lady, may enchant your eye. In the evening, 
 when the fresh dew is on the leaves, and the wind breathes 
 softly through the groves, your nostril may be visited by a 
 rare delight, caught up from myrtles, oranges, and limes. 
 Still, Jaffa as a city, is close and sad : not so the gateway 
 and market-place beyond the wall. 
 
 This gate, the Jerusalem Gate — has a weird and magic 
 beauty, borrowed in spirit from the Nile : a lofty arch, a 
 noble tower, well flanked by the city walls, a Saracenic 
 fountain, with jets of water flowing into marble troughs, 
 over which a pious verse from the Koran is printed in 
 golden type. In a nook close by, an old sheikh keeps a 
 cuttab or infant school, in which for a piastre a week, and 
 a bit of white muslin and a pair of slippers, given to him 
 once a year from the mosque, he teaches the youth of Jaffa 
 to chant their sacred suras hilariously out of tune. In the 
 gateway itself sits the cadi, judging causes in the presence 
 of donkey boys, fellaheen, and Franks. This man is fined, 
 that man is flogged ; but there is little noise in the court, 
 no bill of exceptions, and no thought of an appeal. The 
 heat makes every one grave ; the very soldiers on guard 
 
MOHAMMEDAN JAFFA. ii 
 
 are dawdling over pipes, and the collectors of duty are 
 dozing in the shade. 
 
 Some steps beyond the Jerusalem Gate, between the town 
 ditch and the orange gardens, lies the suburb, in which a 
 kind of fair is held the whole year round ; busiest when the 
 maize is being garnered and the fruit is ripe. It is held on 
 the open and sandy plain, among a scatter of booths and 
 sheds, some of them raised on poles and covered in with 
 mats, while others are built of reeds stuck lightly into the 
 soil, laced in and out with twigs, and tiled with boughs and 
 leaves. A house on the left is of planks ; one large hut, 
 used for a cafe and exchange, has a wooden frame ; but 
 most of these booths are made of canvas stretched upon a 
 frame of poles. Near the great tank, in which, when you 
 go to drink water, you may happen to find a camel lapping, 
 an Arab bathing, and a girl filling jars for domestic use, 
 stands a house of stone and mud, a sort of pound, in which 
 a sheikh who dares not ride into the town may stable his 
 mare. Under the light roofs of these sheds a merchant 
 buys and sells ; a barber tells stories and shaves Moslem 
 heads ; a muleteer munches his black crust ; a wayfarer 
 breathes his hookah, paying a para for his jebile and fire ; 
 an Arab haggles over the price of a carbine, a length of 
 cotton, an Indian bamboo; a donkey-boy sucks his bit 
 of sweet cane ; a famished negro gobbles up his mess 
 of oil and herbs. All these men of swarthy race ; some 
 of them sheikhs from the desert, some of them slaves 
 from Cairo and the Soudan ; all bearded and bare-legged \ 
 these wearing armlets and earrings, those wearing green 
 shawls or turbans, a sign of their saintly rank ; plod ankle- 
 deep in the sand, each grain of which is hot as though it 
 had been swept from a furnace to their feet. Piled up 
 around, them are heaps of fruit, such as very i^-^ gardens of 
 this earth can match. Grapes, oranges, tomatoes, Syrian 
 apples, enchant the eye with colour. Figs, peaches, 
 bananas, imprison the sunshine of summer days. Plums 
 dazzle you with bloom. What mounds of dates, what 
 
12 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 mountains of melons ! And through all these crowds of 
 men, through all these lanes of fruit, winds the track of the 
 camel and the ass, the pilgrim and the monk, the pasha and 
 the prior, from whatever point of the compass they may 
 chance to come. And so it has always been, and always 
 must be, in this suburb of the Jerusalem Gate. Dorcas 
 bought fruit in this market, drew water at yon well. St. 
 Peter walked in from Lydda along this sandy path. 
 Pompey, Saladin, Napoleon, rode through this litter of 
 sheds and stalls. 
 
 The second gate of Jaffa, the Water Gate, faces the sea. 
 Not so big as the land gate, which admits a camel with a 
 load of maize on his hunch, this gate is no more than a slit 
 or -window in the wall, about six feet square, just level 
 with the ground, and about five feet higher than the sea 
 line when the wind is hushed and the water still. A breeze 
 from the west frisks foam into the doorway, blinding the aga 
 on duty, drenching the poor donkeys, preventing the porters 
 from either loading or unloading boats. Through this small 
 cutting in the rampart everything coming into Palestine 
 from the west — from France and England, from Egypt and 
 Turkey, from Italy and Greece — must be hoisted from the 
 canoes ; such articles as pa-shas, bitter beer, cotton cloth, 
 negroes, antiquaries, dervishes, spurious coins and stones, 
 monks, Muscovite bells, French clocks, English damsels 
 and their hoops, Circassian slaves, converted Jews, and 
 Bashi Bazouks ; hauled up from the canoes by strings of 
 Arabs ; men using their arms for ropes, their fingers for 
 grappling hooks, their scanty robe — a sack tied round the 
 waist with a strap or sash — for a creel, a table, a kerchief, 
 anything you please, except a covering for their limbs. In 
 like manner, all waste and produce going out of the country 
 for its good or evil — maize, oranges, dragomans, penitent 
 friars, bananas, olives, soldiers on leave, Frank pilgrims, 
 fakeers, consuls, deposed pashas — must be shot from that 
 tiny porthole into the dancing boats, like Jonah into the 
 sea. AVhen a steamer hails in the road, this baling up, this 
 
MOHAMMEDAN JAFFA. 13 
 
 shooting out, of goods and men, goes on for hours at a 
 stretch, to a manifest increase of the fun ; yet the aga and 
 effendi in office, nay, the small boys of the port, seem all 
 unconscious of the sport. One hot and idle day I had the 
 pleasure of seeing a Seraskier's hareem hoisted out of boats 
 into the town. If yon aga in the white turban and flowing 
 skirt had been blessed with any sense of humour, he would 
 have died of his duty, perhaps years ago. 
 
 Two or three summers since, when the Prince of Wales 
 was riding through the Holy Land, a Moslem, proud of his 
 country and jealous for his port, threw out a log jetty along- 
 side of which the gig of a man-of-war might lie ; but when 
 the Prince turned off from Judah into the hill country of 
 Samaria, instead of dropping down into the plain of Sharon, 
 as he had first proposed, the Syrian patriot chopped his 
 jetty into firewood, and like a pious Moslem gave the 
 splinters to the poor. 
 
 Mohammedan Jaffa runs no risk of being invaded by 
 cabs and horses, not having a single street along which they 
 could roll and race. In Stamboul you may hire an araba ; 
 in Cairo you can call a fly ; but if you should wish to ride 
 in Jaffa, you must either mount the hump of a camel or 
 bestride the bones of an ass. A mule, a horse even, may 
 be hired at the Jerusalem Gate ; but the hacks there found 
 among the booths and sheds belong, not to the town and 
 its people, but to Arab merchants who send out servants 
 and slaves from place to place, just as they may chance to 
 find pilgrims whom they can serve and cheat ; being one 
 week in El Arish, another in Beyrout, a third at Damascus 
 or Es Salt. No machine on wheels — no drag, coach, stage, 
 gig, van, or barrow — has ever been known within these 
 Jaffa walls. Every one goes on foot ; the lady in her veil, 
 the priest in his robes, the peasant in his rags. Everything 
 is carried on the back ; the camels being drays, the donkeys 
 carts, the fallaheen trucks, in this primitive system of life 
 and trade. Haroun might walk through yon gate into the 
 fair and find nothing changed in the habits of his country- 
 
t4 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 men since the times when he and his trusty vizier wandered 
 about the streets of his capital by night. 
 
 Watch this damsel in the pink robe and the long veil as 
 she trips daintily along to market or bazaar. Is she 
 Amine ? Are Safie and Zobeide in the house — yon house 
 with the high wall, over which the palm tree throws its 
 fronds ? Passing through the arch, and raising a little corner 
 of her veil, she beckons with a tiny dark hand to one of the 
 porters dozing by the wall ; the motion of her fingers saying 
 to his eyes, " Pick up thy basket, O young man, and follow 
 me." Gliding from stall to stall, she piles up his basket 
 with bread and veal, with grapes and lemons, with violets 
 and orange flowers, with sprigs of myrtle and eglantine ; 
 and then, with the young man at her heels, trips home to 
 the house. Flitting past the fountain, and past the mosque, 
 into a silent lane, the lady taps at a large door and enters 
 into a courtyard. Plere she is lost to sight, if not to con- 
 jecture. Will Safie open the door to that porter? Will 
 Zobeide dazzle him with her beauty? Will the royal 
 mendicants arrive at night, and Plaroun himself drop in to 
 enjoy the cheer and increase the mirth? 
 
 More likely is it that this sedate Amine will prepare the 
 evening meal for one nearer and more precious to her 
 heart; so that when Abdallah, servant of the Lord, comes 
 in from his toil in the city, in the field, in the port, she may 
 set these dainties before him, and then kissing him on the 
 mouth, and shedding on his spirit the light of her round 
 black eyes, laugh when she sees that he eats of them and 
 and that his soul is glad ? Perhaps so ; perhaps, too, she 
 will sing for him that beautiful evening strain from the 
 
 Koran 
 
 Have we not given you the earth for a bed, 
 And made you husband and wife, 
 
 And given you sleep for rest, 
 
 And made you a mantle of the night ? 
 
MY ARAB MASTER, 15 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MY ARAB MASTER. 
 
 '* r^ OOD morning, Master !" says Yakoub, gliding softly 
 ^^ into my cell, and using up in his first salutation all 
 that he knows of English, with the sole reserve of some six 
 or eight v/ords of uncommon strength and flavour, much 
 used by our sailors in the Levant, and perhaps elsewhere. 
 Yakoub is my new master, whom I bought for myself in 
 Stamboul ; paying him two hundred piastres a day for 
 making me do what he pleases, go whither he likes, order 
 the food he prefers, and ride behind him on the second-best 
 mare. When he comes into the room, taking my hand 
 reverently, he bows his head, as much as to say that his 
 health is in my keeping ; but the rogue knows his place 
 and power, and is laughing in his sleeve at this customary 
 comedy of Arab life. Then, in a jargon which is meant to 
 be English to a Saxon, French to a Gaul, Romaic to a 
 Greek — a jargon that gave me some trouble when he first 
 began to reign over me — he inquires whether we shall really 
 set out to-day, seeing that more bad news is pouring in from 
 Gaza, Nazareth, and Nabulus ? Yes, Yakoub ; let us mount 
 and move. Have we not spent days in Jaffa, sucking 
 oranges and munching grapes by the sea-shore, when we 
 ought to have been climbing the hill of Modin, peering into 
 the grotto of Bethlehem, and braving the heats of the Dead 
 Sea? 
 
 Sullen, incredulous, Yakoub hangs about the room ; takes 
 
i6 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 down my strong leathern belt; peeps into the barrel and 
 tries the spring of my revolver ; casts a covetous glance 
 at my railway wrap (an innocent square of cotton wool, 
 worked into the pattern of a tiger-skin) ; feels the weight of 
 my hunting whip, which he playfully assures me has just 
 bronze enough to crack a hyena's skull ; ascertains by touch 
 the sharpness of my English spurs ; measures with his eye 
 the quantity of my quinine, tea, cognac, powder and ball. 
 Being satisfied that his slave possesses nearly ever}'thing that 
 an Arab gentleman is likely to require on a journey, he drops 
 into that lingua Franca, which, on a good deal of acquaint- 
 ance, proves to consist mainly of the Italian of Genoa, 
 dashed with the patois of Marseilles, a spice of seafaring 
 Saxon, and some dirty bits of Greek. 
 
 " The mule shall be packed. Master. Ishmael has gone 
 to find Said in the market-place. All ready by ten." 
 
 " What sort of nag shall I have to ride ?" 
 
 "Very good mare, Master; Sabeah, child of the desert; 
 very swift mare." 
 
 Said is my mukari ; a man who either owns the horses on 
 which you ride, or travels with them for another owner, and 
 who feeds and curries them, and takes a general charge of 
 your baggage on the road. Said is a Nubian, a negro, and 
 a slave; and, like the mule and horses, is the property of an 
 Arab gentleman not too proud to let his people and his 
 beasts earn money by trade. 
 
 Ishmael is an Arab lad whom I have picked up in the fair. 
 One day, when I was sitting under a screen, smoking a 
 cigarette, an imp some twelve years old, with lustrous eyes, 
 a swarthy skin, a soft Syrian face, ran up to me ; a lad of 
 pure Arab blood, sinewy and lithe, such a one, methought, 
 as that youth whom the vizier's daughter loved. What a 
 model he seemed for a painter of Ishmael ! 
 
 "Want donkey?" 
 
 " What, you speak English !" say I, slipping, as I spoke, 
 a piastre into his fist ; at which he grinned and nodded, till 
 liis opening eyes seemed all in a blaze. 
 
MY ARAB MASTER. 17 
 
 " Ya, ya ; me speak English. Me show consul, one more 
 piastre." 
 
 " You sordid little Jew !" 
 
 " Me Jew !" fired the child. " Me Arab. My fader 
 donkey boy. Me donkey boy. Very good donkey. Go 
 hotel, go consul, go Ramleh, go Jerusalem ?" 
 
 "Would you go all that way ?" 
 
 " Me go Cairo, me go Damascus — plenty piastre, plenty 
 piastre." 
 
 I felt a weakness for the wretch, endowed him with the 
 name of Hagar's son, and hired him on the spot to be one of 
 my fellow-subjects to Yakoub, whose rule his spirits and his 
 antics may enable me to bear. 
 
 On his own showing, Yakoub is by birth an Arab, by 
 profession a Christian ; but to which of the many branches 
 of our Church he has brought the homage of his vices, who 
 can pretend to say ? His religion is apparently like his 
 language — a part of many, the whole of none ; for one sees 
 that the man is striving, with a small and feline art, to be 
 all things to all tribes and sects ; to the Italian a Catholic ; 
 to the Russian a Greek ; to the Egyptian a Copt. To the 
 English he would be a Protestant, but for the dread lest an 
 attempt to claim spiritual kinship with an Oxonian or a 
 Templar might result in his being thrashed. With a 
 Bostonian, he would not scruple to profess himself an Evan- 
 gelical convert — a brand plucked from the fire by an 
 American Paul; while, to the Londoner, whom he thinks 
 likely to hate him as a Papist and to despise him as a Greek, 
 he is sly enough to pass muster as a pupil of the more 
 humble Maronite Church. 
 
 Apart from his dubious creed, Yakoub (if I may speak of 
 him now as he will appear when we have come to know him 
 worse) has something in him of the thief, the bully, and the 
 sneak, though enjoying these Syrian qualities only in a mean 
 degree, and exercising them for objects infinitely small. To 
 wit : he will weave a long web of falsehoods that he may 
 cheat you of a para, and will watch a whole night for the 
 
 c 
 
1 8 THE HOL V LA ND. 
 
 chance of robbing you of a cigarette. In his company, you 
 dare not leave a knife, a cartridge, a comb, a quinine-bottle, 
 a map, a shawl, a cigar-case, a handkerchief loose about your 
 tent. Nothing is too hot for his mouth, too rough for his 
 pouch. Yet, it would be a gross injustice to rank Yakoub 
 with the thieves of countries like England, Italy, and France ; 
 he is a man of the soil, even in his vices, and the rogueries 
 which he loves to practise upon you are the growth of thou- 
 sands of years. A Turpin on a Syrian road would filch your 
 powder and tobacco, your salt and quinine, your razor and 
 shirt, from the mere lust of possessing them ; but Yakoub 
 only pilfers as becomes an Arab lord of the soil, who, while 
 condescending to lead you and feed you through his country, 
 cannot help exercising his fascinations over your waifs and 
 strays. With him, the act of thieving is that of a man taking 
 his own by stratagem wherever he may chance to find it. 
 These odds and ends of property — these bits of leather, these 
 pots of meat and sardines, these knives and spoons, these 
 dustings of the powder horn, these drainings of the brandy- 
 flask — are his royalties, his flotsam and jetsam, his fines, his 
 liveries, and his courts leet. Like so many of his wild country- 
 men, though he lives by travel, and prefers a tent to a house, 
 he is a stranger to all those longings and sentiments which 
 drive the Gaul and Saxon over the face of the earth. He 
 thinks that a man who leaves his home for any other cause 
 than that of finding better food and more abundant water, must 
 be mad ; and he regards the Frank masters whom he serves 
 and cheats, as a number of restless spirits, cursed and driven 
 forth into the desert to be the spoil and prey of God's chosen 
 sons. Yet, the pleasure of cheating is, in his eye, greater than 
 the gain. When filching from your store, is he not spoiling the 
 Egyptian 1 In riches and in strength — as a rider, as a shot 
 — he feels that he might meet with but small success in a 
 contest with the Frank ; but in craft and skill he knows him- 
 self more than your match ; and when he tithes your goods, 
 beUeving you too dull to detect him in these petty frauds, his 
 heart dilates with a peculiar pride and joy. Who is the 
 
MV ARAB MASTER. 19 
 
 superior then ? You may daunt him by your daring, awe him 
 by your pride ; but can you deprive him of this Syrian con- 
 solation of seeing you made the daily victim of his more 
 agile fingers and more crafty brain ? 
 
 By calling himself a Christian, Yakoub escapes that 
 service of arms which his soul abhors ; but to make all 
 things safe, and to win for himself many protectors, he 
 appears to have accepted all the churches at once, Roman 
 and Coptic, Maronite and Greek. The lord of every creed, 
 the slave of none, this Arab is a perfect pattern of obedience 
 to the law. Often, in the early morning, when the camp 
 was rising, and the sun was not, I have caught him at his 
 devotions, not before an altar of the Virgin, but before the 
 tomb of a Moslem sheikh. If he be an Ansayreh (as I more 
 than suspect), he can hug himself with the thought that he is 
 overreaching both the devil and the Padishah — saving his 
 soul from Gehenna and his body from Hassan Bey. 
 
 A Christian in Syria, whether a true man or a false, while 
 he rides his camel, shakes down his olives, and remains at 
 peace with his sovereign and his neighbour, has no use for 
 the sword. Even when the Maronites invade a Druse 
 village, burn a few vines, lift a few cattle, and get beaten for 
 their pains by fifty young men against three hundred, they 
 can call on the Turk from Damascus, the Zouave from 
 Algiers, to defend them against the irate and avenging owners 
 of fields which have been laid waste. Nor has a Maronite, 
 in the view of men like Yakoub, any more need to be truth- 
 ful and honest than he has to be brave. To fight is a Turk's 
 business ; to speak the truth is a Frank's business. To treat 
 his word as a bond, a pledge to be kept at all costs, is a 
 mystery of conduct which a Syrian leaves with his wondering 
 contempt to the English and the Turks. More than once, 
 when our tent had been pitched for the night near a well, 
 among peasants and soldiers, Yakoub has replied to a caution 
 about leaving such things on the mat as might tempt these 
 natives to pilfer — *' Heugh ! they are safe. Turk no take 
 them , his religion not allow him to steal." 
 
20 THE HOLY LA N'D. 
 
 " What news of Akeel Aga this morning ?" 
 
 " Bad news, Master," says Yakoub, who, knowing that the 
 country is much disturbed, would rather hang on at Jaffa, 
 doing nothing and being paid for it, until safer times. 
 " Akeel gone east, Akeel gone south ; Akeel is the \vind ; 
 to-day at Tiberias, to-morrow at Petra, next day at Suez; 
 Turk never catch the wind, and never catch Akeel. Shall 
 we start ?" 
 
 " At ten o'clock." 
 
PLAIN OF SHARON. 21 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PLAIN OF SHARON. 
 
 A T twelve we are in the saddle, ploughing through the 
 ^^^ sand ; three horses and a mule ; one good revolver, 
 a second so-so, the property of Yakoub, who begins firing 
 it at dogs and eagles before we are clear of the mills and 
 gardens ; all my people mounted, save imp Ishmael, who, 
 happy and alert in the possession of three piastres, runs on 
 foot with the mule, saying, with a wicked grin, that he will 
 run over to Ramleh and prepare our pipes. 
 
 We are all in high spirits and in perfect health. Before 
 mounting our mares, we went to look for the place in which 
 Tabitha, the Dorcas, the gazelle, as we should call her, the 
 darling, had been laid after her second death. Of course 
 it was in a garden j almost equally of course this garden 
 was the property of an iVmerican. How soon a young 
 people learn to beat the old ! Not a house in Jaffa is of 
 greater age than the houses in Soho Square. Since the 
 Apostle came over from Lydda, along this path, to raise 
 Tabitha from the dead, Jaffa has been razed by Vespasian 
 and Godfrey, by Saladin and the Egyptian sultans ; these 
 shores have been swept by Norseman, Greek and Venetian 
 pirates, and by a rabble of conquerors, from* the Persian 
 and Arabian down to the Memlouk and the French. 
 Bertrand de la Broquiere, who landed in Palestine for his 
 sins, while the English were roasting his countr)^woman, 
 Joan of Arc, for a witch, describes the town as so rent and 
 
22 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 razed in his time, that a few sheds thatched with leaves, 
 Hke these in the market-place now, offered him the only 
 shelter which a pilgrim thrown upon the coast could find. 
 Into one of these reed tents the Christian knight had to 
 crawl for protection against the attacks of a noontide sun. 
 Yet an Arab merchant owns the tanner's house, and a 
 Yankee consul boasts of possessing Tabitha's tomb ! 
 
 Yakoub leads the way, in his place of pride, through the 
 knots of pedlars, fruitsellers, mat-weavers, monks, and 
 muleteers, throwing a jest at one, kissing a compliment 
 to a second, crossing himself to a third ; his words not 
 always clean, for a Syrian of the lower orders calls a cat 
 by its name with a license of speech that would amaze 
 the roughs of our black country and startle the rowdies of 
 New York. A smile, at most an ejaculation, is the only 
 answer of fellah and Bedaween to his lightsome jest. A 
 Syrian rarely laughs, and he never laughs aloud, though he 
 may pride himself highly on the possession and appreciation 
 of eloquence and wit. When we cross the path of a person 
 of rank and esteem, a consul, a cadi, a sheikh, an ecclesi- 
 astic, a bey, Yakoub pulls up his mare, says a few humble 
 syllables under his bated breath, and if welcomed by a 
 smile, for every one knows him, he may venture to approach 
 the dignitary, to touch his hand, and even to kiss it. Friends 
 never give hands to each other in Palestine ; for to seize a 
 man's hand is to crave his protection, to proffer yourself his 
 servant ; hence the act is one of obedience and devotion, 
 almost of servility. A slave to whom you make a present, 
 a servant to whom you do a kindness, will rush to your 
 hand and press it against his temples or his lips. Equals 
 salute each other ; if Moslem, by the soft Syrian phrase 
 of Peace be with you ; if Christians by the sign of the cross. 
 This salutation is made with singular grace, even by the 
 beggar in his rags. An English traveller, making no sign 
 of the cross when he greets a brother, is commonly supposed 
 by the Syrians to be a Turk. 
 
 For an hour we plod through the pink and burning 
 
PLAIN OF SHARON. 
 
 sands ; gardens on our right and left to Yazor, one of the 
 many Bible Hazors, now a village of three or four huts ; 
 lemons, apples, pomegranates in endless glory ; now passing 
 a kiosk, with an Arab at his prayers, next a fountain and a 
 group of mounted men, anon the body of a mule picked 
 clean by dogs and kites. Ribs, skulls, thigh-bones of 
 animals, whiten these Syrian tracks, even close to large 
 towns, and within city gates ; for the land is poor, and it is 
 the custom of this country that nothing, not even a bone, 
 shall be lost. Falling under its load by the wayside, an ass, 
 a camel, must be left behind, like the stalks which sHp from. 
 the binder's arm. " Why," asks the compassionate Arab, 
 "should food be taken from the famishing tooth? God 
 made the jackal and the vulture, and having made them, 
 meant that they should be fed." Even man himself, when 
 dying in these desert roads, expects to fare little better than 
 the beast that bears him. Starting on a long ride, an Arab 
 will equip himself with a pipe, a water-skin, a prayer-book, 
 and a winding-sheet, in which his body may be rolled by his 
 servant or companion, and then hidden in the sand. Slight 
 moles of earth, many of which the wolves and jackals have 
 disturbed, may be seen in the wilderness ; graves of men 
 who have fallen sick by the wayside, who have been left 
 by their fellows to die alone, and who, in gasping out their 
 lives, have just succeeded in covering their faces with a 
 little sand. 
 
 The first time your horse shies at a bleeding carcass or 
 stumbles over a pile of bones, your gorge will rise into the 
 mouth and your nostrils close on the offence ; yet in three 
 months of Syrian travel you will learn to treat a skeleton in 
 the road wdth as much indifference as a gentleman in a 
 turban and a lady in a veil. 
 
 While she is yet in the broad lane between Jaffa and 
 Yazor, Sabeah the swift, the beautiful, begins to gib and 
 start ; on seeing which signs of a coming storm, I shorten 
 the rein and touch her flank with a spur. Off like a shot 
 she flies, brisk as a racer, mettlesome as a colt, clean through 
 
24 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 the hot hedges of prickly pears into the open plain and the 
 cooler air ; but in less than ten minutes she is blown and 
 spent. We are a mile in advance, for Said must hold on 
 by the baggage mule, who cannot caper and trot under her 
 weight of kitchen-range, bed, and tent. If we stand and 
 wait in the sun, Sabeah pricks and snaps at my shoes, 
 which, not being sheathed in iron like those of her usual 
 riders, lie tempting to her teeth. Thinking she must be 
 thirsty, like myself, we spurt forward along the track towards 
 a fountain which we can see in the distance, white and 
 alluring, guarded by a sheikh ; but on my riding up to it, 
 and dismounting from the mare, the sheikh makes signs to 
 me that of this sweet water, in this dry season, horses may 
 not be allowed to drink. " Further on," he says, " at Beit 
 Dejan, there is a wheel with a camel tank ;" and the train 
 having now come up, and the laws of the well being ex- 
 plained by Ishmael, we prick on together, Sabeah, unmind- 
 ful of my cares in her behalf, still snapping at my feet. 
 
 At Beit Dejan, on a slight twist in the road, we find the 
 wheel and well, and hear a delicious plash and rustle in the 
 troughs. To slip from my seat, to dip Sabeah's nose into 
 the fluid, is the work of a second ; but no sooner has she 
 lapped up a mouthful of water, than one sees that the 
 refuse falling back from her lips into the tank is dabbled 
 and red. Opening her mouth, I find a gorged leech 
 dangling from her gum. But the reptile being snipt off, 
 and the mare's nose dipt into the cooling steam, the blood 
 still flows from between her teeth, and forcing them open, 
 I find two other leeches lodged in the roof of her mouth. 
 Poor little beast ! how grateful and relieved she seems ; 
 how gay, how gentle, when I have torn these suckers from 
 her flesh and soused the water about her wounds ; and how 
 my hunting-whip yearns to descend on the shoulders of that 
 laughing and careless Nubian slave ! 
 
 Two minutes' walk from this well, half hidden among 
 palms and olives, lies Beit Dejan, once Beth Dagon, House 
 of Dagon, the ancient fish-god of Philistia, emblem of 
 
PLAIN OF SHARON. 25 
 
 fecundity by land and sea. Dagon, a marine divinity, 
 was adored under the form .of a merman ; a being which 
 had a human bust and a dolphin's tail ; a Syrian Poseidon, 
 with a difference in the lower parts ; an obvious deity for a 
 people going down to the sea in ships. The great temples 
 raised in his honour stood at Gaza and Ashdod, a few 
 miles on our right; but the merman worship extended 
 along the coast, and perhaps far into the plain. By him 
 Goliath swore, and in one of his temples, Samson, when 
 shorn and blind, was slain. Less, however, for the sake 
 of Samson than out of love for him who sang the Agonistes, 
 we rode round the cluster of loose stones and shining 
 gardens which bear the name of Dagon now, saying softly 
 to ourselves — 
 
 This day a solemn feast the people held, 
 To Dagon, their sea idol, — 
 
 and calling to mind that story of the ark, when the Philis- 
 tines prevailed against Hophni and Phineas, the sons of Eli, 
 and the ark was set up in the temple of Dagon, and the 
 sea idol was thrown down in the night, his head and the 
 palms of his hands being cut off, and his tail and trunk, his 
 ignoble members, left. 
 
 On passing Beit Dejan, the country opens ; gardens and 
 enclosures cease ; the creamy-pink sands fall back into the 
 rear ; great herds of sheep and goats, of buffaloes and 
 camels, roam through the plain. We come upon no more 
 wells. 
 
 Strange bands of men are going up to Jerusalem on foot ; 
 poor Jews from Posen and Tangiers; Christian pilgrims 
 from La Plata or Trebizond ; wild Moslems from the 
 Punjab and the Soudan ; for Jerusalem is a holy place 
 to nearly all the children of men. The Jew is going up to 
 Zion, that he may die in the city of his fathers, and mingle 
 with the dust of patriarch and seer ; the Christian that he 
 may kiss the stone of redemption, and light his taper at the 
 sacred fire ; the Moslem that he may gaze on the seat of 
 
26 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 judgment, and recite his prayer under the dome of the 
 Rock. They have come, these poor wild men, from every 
 corner of the globe, come in hunger and thirst, through 
 frost and fire, bringing with them neither purse nor scrip, 
 neither food nor drink. They are the only pilgrims. They 
 trudge in the heat of day, they sleep under the stars by 
 night. Through the desert wastes, and the corn lands, and 
 the date countries, they wend their unflagging way ; asking, 
 in the name of God, for a little black bread here, a bunch 
 of grapes or a mouthful of lentils there, and slaking their 
 thirst from the wayside well. Few of these men can 
 speak a word of the native tongue. In the group which we 
 are now passing through near Ramleh, are men of tropical 
 race, a Cingalese, an Ilanoon, two or three Malays ; in the 
 last group on the road there was a negro from Zanzibar. 
 Nearly all these Christian and Moslem hajjees are converts 
 to the faith, burning with the zeal that consumes the bosom 
 in which fire has been newly lit. Yakoub, and men like 
 Yakoub, have a kingly disdain for these travellers in rags ; 
 but Said is kind to them, giving them good words, and 
 sharing with them his melon and his bread. 
 
 These hajjees are the lowly ones of the earth. Grimy 
 with dirt, lean with privation and fatigue — their coats made 
 of skin, their shirts hanging in rents — they are respected by 
 the good Syrian peasants as men engaged in performing a 
 sacred vow. Though his own hut may be wretched and his 
 shelf bare of food, the fellah will never refuse to share with 
 them his shelter and his crust. 
 
 These hajjees going up to the Holy City are not our only 
 comrades of the road. From time to time a cloud of dust, 
 a gleam of spears, inform us of a troop of Bedaween flying 
 in hot haste along the noiseless plain. They come in threes 
 and fives ; well armed, well mounted men ; eager of eye, 
 resolute of lip ; bands going south towards Gaza and Ash- 
 dod, as though the war-cry had been raised, and a meeting- 
 place had been named. 
 
 By their looks, by their accoutrements, they appear to be 
 
PLAIN OF SHARON. 27 
 
 either Akeel's men or some tribe in league with the Hanadi 
 who obey that troublesome sheikh. It being of moment 
 that we should learn what we can of Akeel, Yakoub now 
 and then pricks off to a point where he must cross the path 
 of these riders ; but he only wastes his time, and throws 
 jebile into the dirt, for the party is nearly always a family of 
 the Anezi, who either know very little, or have orders to be 
 dumb. 
 
 " Bedaween very close, Master," says the scout. " Ca- 
 bouli at Tiberias ; Akeel not there \ Akeel nowhere ; only 
 fires and robberies everywhere." 
 
 A sleepy dawdle through the orchards among which Lion- 
 Heart and his English bowmen lay so long, brings you to 
 the gates of Ramleh in the sands, a city surrounded by 
 empty cisterns and teeming cemeteries ; the approaches to 
 the Latin convent being defended by a forest of prickly 
 pears. A howl of wild dogs, a welcome like that which 
 Saladin gave the English knights, salutes your visit ; but the 
 sun is too strong for their vice, and after yelping in angry 
 chorus for a moment, they crawl into shade and drop into a 
 doze. 
 
 After much pounding at the convent door with stones, a 
 head in a cowl is seen peeping cautiously above the wall ; 
 and a pair of insolent black eyes make inventory of our 
 number and estimate of our state. On a quick admonition 
 to be alive, the cowl drops back ; and in about an hour, as 
 it seems to our impatience, a wicket in the gate is opened, 
 when, a parley having taken place, and the fathers being 
 satisfied as to the condition of our creed and purse, a heavy 
 beam is heard to fall, a massive chain to rattle, and then the 
 door grates slowly back to a width admitting a dismounted 
 man and beast. 
 
 We stride into an open court, over the wall of which the 
 fruit of a palm tree hangs in golden bunches, and the gate is 
 again locked fast and safe. 
 
28 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE CONVENT OF RAMLEH. 
 
 A MERRY fat old padre, Angelo by name, receiving us 
 '^^ at the gate, leads us away into a square dark room, 
 having a range of sofa, stuffed with coarse grain and 
 populous with fleas, and a small open window, through 
 which the cool air of a covered chamber floats in and fans 
 us. Kicking off boots and spurs, laying down belts and 
 pistols, we recline and pant, longing for a draught of fresh 
 water to allay the thirst, but bowing to the wise old padre, 
 who, slow and pursy, counsels a mere rinse of the mouth, a 
 sip of lemonade, a cup of hot coffee, boiled thick and black, 
 and the soothing whiff of a chibouque. It is hard to resist 
 sucking the temptation down into one's throat \ but Angelo 
 prevails, and in ten minutes the coffee and jebile have 
 wrought a miraculous cure. 
 
 While dinner is being cooked in the convent kitchen, 
 there is time for a stroll through this town of Mohammedan 
 Ramleh, once the Ramula of Lion-Heart, and to push 
 through the prickly pears and multitudinous graves towards 
 the rent arches and walls of an ancient khan, caravanserai, 
 or wayside inn, from one angle of which ruin springs the 
 famous minaret of the White Mosque, an edifice rivalHng in 
 grace and lightness the more celebrated dome of the Rock. 
 
 The wide path running below this minaret is the great 
 caravan road from Cairo to Damascus, along which all the 
 overland commerce of Egypt and Persia has to pass on 
 
THE CONVENT OF RAMLEH. 
 
 29 
 
 camels. It is not much of a road, having no pavement, 
 hedge, and ditch ; but a king's highway is unknoAvn to the 
 East. In our Enghsh Bible the word "road" occurs only 
 once, and then it is used in the sense of raid — an inroad. 
 We hear of paths, of ways ; never of roads, which must be 
 regal works, the offspring of art and the production of a 
 settled peace. A Greek, a Roman made roads ; an Arab, 
 a Jew, never. A dweller in tents (and whether he lodge in 
 a house, or sleep under a tree, the spirit of a Syrian is still 
 that of a dweller in tents) detests a path so easy that wheels 
 can roll and cannon may be drawn along it. To such a 
 man a great road seems a great peril. "Why smooth the 
 rocks from Jaffa to Jerusalem ?" asks Suraya : " that the 
 Russians may send their siege guns to Mount Zion ?" An 
 Oriental feels no want of roads, for he never dreams of 
 riding in araba, coach, and cart. It is true that these flints 
 would kill a good horse, but a native of Syria never rides 
 such a thing. We hear so much of the Arabian mares, and 
 we know so well about the Bedaween's flights, that we are 
 apt to consider these Orientals as a nation of horsemen. It 
 is all a dream. The Bedaween rides, for his safety in the 
 desert depends on his speed ; but the Arab of towns and of 
 settled life never mounts a horse. When he does not care 
 to walk, he bestrides an ass. Indeed, the common Oriental 
 feels a respect for the noble beast which prevents him from 
 associating it freely with his daily doings ; and if we may 
 judge from the wall paintings of Egypt, the warriors of 
 Pharoah, though they yoked their horses to chariots, rarely 
 got upon their backs. And now, as in the days of Pharoah 
 a horse is considered as an engine of war, not a beast of 
 burden ; a proud plaything of caliphs, not a creature to be 
 ridden by farmers and citizens in their upstart pride. Priests 
 ride on donkeys, pashas on mules. I met the Seraskier of 
 Damascus riding through the desert on a mule. Ibrahim of 
 Egypt, the dashing cavalry officer, rode from Cairo to 
 Konieh on an ass. While, therefore, his homely beast 
 trots nimbly over the broken stones, what call has an 
 
30 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 Oriental to mend his road ? If he can pick his way along 
 it, all is well ; but to do so his eye must be sure ; for even 
 this road from Cairo to Damascus, though it follows the plain 
 and the sea, may be lost by a careless rider in the blaze of 
 noon. 
 
 Returning to the convent, in waking the wild dogs you 
 rouse an officer of customs, who, pipe in mouth, and sword 
 in hand, starts up from a doze and motions you to halt. 
 The den out of which he darts is a scoop in the wall of 
 thorns, such as in England we might cut in our laurel trees 
 and box. The gaudy and dirty fellow carries a bunch of 
 pistols in his belt, at once for ostentation and defence. His 
 office is to stop all caravans and traders on the road ; to 
 examine their wares ; and to collect from them all dues 
 which have been laid by the Sultan and the Pasha. But his 
 interruption is only another form of demanding tip. Pay it 
 and pass on ; a piastre, with a pinch of jebile, will satisfy 
 this turbaned officer of your being an honest man. 
 
 Like the women of every part of Syria, those of Ramleh 
 wear trousers, while their husbands and sons wear skirts ; 
 but the ladies of this noble plain have another habit of 
 dress, which may sometimes put a Saxon to the blush. In 
 the doorways, in the streets, on the flat roofs of Ramleh, 
 young and pretty damsels may be seen with their faces 
 covered to the eyes, and their bosoms naked to the waist. 
 The yelek, a vest, is worn by these ladies open at the front. 
 A girl, it is true, wears a chemisette beneath her yelek ; but 
 among the roses of Sharon it is the fashion to cut this 
 chemisette away from the bust, so that when the yelek is 
 left open, as it is always left by the ladies of Ramleh and 
 Jaffa, the graces of the feminine bosom are abundantly 
 exposed. The sight is not always lovely. As a rule, a 
 Syrian's bust has little of that height, that roundness of line, 
 which the Prophet of Islam is said to have loved in the sex, x 
 and which the Arabian story-tellers extol in Safie. Rarely 
 are the breasts small and round, like two pomegranates of 
 equal size ; in truth, they hang loose and long, and appear 
 
THE CONVENT OF RAMLEH. 31 
 
 to the eye of every beholder veined and coarse. Exposure 
 to heat and dust soon dyes the original gold of a peasant's 
 skin to the darkness of a Bedaween's cheek ; and as to 
 shape and fulness, it is said that a young mother on a 
 journey never stops to give her child the breast, but tosses 
 the teat over her shoulder for the babe to suck. 
 
 A mixed and voluble society sits down to dinner in the 
 cool dim convent room, most of the men being ecclesiastics, 
 papas and padres, monks and friars, with appetites which 
 Angelo, kindly and overfed, smiles unctuously to see. That 
 dear old man has not carried his serge gown, his rope belt 
 and cowl, through a dozen miles of sun. Some of us have 
 ridden from Jaffa, some from Jerusalem, and some from 
 Gaza since the morning dawned ; so that each has either a 
 fear to communicate or a tale to tell. English and Arabic, 
 Russian and Romaic, Armenian and Italian, rattle round 
 the board, while the handy fathers are serving up the stewed 
 olives and fowls, the green figs and cheese, the roast eggs 
 and water melons ; every one talking, no one listening ; the 
 riot growing louder when our hosts have replaced the poor 
 thin fluid on the table by a strong aromatic Cyprus wine. 
 Akeel Aga, the Galilee sheikh, is either the hero or the 
 inspiration of every tale. 
 
 A date merchant from Egypt tells how, in riding past 
 EI Mejdal and Beit Duras, near Gaza and the sea, he had 
 seen a good many black tents along the sand, from which 
 he inferred that a signal has been given to the tribes, and 
 that Akeel is retiring to the south. A Jew from Nabulus 
 reports of robberies and murders in every hamlet of Ephraim. 
 A monk from Mar Saba says the wadies of the wilderness 
 are unsafe, and the tribes beyond Jordan are astir. x\n 
 Armenian pedlar, fresh from Mount Zion, says the holy city 
 is alarmed, and Suraya is about to proclaim it in a state of 
 siege. But our best story-teller, as becomes his age, his 
 oflice, and his country, is a Greek Prior, who left his 
 convent near the Holy Sepulchre at dawn, going on a sad 
 errand to Jaffa and Stamboul. The physician of his convent 
 
32 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 has been robbed and killed ; and the Greek Prior is going 
 to Constantinople in search of a Frank successor to the 
 murdered man. 
 
 This Frank doctor, a man of gentle bearing and of 
 eminent skill, having lived his twenty years in Palestine, 
 and being known to its people far and wide, could not be 
 made to understand why a quarrel in Galilee between 
 Cabouli and Akeel should frighten him from going a few 
 miles into the country to see a friend. When told to take 
 care, the old gentleman smiled, put on his hat, and rode 
 away towards Nabulus through the Damascus Gate ; to be 
 found at that gate in the morning bruised and spent, his 
 pulse at the last throb, the only garments left on his body 
 being the crushed hat on his head and a loose rag round 
 his loins. 
 
 Hailed in a lonely track by a dozen strange men, and 
 told he must stop and strip, he had begun to urge on the 
 rough fellows that he was a doctor and a Frank. But the 
 Arabs had no time for talk. To Bedaween thieves the art 
 of robbery has never been one of the fine arts, and knowing 
 nothing of the history of Claude du Val, they have acquired 
 no taste for the more delicate doings of the highway. They 
 never touch their hats to a lady whom they rob, never throw 
 back letters and keys to a gentleman whom they despoil of 
 his lighter trash. They just drag a man down from his 
 saddle, seize upon his horse and arms, tear the clothes from 
 his back, divide his money and his jewels, and then either 
 stun him with a club or rope him to a tree. Before his 
 censes can return to him they are gone, with his horse, his 
 gun, his boots, his shirt, and everything that was his. The 
 story of the man who went down to Jericho and fell among 
 thieves, is repeated in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem from 
 day to day, so that the lesson of the parable never becomes 
 stale. 
 
 Despite of his prayers and threats, the Frank physician 
 was stripped and cuffed. Before his face the Bedaween 
 rascals divided his effects ; one getting his horse, a second 
 
THE CONVENT OF RAMLEH. 33 
 
 his repeater, a third his coat, a fourth the contents of his 
 saddle-bags. His hat alone seemed to give them pause ; 
 they could neither sit upon it, nor carry water in it, nor shoe 
 horses with it ; so they tossed it on the ground and left it, 
 the most jorecious salvage in his wardrobe to the poor old 
 man. Coming to his wits when they were gone, he began 
 to retrace his steps. Staggering over the stones and through 
 the sun, his feet all torn, his skin all scorched, he found his 
 way, naked as the babe just born, to a peasant's hut, where 
 he obtained a rag and a drink of water. Toiling through 
 the night, now resting on a stone, now binding up his 
 wounds in the coarse grass and planta genista, he reached 
 the Damascus Gate before it was yet day, and sitting down 
 on a mound of earth, was there found, fainting and speech- 
 less, by the Turkish guard. At noon that day he died. 
 
 Such is the tale told by the Greek Prior, and every word 
 of it proves to be true. Having told his story very well, 
 and having frightened everybody, the Greek Prior says grace, 
 and the company rises and shakes itself free from the 
 glamour of his words. 
 
 Eight or ten friars are lounging on the convent roof; 
 some finishing their prayers ; some smoking cigarettes ; 
 some grinning over the wall at a colony of dogs, which are 
 improving the cooler hour by fighting and making love. 
 The Jew has gone to his cell, the Armenians are pacing 
 their whitewashed court. Though the sun is still up, many 
 of the guests are making ready for bed, for the horses are to 
 be saddled at one, and the caravan is to move at two 
 o'clock, so as to pass by El Kubab, the most dangerous 
 point on the road, by dark, reaching Latrun, the ancient 
 Modin, by the hour of dawn. 
 
 The air is warm, and the spirit languid. Ishmael sets me 
 a stool, a narghiley, a cup, under a canopy of vines, and on a 
 clap of the hands brings coffee and the charcoal fire. Two 
 or three stragglers lounge on the convent roof, inhaling the 
 Lebanon leaf and watching the sun go down into the sea. 
 Half an hour after sunset Ramleh seems asleep, the silence 
 
 D 
 
34 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 being unbroken save by the drone of an insect or the snarl 
 of a restless dog. Putting away the pipes, we take a last 
 turn on the roof, a last peep over the wall. The fathers are 
 issuing out of chapel and going into their cells. The dogs 
 have crawled away under the prickly pears. The fire of the 
 far west is fading into green and grey. A string of camels, 
 led on by an ass' colt, is bobbing into the town. A veiled 
 figure pauses for an instant like a spirit at our convent gate, 
 and then flits by. The fans of a large palm tree sway and 
 sigh ; the tower of the White Mosque shines like a jewel in 
 the dusk ; and the evening stars throb slowly into lustrous 
 life. 
 
 Good-night, good-night ! 
 
NIGHT RIDE TO MOD IV. 35 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 NIGHT RIDE TO MODIN. 
 
 "pv REAMING of Modin, and of all that this name of 
 ^~^ Modin had once meant in Israel — revolt against 
 Epiphanes, war, glory, nationality — my hours of rest fly 
 swiftly into midnight. About one o'clock (when the old 
 priest has been laid in his princely tomb, and his heroic 
 sons, having saved their country, and being crowned with 
 every gift which their countrymen could lawfully bestow 
 upon them, are about to seize into their own hands that 
 sacred office which none but God could give away) Ishmael 
 creeps into my cell and dissolves the dream. 
 
 Not as a right, but as a joke, one of the Italian padres 
 has given Ishmael a tumbler of fluid for the Saxon's face, 
 telling him that the Greek Prior and the Jew merchant, 
 having more sense than to dip their noses into cold water of 
 a morning, are already in the guest-room of the convent, 
 waiting for breakfast, and in the absence of stronger fare are 
 burning a bit of charcoal on a few shreds of Lebanon leaf. 
 A meal of hot coffee, hard eggs, grapes, olives, white bread, 
 and poor red wine, awaits us in the refectory, where Padre 
 Angelo is moping round the table, his eyes half open and 
 his soul asleep. At one in the night some thirty sinners sit 
 down to eat and drink ; a lamp of the pattern found in 
 Pompeii lighting the room with a red and fitful glare. Most 
 of those who dined and made merry are again at table ; but 
 less talkative than they were last night; each man appearing 
 
THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 to feel that with another day a new adventure has begun. 
 Who among us can say where he will sleep to-night? 
 
 About two o'clock, saying our adieus to Angelo, who 
 pockets his piastres and prays for our safe arrival in Jeru- 
 salem, Said, Yakoub, and the rest of us file through the 
 convent gate ; man, horse, ass, and camel ; making a 
 caravan about seventy weak. Two or three ladies are 
 supposed to have joined us; seated in panniers on their 
 camels ; but the night is too dark to see whether they are 
 Frank or Oriental. A dozen friars, of various sects and 
 head-gears, ride on donkeys in our wake. These gentlemen 
 in serge had planned to be away from the convent by one 
 o'clock, but the sight of two English revolvers, working on 
 the suggestion of uneasy dreams, in which the Frank 
 physician and his Bedaween plunderers had probably played 
 their parts, have induced the holy and nervous men to wait 
 our going, and to take up a safe position in the line of 
 march, between the baggage and its protecting fire. 
 
 Cool and fresh flows the morning wind upon our temples 
 and through our lungs, as we escape from the pent lanes 
 and streets of Ramleh into the open plain. A colony of 
 dogs, waking up into life as we clatter through the eastern 
 gate, greet our departure from their city with the same wild 
 music that made our welcome. Sabeah jogs on drowsily in 
 the dark, less like a mare of the desert, which should be all 
 fire and spirit, than like a pedlar's hack ; but the cold night 
 air, blowing down from the hills into our mouths, inclines 
 both man and beast to sleep. 
 
 On our eyes getting used to the starlight, we can see that 
 tliough our horses' feet plough heavily into the soil, our 
 march is along a beaten track, open to the fields, broad and 
 soft, as if water were near, something like a waggon-way 
 through a Norfolk field. Dozing and dreaming along the 
 spongy road, a priest's donkey runs against a camel, and 
 rolls into the dust ; the overturned padre roaring at the 
 top of his voice for help, which not a man in the caravan 
 has the heart to lend. Ail modes of travel, like all forms of 
 
NIGHT RIDE 7 MODIN, 
 
 warfare, harden and sear the heart ; but searing and harden- 
 ing beyond all other mode of travel is that of roving in such 
 a country as Syria becomes in a time of disorder like that 
 occasioned by the revolt of Akeel Aga. A man who is 
 mounted on a fleet mare, armed with a stout whip and a 
 good revolver, finds it difficult to feel for the miseries of a 
 beggar jolting along the road upon an ass. The good 
 Samaritan must have been a most rare and noble fellow, 
 worthy to adorn the most beautiful of parables. With us, 
 the fall of a monk is hailed with a burst of merriment — 
 especially from the priests and friars — and the fallen donkey 
 and his load are laughingly left behind us in the darkness 
 and the mud. 
 
 To shake the slumber from his eyelids, Yakoub, when we 
 have cleared El Buweireh, the first hamlet on our line of 
 march, pricks on ahead ; and Sabeah, catching at the thud 
 of hoofs in the loam, breaks quietly into a trot. Her motion 
 having startled me from a doze, we soon leave the Greek 
 and Armenian fathers, with the camels and their fair burdens 
 in our wake ; and by the time we have reached Kubab, the 
 mass of our long procession can neither be seen nor heard. 
 Ishmael only, trotting by the light luggage mule, is close 
 upon our heels. 
 
 Kubab, silent as the grave and treacherous as the sea, we 
 pass through at a walk, unwilling to disturb a population 
 which is only too apt either to beg from the strong, or to 
 steal from the w^eak. This part of the great plain has an 
 evil repute which a good many travellers affirm that it has 
 richly won. More than one hamlet in the neighbourhood 
 has been lately burnt by the Turks, who have scorched 
 many families of peasants from the land, in a righteous but 
 inadequate return for their many and atrocious crimes. 
 Having cleared the heap on which Kubab stands, in the 
 midst of olive trees and ridges of prickly pears, we catch a 
 murmur as of horses' feet on our left, coming in the direc- 
 tion of Nuba or Noba, that town in which Lion-Heart, of 
 whose epic this plain is the scenery, paused so long. 
 
3? THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 " Horsemen !" cries Yakoub, reining in. Hushing the 
 still night, and with hands on our revolvers, bending forward 
 towards the dim fields on our left hand, we can hear the 
 footfall of horses crushing their way through stubble and 
 stones. In a moment, while they sounded afar off, they are 
 among us ; five dark figures, on brisk little mares, and 
 poising above them their bamboo spears. A word or two 
 of parley, in which Ishmael has his share, and we are asking 
 each other for the news ; on one side, our little party in 
 advance ; on the other side, five armed Bedaween, not 
 Akeel's own lambs the Hanadi, but men of the Anezi, a 
 powerful tribe with whom he has made a league of friend- 
 ship. We are going up the hills into Judah ; they are 
 crossing the plain towards Gaza, where the sheikhs have 
 appointed them to meet. Perhaps they consider us too 
 strong to be robbed ; for a Bedaween rarely thinks it right 
 to attack under an advantage of five to one ; not from any 
 fear for his skin, being personally brave as a wolf ; but from 
 having studied the art of robbery on the highways, and 
 found that when otherwise conducted it does not pay. A 
 Frank, when assaulted by thieves, is sure to fire, and not 
 sure to miss his aim. He may kill a mare. In that case 
 blood must be shed, and of all things in the world an Arab 
 has a strong dislike to shedding blood. God has com- 
 manded him not to take life, and he believes that by divine 
 appointment the curse of blood will fall upon his house. 
 
 Our Anezi friends beg a little bread and tobacco, which 
 we give them, and a little powder, which we refuse. They 
 expected to hear that English ships are at Jaffa, and 
 French soldiers in Beyrout ; and in return for our news of 
 what is being done along the coast, they tell us that Hebron 
 has revolted from the Turks, and that all the tribes beyond 
 Jordan are in arms. Saying this, they make their salaam, 
 and ride away into the night. 
 
 " Have they told us the truth, Yakoub ?" 
 
 "The truth. Master!" says Yakoub with scorn. "Their 
 religion will not suffer them to lie." 
 
NIGHT RIDE TO MODIN. 39 
 
 Day is just breaking on the hills in front ; a faint first 
 flush of dawn, as we near the hill on which Modin, birth- 
 place of the Maccabees, once stood ; and on which Latrun, 
 Ladrone, the robber's den, now stands. This hill — a mound 
 under the great mountains, a hill on the level plain — controls 
 the Bab el Wady — gate of the glen — the chief entrance on 
 this side into the mountains of Judea ; so that nature has 
 made it to be for ever either a work of defence or a place of 
 thieves. In truth, it has been each in turn. 
 
 The new name of Latrun, com.pletely superseding that of 
 Modin, comes from Disma, the penitent thief, who is said 
 to have been a bandit on this very road, lying in wait for 
 merchants in the Bab el Wady ; where, hiding behind rocks, 
 and pouncing upon unarmed men, he spoiled them of their 
 goods, and sometimes took away their lives. By a habit 
 of the language and the people, such a hero was almost 
 certain to give his name co the place in which he lived. 
 Modin became Latrun, as Bethany became El Azariyeh, 
 and as Kirjath Jearim, afterwards known as Kuryet el 
 Enab, Village of Vines, has become in our own day Abu 
 Gosh. 
 
 But the charm which draws men to this heap of stones, 
 this tangle of shrubs and thorns, is not derived from Disma 
 and his misdeeds. It springs from that epical story of the 
 Maccabees — the last victorious rising and resistance of the 
 Jews — which, even as a story, is nobler and more picturesque 
 than that of the fabled siege of Troy. 
 
 Upon this high mound, Apelles, one of the Greek com- 
 missioners sent by Epiphanes, king of Syria, to put down 
 Jehovah and set up Jupiter in His holy place, built an altar 
 to idols, on which altar he commanded the people to come 
 and offer up sacrifice. One recreant Jew, fearing the king 
 and forgetting God, obeyed his summons ; when the aged 
 priest Mattathias, a man of noble lineage and saintly life, 
 going up the hill with his five sons, their strong swords 
 shining in their hands, set upon the idolatrous crowd, slew 
 Apelles and the apostate Jew, broke down the idol altar, 
 
40 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 scattered the king's commissioners and servants, and before 
 the Greek soldiers and magistrates could act against them, 
 lied away into the mountain passes. In these glens and 
 heights over Modin, bold men began to gather round these 
 outlaws, who became a band, a company, a battalion, 
 exercising themselves in making raids, cutting off scouts, 
 interrupting communications, spreading alarm in the cities 
 and hope in the country. The old priest died; his body 
 was laid on this mound ; and his heroic son Judas, called the 
 Lion of Judah, counting his forces, few in array, but in nature 
 hardy and desperate men, ready to perish, commenced the 
 actual national war. By night attacks, by sudden surprises, 
 he taught his people how to fight and conquer. Alert of 
 foot and quick of brain ; yesterday in the mountains, to-day 
 in the plain ; now marching on a post, now storming a 
 castle ; Judas in a few months of service changed his rabble 
 of zealots into an army of solid troops, capable of meeting 
 and repelling the royal hosts commanded by generals who 
 had been trained in the Macedonian school of arms. 
 
 Judas met Apollonius, the Greek general commanding 
 Samaria, and overthrew him. Next, he defeated Seron, 
 general of Coele-Syria, in the great battle of Beth-horon, the 
 Morgarten of Jewry. Afterwards assailed by Lysias, in the 
 still greater battle of Emmaus, the Sempach of Jewry, he 
 gained a magnificent victory ; on which he marched into 
 Jerusalem, cleansed that city of idols, purified the Temple 
 hill, re-established Circumcision and the Sabbath, and 
 solemnly dedicated the Holy of Holies to the living God. 
 But his toils were not ended ; for a new king of Syria 
 sent fresh armies, under Nicanor, against the patriots. 
 Judas met and overthrew Nicanor in the terrible field of 
 Adasa. Then came a cloud from another side, and the 
 Lion of Judah fell fighting against enemies, outnumbering 
 his forces twenty to one, and was buried with his father on 
 this Modin mound. Jonathan and Simon, his heroic 
 brothers, his equals in genius and address, if not in the fiery 
 quality of his blood, succeeded to his command, and their 
 
NIGHT RIDE TO MODIN. 
 
 41 
 
 sons became kings and high-priests of the country which he 
 had saved. 
 
 Yakoub stands near the horses, while Ishmael leads the 
 way by a quiet lane to the summit ; a wide space covered 
 with ruins, perhaps of a palace, certainly of a tomb ; from 
 which a magnificent view of the broad plain, and of the 
 
 
 " ^'tJoN 
 
 , .. „ A^ ■■"'■' ■'"'^^ ^ '^ 
 
 
 ll%««#^^A 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 COUNTRY OF THE MACCAEEAN WAR. 
 
 bold valley of Ajalon, rewards the chmber for his toil. Far off, 
 the seals shining in the dawn, but unlike our English waters, 
 is without a sail. Near us, in our front, rise the mountains 
 into which Alattathias fled with his sons ; vast, rugged, dark, 
 abrupt. AVe could fire a shot into Bab el Wady at their feet. 
 Above, to the left, perched high among the clouds, is Beth- 
 horon ; four miles from this place stood Adasa ; and in the 
 plain, here at our feet, beyond the camel path, lies the 
 
42 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 village of Amwas, on the site of Emmaus. The country 
 bristles with battle-fields, and the whole aspect of the land is 
 heroic. 
 
 Modin is one of the centres of Jewish thought and action : 
 for the Maccabees were priests as well as kings ; and a man 
 who overlooks its story will be apt to stray when he comes 
 to study the events of a later and more sacred drama than a 
 national war. 
 
 Nobler servants than the Maccabees it would be hard to 
 find in Israel ; larger service than they rendered to their 
 country it would be impossible to find. It is not enough to 
 say that they found the Jews enslaved, and that they left 
 them free. In a political sense, they made the country. 
 When Mattathias struck down the pagan altar on Modin, 
 putting his life, and the lives of all his sons, upon the issue 
 of that daring act, Judah and Israel had become things of 
 history, and the Israelite faith had been abolished by laws in 
 which the people appeared to have acquiesced. The Temple 
 was profaned ; the usual reading of the law was prohibited ; 
 circumcision had ceased ; Sabbath observance was forbidden 
 on pain of death ; the succession of high-priests was broken, 
 Onias, the true pontiff, having fled away to the great Jewish 
 community at Memphis on the Nile. Not one man in a 
 thousand Jews could speak Hebrew ; in its place the people 
 made love and money in Chaldaic, Syriac, and Greek. Out of 
 this prostrate misery, the genius, daring, and devotion of one 
 splendid family raised the nation to a height of power re- 
 caUing the glories of David's reign. 
 
 But, on the other side, the very qualities which enabled 
 these princes to serve their country in a political sense, 
 caused them to ruin it in a dogmatic sense. The Maccabees 
 were men of the world; soldiers, orators, statesmen, rather 
 than priests of God. In the course of their fiery struggle 
 against the Gentile power they came to look upon religion 
 as a part of their system of government, a branch of their 
 police, and a sign of their peculiar cause. Descending from 
 the Babylonian Exiles, they belonged to the new class of 
 
NIGH T RIDE TO MOD IN. 43 
 
 men — the party of nationality and reform. Being able and 
 daring men, whom no fear could restrain and no power 
 could resist, when the public service seemed to demand 
 a great concentration of pubHc powers, they felt no scruple 
 in seizing into their own hands offices incompatible with 
 each other. 
 
 In short, the Maccabees led Israel away from the Mosaic 
 theory of a divine government into the adoption of a worldly 
 principle of nationality ; a position in which the Jew lost his 
 birthright of a universal priesthood ; to which birthright he 
 was not recalled until John went forth into the wilderness 
 and began to baptize his countrymen back into the kingdom 
 of God. 
 
44 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE GREAT SEPARATION. 
 
 N a slight lay work, aiming no higher than to sketch some 
 facts and sceneries which may assist in framing the 
 sacred story, it will be sufficient to describe in a few words 
 the points on which the Maccabean policy appears to have 
 differed from that of the Written Law. 
 
 Moses had set the Spiritual Powers apart from the 
 Temporal Powers ; not as to persons only, but as to families 
 and tribes ; so that for thirteen hundred years of Hebrew 
 life no priest had ever been made a king. This first Mosaic 
 principle was vitiated by the Maccabees, when a priest of 
 Modin was raised to the throne of David, and the whole of 
 his kinsmen were elevated to princely rank. 
 
 Moses had consecrated the line of Eleazar the son of 
 Aaron to the High-priesthood for ever. This second 
 Mosaic principle was set aside by the Maccabees ; Jonathan, 
 the youngest son of Mattathias, a man who had no preten- 
 sions to the sacred office beyond those of power and oppor- 
 tunity, seizing the pontifical robes, going up to the Temple, 
 and performing the holy rites. 
 
 Moses had given a Written Law to his people ; a law 
 which he had engraved on stone, and placed for safety in 
 the ark ; a law from which men were forbidden to take one 
 word, and to which they were equally forbidden to add one 
 word. This third Mosaic principle, weakened by usage and 
 
THE GREAT SEPARATION. 45 
 
 events before the Maccabean reign, fell into complete 
 neglect when the written code was amplified into tht 
 elaborate Oral Law. 
 
 Moses had appointed one faith, one service, for the whole 
 body of Israel, who were to have one ark, one tabernacle, 
 one covenant, one temple, in a word — one Church. This 
 fourth Mosaic principle was disregarded under the Macca- 
 bees, in whose time the Separatists were established in 
 political authority, and the Jews were divided into Sadducees, 
 Pharisees, Essenes, and other parties of less historical renown. 
 
 Moses had told his followers, in the awful Voice speaking 
 out of Sinai, that the children of Jacob were called to a 
 Universal Priesthood : "Ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto 
 me above all people ; for all the earth is mine ; and ye shall 
 be unto me a nation of priests :" and he had so framed his 
 laws, precepts, and ordinances, that all the peculiarities ol 
 Hebrew life should be made to foster and preserve the 
 sacramental truth of Israel being a living witness of Jehovah 
 to the outer nations, an agency through which the whole 
 earth should in time be reconciled to God. This fifth 
 Mosaic principle was proudly repudiated by the Maccabees, 
 who adopted the Separatist theory of national life, and with- 
 drew their people from communion with the Gentile world. 
 
 Thus it came to pass, under the rule of these brave and 
 able men, that the Judge who led his followers out of Egypt, 
 would have been a stranger to the great powers, the great 
 institutions, the great bodies, which governed and divided 
 Israel in the days of Jesus ; to the synagogue, to the San- 
 hedrin, to the Great College, to the schools of Hillei and 
 Shammai, to the princely high-priests, to the Mishna, to 
 Samaritan and Jew, to Pharisee, Sadducee, and Essene. 
 A generation had grown up which knew Moses mainly as a 
 traditionary figure, somewhat as a Greek remembered Lycur- 
 gus. Moses had become a name, a type, a landmark in the 
 past ; he was scarcely any longer a living fact. The Law 
 which he had proclaimed from Sinai and bequeathed to 
 Joshua, like the language in which he had talked with God 
 
46 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 and written down the divine commands, had been in a great 
 measure forgotten by the Jews ; having become the property 
 of a learned caste, recruited from the schools. A Church 
 which Moses would have known and David approved, no 
 longer existed in any part of Syria ; in its stead there was a 
 church of the Sanhedrin, the princes, and the Separatists. 
 
 An outward and political change so vast could not have 
 been produced by a single man, or by a single generation 
 of men, however gifted and courageous, unless it had been 
 prepared in the popular mind. The change had commenced 
 in Babylon, and had come upon the Exiles in the seductive 
 guise of culture and progress. 
 
 Those men of Judah and Benjamin who had been 
 carried away captives from a poor country into a rich one, 
 from village labour into the magazines of a great city, from 
 the companionship of rustics into a society in the last 
 degree busy and refined, had found that in their new 
 country the fields were better tilled, the houses better 
 built, and the people better clad. Everything on which 
 they gazed had seemed to them a lesson and a reproach. 
 The fruits were riper, the wines were purer, the arts were 
 nobler, than their own. For Babylon was the wonder of 
 Asia ; her walls being leagues in length, her gates numbered 
 by the score ; a temple of which the ruins make a hill, and 
 a palace to which St. James's would be a kennel for dogs 
 and lions, filling her royal quarter ; an inland sea lying 
 close by her ramparts, from which a broad canal bore 
 ships to the Persian Gulf. Her hanging gardens won the 
 admiration of Greeks who had exhausted every marvel of 
 the Nile. A poor Hebrew in the streets of Babylon was 
 like a Savoyard in the Rue Royale, a Shetlander at Charing 
 Cross. 
 
 During the years of their captivity, the tribes had become 
 a new people. Nearly two generations having lived and 
 died in the great city and its neighbourhood, the young 
 Israelites had grown up with strange ideas and habits of 
 life. They had not yet ceased to plant vines and oHves, to 
 
THE GREAT SEPARATION. 47 
 
 till the soil, to breed sheep and goats — for it was not until 
 the later ages of Rome, when the Jews had lost their right to 
 possess land, that they learned to become dealers and 
 chapmen, to excel in the cunning of trade, to buy and 
 lend money, to understand jewels and perfumes, to practise 
 magian arts, and to be useful agents in the seraglio and the 
 court ; but even in Babylon they had forgotten many of the 
 feelings of husbandmen and shepherds, and acquired a new 
 and unhappy preference for the luxuries of city Hfe. As 
 they grew rich in money and high in favour, pride of the 
 heart and lust of the flesh had eaten into their souls ; the 
 elders and priests — the men of learning and science — being 
 worse offenders than the young men and laymen, so that in 
 after times it became a saying in Judea that, " wickedness 
 came out of Babylon from ancient judges who seemed to 
 govern the people." Along with this corruption of morals 
 had come a change in the Hebrew creed, an addition to the 
 Hebrew festivals, a modification of the Hebrew service. 
 This change had not been sudden and revolutionary ; it had 
 stolen upon the people unawares ; in the first place, from 
 the loss of their native idiom and the disuse of their sacred 
 books ; in the second place, from the contact of Zoroastrian 
 doctrines akin to their own ; and in the third place, from 
 such political events as the rise of Esther, the devotion of 
 Daniel, and the conquest of Cyrus. A section of the 
 Exiles had, after a time, set themselves apart from their 
 brethren as reformers, calling themselves Pharisees, from 
 " pharash," set apart ', at first a patriotic and dissenting 
 body (like our own early Puritans) ; but these dissenters 
 had been scouted as heretics by those staunch old Hebrew- 
 Tories, the Sadducees. Still, this schism of the Separation 
 spread. Every Hebrew educated in a Babylonian school 
 was trained to understand his Law and his Prophets in a lay 
 and even in a critical spirit ; and having ceased to speak 
 Hebrew in his household, he could no longer study the 
 Mosaic text for himself, or receive it from his teacher other- 
 wise than through the medium of a foreign tongue. 
 
48 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 Among the great changes wrought by the Exile was the 
 growth of a strong affection on the part of all the captives 
 for Chaldea, the Palm country, and for Babylon, the Gate of 
 God. The rich, the learned, the high-bom among them, 
 declined to go back into the bleak mountain wastes of 
 Judah ; and even the masons and dyers, the weavers and 
 tinkers, whom Cyrus had sent away to rebuild Jerusalem, 
 sighed over the country they were leaving as a paradise on 
 earth ; a land of plenty, a land of great rivers and a boun- 
 teous soil, a land of pleasure, in which the seasons came and 
 went with an indolent beauty unknown among their own 
 barren ravines and rugged bluffs. A tender regret for 
 Babylon became the poetry of their lives. The stories of 
 Esther and Daniel made their favourite reading ; and Jews 
 who scarcely knew the name of Pharoah could recite whole 
 chapters from the Book of Daniel, and tell how Vashti 
 had offended the king Ahasuerus, and how Esther, their 
 countrywoman, had been promoted into her place. Purim, 
 a Babylonish feast, became their favourite festival of the year. 
 
 Arrived in the land which had once been Judah and 
 Israel, bringing with them fresh habits, a different language, 
 and a foreign school of thought, the Exiles found in many 
 parts of Palestine a people claiming to be of the same 
 lineage, following the same law, and sacrificing to the same 
 God as themselves, who had been instructed in a yet richer 
 art, inspired by a far nobler genius, than they had left 
 behind in the great city of Babylon. A wave had already 
 washed over the plains of Syria from the Grecian isles — a 
 wave that was afterwards to become a mighty flood. Not 
 in Tyre and Sidon, in Joppa and Acco, in Gaza and Ashdod 
 only, had the influence of this stream from the West been 
 felt ; but also in the hill countries and the inland cities, in 
 Shechem and Sephoris — in some degree, perhaps, in Jeru- 
 salem itself And since the date of that return from exile, 
 this tide of western civilisation had been every day flowing 
 into the land with a greater force : after the Greek conquest 
 of Asia, it had set in with a more majestic motion than 
 
THE GREAT SEPARATION. 49 
 
 before. Thus, the new culture which the Jews brought 
 home from Babylon had been met and tempered by the arts 
 of Cyprus and Antioch, until the people, nearly all of whom 
 had noAv become dissenters and Separatists, passed under 
 the persecution of Epiphanes, the revolt of Modin and the 
 Maccabean war, into that stage of their moral and spiritual 
 growth which brought upon them the Roman war, and led 
 to their dispersion over the face of the earth. 
 
 Having served their country like Joshua and Gideon, the 
 Maccabees were invited by the public voice to seize all 
 offices and powers ; to drill the armies, to instruct the 
 priests, to inspire the schools. They were not slow to act 
 on such a hint ; and as both the army in the field, and the 
 nation in the synagogue, with the exception of a few 
 Sadducean priests and nobles, had become Separatists, the 
 spirit in which the Maccabees fell to this work of drilling 
 and instructing their people was that of the new epoch, not 
 of the old. But whether they idolized mere rites and 
 ceremonies, or withdrew their people from the community 
 of nations, who could oppose them ? Not their companions 
 in glory. It was in nature that men who had fought at 
 Beth-horon, Emmaus, and Adasa, should cling with ardour 
 to those rites and ceremonies which Epiphanes had for- 
 bidden on pain of death. Circumcision, Sabbath observ- 
 ance. Temple service, having been all prohibited in the 
 names of Zeus and Apollo, the victors of Adasa took to 
 cherishing these rites and ceremonies, not only as parts of 
 their ritual, but the very soul of their creed. The first act of 
 every people restored by valour to its national life is to set 
 up its native gods. If the Jewish hero of Beth-horon made 
 idols of his recovered rites, as degrading to his moral nature 
 as the worship of any marble Love or Terror to be found in 
 the pantheons of Greece and Rome, who could restrain his 
 martial frenzy? The nobles who rejected the Pharisaic 
 heresy had lost all weight and influence in the camp. The 
 Pharisee held the sword. The pontifical family had been 
 torn by feuds, and Onias, the true high priest by succession 
 
 E 
 
50 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 from tlie days of Aaron, had gone away to Egypt. Jacimus, 
 a man of Aaron's line, had been appointed in his room; but 
 after his death, the Maccabees had left the highest office in 
 Israel empty until more peaceful times ; when Jonathan, 
 seizing a golden chance, went up to the Temple and 
 assumed the pontifical robes. 
 
 The revolution had now triumphed ; the Mosaic high 
 priest being driven away into Egypt, and a Separatist 
 prince established on his throne. 
 
 For the first time in Israel, and contrary to all the Mosaic 
 traditions, a king of men was made a priest of God. Other 
 changes followed. Priests of a lower rank w^ere appointed 
 judges and magistrates ; a secular spirit appeared in the 
 Temple and in the Great College ; and heavenly truths were 
 darkened by the shadov/ of earthly facts. People were led 
 to associate rank and pomp with the sacred office ; and on 
 seeing the sacerdotal orders living in palaces, and deciding 
 on' questions of peace and war, many persons were seduced 
 into the fatal error of interpreting the Messianic prophecies 
 in a mundane sense. 
 
 On the other side, the royal race, remembering that they 
 were kings of the earth, too often forgot that they were 
 servants of God. Some of these princes, endowed with the 
 rarest gifts of genius, ruled the country which they had 
 saved with transcendent skill. Yet their reign, as an order of 
 royal priests, was in the last degree barren of abiding good. 
 It is not given to kings to reconcile God and Mammon. 
 
 Knowing that the new order of things might be contested 
 cut of the sacred books, the Separatists, who supported the 
 new political system, took their stand on the principles of a 
 second Law, for which they asserted an equal antiquity and 
 authority. This writing was knov/n at first as, " the tra- 
 ditions of the Elders," and, together with its later amplifi- 
 cations, is now called the Oral Law. 
 
 From the days of Jonathan to those of Titus the whole 
 life of Israel, pubHc and personal, turned on the principles 
 of this Pharisaic code. 
 
THE ORAL LAW. qi 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE ORAL LAW. 
 
 'T^HE Separatist code, called the Oral Law, which may be 
 found rough and unready in the Mishna, was not a 
 forgery, like the Isidorian Decretals, nor a secular work 
 perverted to spiritual mischief like the Book of Mormon. 
 It was a genuine growth of time and practice, like the 
 corpus of our English non-statute law, which in the later 
 days of Jewish independence was allowed, like very much 
 judge-made law elsewhere, to supersede the original text. 
 In heart and substance, this great body of jurisprudence 
 consisted of a noble and efficient series of civil laws ; but 
 alongside of much that v/as noble, there was a great deal of 
 crude and trivial matter : rules, opinions, commentaries, 
 disputations, on the moral and ceremonial injunctions given 
 in the Five Books of Moses ; some parts of this collection 
 being older perhaps than the reign of Cyrus ; other parts 
 going back to the Revolt of Modin ; the rest having no 
 higher antiquity than the days of Hyrcanus and Herod the 
 Great. So long as these rules had no authority beyond 
 what they drew from their own manifest merit, and while 
 every Jewish school could debate and reject them, they 
 could do no more harm than the commentaries of our ov^n 
 counsel on points of law , but when the Great College had 
 pronounced these interpretations of the Law to be of equal 
 age and repute with the Covenant itself, what evil there lay 
 in them began to work. The Jewish lawyers made this 
 
52 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 declaration in no uncertain terms ; for the policy, the great- 
 ness, and the safety of their new empire depended on the 
 public acceptance of this Oral Law. They said their 
 explanation of the Written Law had been given to Moses, 
 who had left it, not to Aaron's line, but to Joshua the lay 
 soldier, from whom it had come down through the judges 
 and prophets unto the latest times. This explanation of the 
 origin and descent of the Oral Law could have been given 
 only to a people who had lost their language, and with it 
 the habit of consulting their sacred books. The upper 
 classes, having leisure for study, and continuing to speak 
 and write Hebrew, had never adopted this theory of a 
 double law, one written, the other traditional. The nobles 
 knew nothing of these traditions. Yet not the less had the 
 Oral Law become the Separatist's gospel, regulating every 
 movement of Jewish life. 
 
 Mystery surrounded the Oral Law. The pupils of the 
 Great College were taught to regard it as a secret no less 
 than a sacred institute. It was a holy, incommunicable 
 thing, never to be mentioned in a stranger's presence, never 
 to be written in human speech. When, in progress of 
 time, it had been reduced to writing for the use of rabbins 
 and doctors, a curse was pronounced upon any one who 
 should translate it into either Greek or any heathen tongue. 
 Even among those who could read Hebrew it was not to be 
 made a topic of common discourse. No slave was allowed 
 to read it ; no woman, no child, was ever to learn it. A 
 Gentile must not be told its rules and principles. Even in 
 the household it was to be held in extremest reverence. A 
 Jew who spent his days and nights in studying it must not 
 discuss its doctrines with his wife. It was not to be 
 mentioned at table ; and although it professed to be the 
 rule of every man's life, it was never to be communicated to 
 a servant or a girl. To teach any part of the Oral Law to a 
 woman was a sin. 
 
 But while the study of this law was fenced around with 
 anathemas and prohibitions, it was declared to every Jew, 
 
THE ORAL LA W. 
 
 above all to a canonist, that this study was a bounden duty ; 
 for by the rules and precepts of this law he would have to 
 regulate every action of his hfe, from cleaning his teeth and 
 rinsing his hands up to the true way of keeping the yearly 
 Passover and reciting his daily prayers. 
 
 In later times, a Jew was taught to divide his hours of 
 study into three parts, one part of which he was to give to 
 the Pentateuch, one to the Mishna, and one to the Gemara ; 
 that is to say, one hour to the Pentateuch and two hours to 
 the Talmud. In manhood he was recommended to give 
 most of his leisure to the Talmud, leaving the Law of 
 Moses to the young men and priests, who were supposed to 
 be less familiar with its tenets. Of course, the Separatist 
 law supported the new institutions in Church and State ; 
 ruled in the Sanhedrin ; prescribed prayers and alms ; 
 regulated the breadth of a phylactery and the thickness of a 
 veil; fixed the ceremonies of the new year; directed the 
 reading of the law ; legislated for the Sabbath and the great 
 feasts ; ascertained the conduct of Jews to Gentiles ; incul- 
 cated due reverence from the people towards the Rabbi or 
 Master of the I^aw. 
 
 In the word and in the spirit this Separatist law (as we 
 possess it in a later form) was not unfrequently opposed to 
 the ordinances and institutions bequeathed to Israel in the 
 sacred books. 
 
 By the Mosaic plan, the children of Israel had been a 
 people set apart for good ; that they might grow into a great 
 nation and learn to serve one God ; that they might teach 
 the true faith through facts, and prepare the Gentiles for 
 salvation. Under the Maccabean system, the Jews appeared 
 to the outer world of Pagan nations to be a people set apart 
 for evil, to quarrel amongst themselves, to fall away into 
 sects, to disgust strangers by their pretence, and provoke 
 chastisement by their pride. Instead of being a light to the 
 Gentiles, they were become a rock of offence. 
 
 Nothing in the covenants made by God with his people 
 had sanctioned the idea that Plebrew and Greek were men 
 
54 
 
 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 of different orders. Everything in those covenants had 
 impUed that Hebrew and Gentile were common children of 
 the same God, though Israel had been chosen as the son by 
 whom the whole family should be glorified and saved. The 
 God of the Hebrews had been called the God of the 
 Gentiles, and the sins of one people had been punished by 
 Him no less sternly than those of the other. The most 
 eminent men among the Hebrews had been friends of 
 strangers ; marrying into their houses and bringing blessings 
 into Israel through their wives. Rachel, Zipporah, Ruth, 
 had been aliens in blood. Joseph had married the daughter 
 of an Egyptian priest ; Solomon, the daughter of an Egyptian 
 King. But under the Separatist law such friendly feelings 
 had for a moment been put away. No new Rachel could 
 be wooed into Israel, no second Ruth could be engrafted 
 into the royal line ; for a law of sharp estrangement, a law 
 hostile to strangers as strangers, had now come into force. 
 
 Many of the rules now foand in the Talmud, with much 
 of the practice based upon those rules, were the unnatural 
 growth of persecution, misery, and war; sudden measures 
 adopted in the face of sudden calamities ; and, in truth, the 
 classical writers show that on the whole a dark, unsocial 
 spirit distinguished the Palestinian Jew in the latter ages of 
 his national life. 
 
 Of course, when the legions were camping in Judea, and 
 the Greeks peopling Galilee, it would not have been easy for 
 the Jews to carry out any of the hostile provisions of their 
 code. An alien who busied himself about their law, who 
 observed one of their Sabbaths, who appointed for himself a 
 holy feast, was held to be worthy of death ; but while the 
 Romans were masters in Syria, no man could be cmcified 
 until his sentence of death had received the sanction of 
 judges more merciful than the fanatics of the Separation. 
 Except in popular riots, when a preacher might be stoned, 
 or a soldier stabbed, no man, whatever his offence, could be 
 put to death by the Jews ; yet the spirit of the Maccabean 
 law was partial and unjust towards every one living under a 
 
THE ORAL LA IV. 55 
 
 foreign flag. If a Synan lost a camel, and a Jew found it, 
 the Syrian could not follow and claim his own ; but when a 
 Jew lost a camel, and a Syrian found it, the Jew could 
 follow and recover it by force. A Jew who stole a hundred 
 shekels from another Jew, had to pay back a hundred and 
 twenty shekels, a fifth part of the sum stolen being paid as 
 penalty for the wrong done; but if a Jew stole the same 
 amount of money from a Greek, he had to repay the hundred 
 shekels only ; a good Gentile having, in the eyes of this law, 
 no equal rights against a rogue of the chosen race. Again, 
 a Jew who had slain a Greek by accident or a sudden blovv% 
 had to fly into one of the cities of refuge : Kedesh in 
 Galilee, Shechem in Samaria, Hebron in Judea; but a 
 Greek who by accident or a sudden blow had killed a Jew, 
 was considered worthy of death. 
 
 Not a word in the covenants made by God with his 
 people sanctioned the new idea that a priest ought to ex- 
 ercise earthly power, either in the Sanhedrin or on the 
 throne. In the olden time there had been no distinction 
 between the priesthood and the people, save that of office. 
 Israel being a kingdom of priests, all equals, all in a state 
 of grace, none was accounted holier, none worthier, than 
 his brethren. The sons of Aaron had been servants of God 
 and the people ; standing at the tabernacle door ; heaping 
 wood on the fire ; pouring oil into the golden lamp ; slaugh- 
 tering the ram, the bullock, and the dove ; sprinkling the 
 altar of burnt offerings with blood ; partaking of good men's 
 feasts ; instructing children in the law ; purifying young 
 mothers; and assisting jealous husbands to detect the 
 transgressions of their faithless wives. As an order, they 
 had been poor and of slight account ; objects of charity 
 rather than of dread. But the Separatist law had brought a 
 doctrine into vogue which exalted teacher and lawyer to 
 a rank Hke that enjoyed by the ulema in Stamboul, and 
 the monsignore in Rome. In this new light, the Masters 
 were regarded as an order of nobles ; the title of rabbi 
 being considered as equal to that of lord. Love, respect, 
 
56 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 obedience were to be paid to all teachers of the sacred 
 law. A Jew was told that his highest merit was to seek 
 their society^ to invite them into his house, to court their 
 daughters in marriage. A common Jew could not presume 
 to salute a rabbi in the street, but must bow down before 
 him, saying, with hushed breath and lowly reverence, 
 " Peace be unto thee, Rabbi." A young man was taught 
 that his first duty was to his teacher : to bear his rabbi's 
 harden, to fetch his rabbi's drink, to load his rabbi's ass. 
 No other duty, not even that of a son to a father, was to 
 come between the pupil and his teacher. If a man's father 
 and his rabbi were each in Avant of food, he was to feed the 
 rabbi first ; were the two men naked, he must clothe the 
 rabbi with his cloak ; were they taken captive, he must 
 raise money for the rabbi, leaving the ransom of his parent 
 to an after-time. It was a maxim in this new code of 
 morals, that fear of the rabbi had the same purifying virtue 
 as fear of the Lord ; and this unnatural exaltation of the 
 canonists and lawyers, which caused them to be popularly 
 accepted as divinely inspired teachers, led the way to a 
 complete prostration of all independent and individual 
 thought. 
 
 The main issues, then, as regards faith and policy in 
 Israel, of that glorious Revolt of Modin, were the elevation 
 of a fighting sect to power ; the general adoption of Sepa- 
 rative principles ; the substitution of an explanatory law for 
 the Covenant ; a change in the divine succession of high 
 priests ; and a lawless union of the spiritual and the secular 
 forces. 
 
THE WADY ALY. 57 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE WADY ALY. 
 
 "Xl TILLING to avoid the gentry of Latrun, who are said 
 * * to be a gang of cruel thieves, we drop quietly down 
 the hill-side and spring into our saddles just as the village 
 dogs have found us out, and we are spurring through the rosy 
 light towards Wady Aly before the villagers come into the 
 open with their spears and matchlocks. A huge, square 
 block, of ancient date, which the Arabs call Deir Eyub, 
 stands close to the glen, but why such a building — evidently 
 a Crusader's fort — is called Job's convent, there is not a 
 soul to tell. At Bab el Wady, a rough shed, kept by a 
 fellah, offers you a little shelter, a cup of coffee, a pipe of 
 jebile, and even a broken chair. This shed — a rude form 
 of the Syrian khan, caravanserai, or wayside inn — is open 
 on three sides to the sun and rain ; but a wall of loose 
 stones serves to keep out those wolves and jackals which 
 abound in the ravines higher up the glen, and are sometimes 
 seen ravening about the plain. A roofed kennel is the 
 lodging-place for women and children, who, like the men, 
 their companions, lie in rows on the bare earth, folded in 
 their veils and sacks. A dozen poor Jews and Arabs, two 
 of them women, are sleeping on the ground. One wild 
 fellow is engaged in boiling coffee, a second is making 
 lemonade, a third is rinsing the hookahs and replenishing 
 the bowls. A gulp of water, even though it be warm 
 and putrid, soothes the burning tongue ; but neither soft 
 
58 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 words nor piastres will persuade these Arab peasants to 
 give me a pail of water for Sabeah, though she is literally- 
 shedding tears of agony from thirst. The nearest well 
 beino- dry, every drop of water for the hookah, the coffee, 
 and the lemonade, must be fetched in skins, a two hours* 
 journey. Shall an Arab give the poor man's drink to the 
 rich man's beast ? 
 
 In every part of the East, among every class of people, 
 a man is tender to his horse, his camel, and his ass, beyond 
 the usage of any Christian land. In Syria, a man's beast 
 is a member of his family, to be cherished and loved in its 
 degree as a creature given into his care by God. Sometimes 
 Orientals carry this tenderness to excess. They have 
 asylums for aged cats. They leave legacies to birds. 
 Pigeons are fed from the mosque. A Turk will cross over 
 a street to avoid waking a cur. An Arab studies painless 
 ways of killing sheep and fish for the table. If you see 
 a man striking a dog in Cairo or Stamboul, you may be 
 sure he is a Frank. But, in Palestine, water is one of those 
 gifts in which man has the first and the only indefeasible 
 right. The present season being dry, water is scarce, and 
 all that love can do for Sabeah is to dash upon her blister- 
 ing lips a drop of lemonade. A crust of brown bread, 
 brought in the saddle-bags from Ramleh, a slice of cold 
 melon, a cup of black coffee, and a long pull at the hookah 
 send us merrily away from the khan at Bab el Wady into 
 the mountain gorge. 
 
 This Wady Aly, named after a Moslem saint, is far from 
 being the worst ascent in Palestine ; yet nothing in my 
 own experiences of mountain paths, confined to such 
 countries as Calabria, Granada, the hilly parts of Morocco, 
 and the wild regions above Smyrna, has given me more 
 than weird hints of the work to be done. There is no road 
 at all. For a mile or more into the gorge there may be 
 said to be a track, having shrubs on each side, and patches 
 of maize fields to the right and left, as if little bits of the 
 plain had come up into the hills and been kept there, and 
 
THE WADY ALY. 
 
 59 
 
 made to bud and bloom in sport. Aged olive trees are 
 common, also myrtles,' and laurels and laurustinas. The 
 planta genista grows everywhere gaily among the stones. 
 Mounting higher and higher up the rocky stairs, you find that 
 the maize becomes thinner, the hawthorn and ilex and dwarf 
 oak become more abundant. Now we are moving along the 
 bed of a torrent ; the face of the rock, in its natural cleavage, 
 shining on the surface. At every third step Sabeah pauses, 
 strides, and slips. In a hundred places boulders and broken 
 earth block up the road, while here and there the luxuriant 
 ilex spreads like a net from one side to another of the narrow 
 glen. What a lair for Disma, and for men of his trade ! 
 
 A small, strong watch-tower, built by the Turks some 
 nine or ten years ago, stands here and there on a controlling 
 ledge j but the soldiers who ought to be on duty in the pass 
 appear to have been drafted away from these humble forts, 
 either to defend Suraya Pasha in Jerusalem, or to swell the 
 battalions launched in pursuit of Akeel Aga. Every mile 
 of the ascent becomes lonelier and more difficult. We pass 
 a string of camels, an Arab and his son, a rabbi on a 
 donkey ; we meet a band of returning pilgrims ; but as a 
 rule, the glen climbing up from Modin toward Zion and 
 Bethlehem, though it is at first lovely and full of flowers, 
 grows strangely silent and impressive as we rise above the 
 lower range of heights and begin to reach an elevation 
 of two thousand or two thousand five hundred feet. Not a 
 hamlet, not a house, not a mill, not a garden is now seen. 
 Some of the rounded hills look trim and terraced, as if for 
 vines ; on every knoll stands the ruin of a convent or a 
 mosque ; but the tropical vegetation of the plain near 
 Ramleh and Modin has given place to a flora more homely 
 and familiar to our eyes ; a flora in which the holm-oak, 
 arbutus, thorn, and holly, sweep you back in fancy to the 
 mountains of Killarney and South Wales. 
 
 Turning in our saddles towards the west, we find that the 
 sea is full in sight ; the dear, domestic sea, with its happy 
 surprise and delicious dream of home. 
 
6o THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 On the first great ridge of hill stands an Arab ruin, Beit 
 Fejjol ; near to which, on our right, is Saris, a tiny hamlet, 
 with a well and garden. Crossing the chain a little above 
 Saris, we leave the Wady Aly and the lair of Disma in our 
 rear, and, with our faces full in the sunshine, pick our way 
 slowly and on foot down the sides of a precipitous valley, 
 in the soft limestone stairs of which dropping road even our 
 Arab mares cannot keep their feet. In front of us rise two 
 peaks ; to the right, Soba ; to the left, Beit Nakubeh. Below, 
 the valley spreads itself broad and open; a white track 
 running through it like a stream ; domes and mounds of 
 earth rising round it, and appearing to inclose it in their 
 arms. Half hidden in the shadow of the mountain, shines 
 a bold and beautiful hamlet, strong and of stone, the houses 
 of which are large and well built, the grapes and figs 
 abundant, with a mosque, a fountain, and the shell of a 
 Gothic church. The village seems to be waking into life. 
 A camel is plodding along the road, a sheikh is kneeling 
 at prayer on a house-top, a damsel is carrying water from 
 a well. Yet this smiling hamlet, with its poetical Arab 
 name of Kuryet el 'Enab — Village of Vines — and its softly 
 tranquil aspect, is no other place than the mountain aerie 
 of that infamous bandit, Abu Gosh. 
 
 In front of the church (a shell, still perfect, of Italian or 
 Spanish Gothic, once a chapel of crusading kings, and now 
 a cattle-shed and rope-walk for the bandits) lies a square 
 inclosure of rude stones, in which grow a few aged trees. 
 This is another of the roadside inns, at which the pilgrim 
 sits for an hour, resting his horse, and eating his simple meal. 
 Before Ishmael can spread a yard of carpet on the ground, 
 Arab girls bring jars of water, and a sheikh comes down from 
 the village to smoke a pipe of jebile and demand a bak- 
 sheesh, his tributary tip — courtesies and gifts which a prudent 
 pilgrim should not refuse. A dozen piastres will make you 
 lord of this valley, for the sheikh is no longer a prince at the 
 head of a thousand spears, making war on his neighbour and 
 taking tribute from the Pasha of Jerusalem. The pride of 
 
THE WADY ALY. bi 
 
 Abu Gosh has been broken, and his name is now but a 
 terror of the past. Yet when you are riding through a wild 
 ravine, where every man carries a gun, it is well to be at 
 peace with the ruling sheikh. 
 
 While Ishmael lays the cloth and spreads the repast of 
 hard eggs and chicken, of brown bread, oranges, and grapes, 
 there is time for a stroll ; so, just to stretch our limbs, we 
 climb up the steep streets of the Village of Vines, admiring 
 its luscious fruit, and cooling our temples in the shade of 
 its Christian porch, thinking of the old, old story of the place 
 now known to Arab peasants as the robbers' lair : remember- 
 ing how, before the children of Jacob subdued the land, it 
 was already a famous and sacred town — a town, not a 
 hamlet, as its most ancient name implies, (Kirjath Baal, City 
 of Baal, being a holy place of the immodest Canaanite god, 
 which the Hebrews, when it fell to the lot of Judah, changed 
 to Kirjath Jearim, City of Forests) ; how the six hundred 
 Danites from Zorah and Eshtaol pitched their tents on this 
 slope before going up to Mount Ephraim, to the house of 
 Micah, whence they stole the ephod, the teraphira, and the 
 molten image, before setting out on their treacherous raid 
 against Laish ; how the ark of God, when fetched by the 
 despairing Israelites from Shiloh, and being taken from them 
 in fight by the Philistines, was set up in the great temple of 
 Dagon, at Ashdod, was sent away from Ashdod to Gath, 
 from Gath to Ekron, from Ekron to Beth-Shemesh, and, on 
 the prayer of the people of Beth-Shemesh, was brought up 
 the hills and left on this mountain side in the care of Eleazar, 
 son of Aminadab, for twenty years, until it was carried away 
 by David to the holy hill. 
 
 That raid of the Danite band, so much like one of Abu 
 Gosh's marauding forays, left its trace in the popular mind ; 
 and long after the men of Zorab and Eshtaol had settled 
 down on the fields of Laish, the spot on which they had 
 here pitched their temporary tents was kno^vn as Mahaneh- 
 Dan, the camp of Dan. Three thousand years after the 
 death of Micah. a similar cause produced a similar effect m 
 
62 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 the same valley ; and the Village of Vines is now known to 
 the wandering Arabs by no other name than that of the 
 marauder, Abu Gosh. 
 
 Returning to our rude khan, and sitting down in the 
 shadow of our tree, we find the eggs and fowls ready, and 
 the grave young sheikh enjoying his pipe. Inviting him to 
 share our meal, we fall on the bread and fowls ; but, either 
 from pride or modesty, he declines ; though accepting a 
 melon, a loaf of convent bread, and a little more tobacco. 
 Giving the fragments of bread and fruit to the poor, taking 
 a mouthful of cognac, with a last pull at the water-jar, we 
 climb into the hot saddle, bidding the sheikh adieu ; on 
 which he mournfully waves his hand, as if dreaming sadly of 
 those days (a dozen years past) when no Frank could have 
 ridden from that khan until his saddle-bags had been 
 searched and lightened of their weight. 
 
 Passing a dry fountain in the hollow, we begin to ascend 
 the steep. Soba is everywhere in sight ; a noble cone, of 
 stupendous strength, crowned by a fort which Mohammed 
 Ali destroyed, and Abu Gosh rebuilt. Crossing a higher 
 ridge of the hill, having the ruins of Kustul, a Crusader's 
 castle, possibly a Roman fort, on our right, we plunge down 
 a steep and rocky pass into a dry ravine, in the bed of 
 which, as it flows into the great Wady Beit Hanina, bloom a 
 few small pleasure gardens, with a crop of delicious apples, 
 grapes, and pomegranates, among which an Arab family boil 
 and vend coffee, and supply red charcoal for the hookah and 
 chibouque. These gardens have abundant water. Close to 
 the road stand the ruins of a Christian church, only less 
 strong and noble than the shell at Abu Gosh. A few strides 
 further down the glen a Roman bridge spans a rivulet of 
 stones, which in the rainy season may become a flood. On 
 a high promontory, above the junction of two glens, and 
 looking down into a productive bottom, perches the strong 
 stone village of Kulonieh, evidently Colonia, a Roman 
 station. Signs of life now reappear ; fellahs are seen build- 
 ing houses, women shaking olives, children running about 
 
T-HE WADY ALY. 63 
 
 the orchards, and the whole rich valley is alive and bright. 
 On the space now covered by these gardens, walls, and 
 ruins, that village of Emmaus, sixty furlongs from Jemsalem, 
 into which the Master walked with Cleophas and the dis- 
 ciples, is supposed to have stood. It is one of the loveliest 
 spots in the hill country of Judea. 
 
 Ascending from this valley, you leave the fig trees and 
 olive trees behind. The hills are still terraced for vines; but 
 the aspect of nature grov/s more stern, and bare, and mono- 
 tonous, as you climb up towards the high table-land of Zion 
 and Olivet. On your right, up a vvild glen, shines the con- 
 vent of Ain Karim, built on the spot where Elizabeth is said 
 to have dwelt, and where John the Baptist, by some 
 accounts, was bom ; a spring of w^ater flowing at her door, 
 and the face of her country* being soft and green. Soba and 
 Neby Samuel still appear to rise above all the hills of Judah. 
 The road goes zig-zag over the limestone rock, the waste 
 and stones increasing as you approach the Holy City. 
 Vegetation almost ceases ; in a cleft you may find a bramble, 
 and in some happy hollow you may descry an olive ; but 
 the rule is otherwise. Rock, white and blinding, rock 
 broken into fragments, rock burnt into powder, stretches 
 before you and behind. At length, when the long reach of 
 wall, twining gloriously rugged and picturesque round the 
 bases of cathedral, synagogue, and mosque, appears in sight, 
 the eye cfings fondly to the figure of a single palm, shooting 
 gracefully up from a garden in the city near the Bethlehem 
 gate \ and on the right, in a deep natural trough, to an olive 
 plantation, in the midst of which nestles the Convent of the 
 Cross. The aspect of the land is* stern and desolate, and 
 the great city itself seems to spring from the centre of a 
 rolling plateau of stones and graves. 
 
64 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE HILL COUNTRY. 
 
 npo men who rise early and ride hard, who expect their 
 dinner at noon, and enjoy their sleep at night, the hill 
 country of Judah offers but a lenten bait. Clean sheets, old 
 wine, and toothsome chicken, are things unknown to the 
 sacred soil, and it is well, dear friend, that you should know 
 it, so as not to waste time on the impossible — as in waiting 
 for wings to grow and in crying for the moon. Judah is 
 bare. Dreams of good eating should have been left behind, 
 not in the plains merely, but beyond the sea. When you 
 are about to leave Venice or Vienna, for that Morning Land 
 of which these two cities are the golden gates, it may be wise 
 to learn by sharp self-scrutiny and trial, to what extent, if to 
 any, your nature has become pledged to its corporal wants. 
 Are you steel like a Brahmin ? are you wax like a Sybarite ? 
 If on trial you should prove to be one of those men who 
 must either eat, drink, and sleep, or else fret in spirit and 
 fade in cheek, give up your dream of travelling in the Holy 
 Land. Among these hills of Judah, where the bread is not 
 always white, the grapes not always sweet, you would pine 
 for the flesh-pots of Egypt and the vintages of France. 
 Either the Albergo Europa, or the Erz Herzog Karl, — with 
 a morning skim over the Lagoon, an afternoon prance 
 through the Prater — with music in the piazza or the burg 
 after dinner — is your congenial heaven. If, on such trial, 
 you should find that nature is so strong, habit so weak, that 
 
THE HILL COUNTRY. 
 
 65 
 
 you can live without sleep, then come as you list to either 
 Cairo or Stamboul ; to which .the food and drink of the West 
 can be brought to your table in boat and train. Should your 
 palate prove to be king, tempt neither the sands of El Arish 
 
 
 HILL COUNTRY OF JUDEA. 
 
 nor the convents of Judah ; sit down under the palms of 
 Usbeyah, and dream among the glories of Seraglio Point. 
 But if you find that you can royally dismiss the rabble of 
 appetites, shed them at once ; ride up through the wastes 
 into this high land of Judea ; and at the gates of Jemsalem 
 choose for yourself a home in v/hich you will dwell. 
 
 F 
 
66 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 Shall it be Wath the Spanish friars of San Salvador on 
 Mount Gareb, the Armenian monks of St. James on Mount 
 Zion ? Will you try the house of a regenerate Jew in 
 Christian street ? Or, turning your back on cell and 
 chamber, will you encamp like a Bedaween, pitching your 
 canvas on the slope of Mount Olivet ? Each plan has its 
 own virtue. Living in the city you will be hunted by rats 
 and snakes, mosquitoes and fleas ; on the hill-side you may 
 be pilfered by the children of Abu Dis. Most men prefer 
 enemies which they can see and fight. You will have been a 
 lucky fellow, if on trying the city for a week, you do not fly from 
 the mercies of civilization to the freedom of your Arab tent. 
 
 As we ride up towards the Bethlehem gate, the crowds 
 of Jews and Greeks, Arabs and Armenians, seem to be 
 crazed as with the panic of sword and fire. Waves of 
 excited men come billowing round our stirrups. Can we 
 give them no news ? Has not Ramleh been sacked ? Are 
 not the Anezi at Latrtln ? Is there no movement at Abu 
 Gosh ? The people appear to be amazed at our having 
 come up the wady without being robbed. Our luggage 
 ought to have been rifled, our throats ought to have been cut. 
 In truth, the robbery and death of the Frank physician, a 
 deed of violence which, being done near their own doors on 
 the body of a man whom everybody knew by sight, was an 
 event to kindle imaginations apt by nature and trained by 
 custom to take fire. 
 
 A Syrian, be he Jew or Moslem, cannot help thinking 
 of a Frank as of a being set apart ; for does he not see in 
 this pale face from the West a man of mysterious wealth 
 and ascendency, one to whom pashas are polite, and of 
 whom Bedaween sheikhs are afraid ? The Frank may be a 
 giaour, an effreet, a son of Shaitan ; yet to him has been 
 given (for God is great, and his ways are wonderful) money 
 and steam, the power of the earth and the power of the air. 
 He is rich, he is mighty — on the whole he is just. To him, 
 says the Arab proverb, belong the v>'ord of command and 
 the use of the stick. 
 
THE HILL COUNTRY. 67 
 
 A Syrian peasant would no more dream of returning a 
 blow from a Frank than a -soldier would dare to return a 
 slap from a pasha. At Acre, I have seen an English middy 
 slash through a crowd of Arabs, many of them armed, the 
 boy shouting and hitting to his right and left in animal 
 gaiety and sport. On Mount Zion, I have seen a little 
 German lad, a servant in a hospice, rush out of his door, 
 and lay a stick on the backs of a dozen grown-up Jews, all 
 of them with manly and some of them venerable beards. 
 Indeed, the reverence which in the fancy of a Syrian clings 
 to his white brother, is akin to that divinity which in the 
 middle ages and in the language of poetry hedged a king. 
 But, if it is rare for a Frank to be assailed by an Arab, it 
 is still more rare for him to lose his life. As a rule, the 
 Frank carries so little coin, is so well armed, is so expert 
 with his weapon, and so sure in his seat, that the boldest 
 thieves are daunted by his confidence ; for even when he is 
 met in the desert, away from all succour, and at the mercy 
 of a swarthy host, he will still show fight, and if forced into 
 defence he will either maim a man for life, or injure a mare 
 more precious than a man. Nor is this the end of it, as it 
 would be of an ordinary fray. Whether a Frank gets the 
 Bedaween's blood, or the Bedaween gets a Frank's purse, 
 there is no way of hushing the matter up, and of covering 
 the deed with a little sand. The consul worries his pasha, 
 the pasha sends out his Bashi Bazouks, the Bashi Bazouks 
 harry the tribes, and when they have tracked the offenders 
 home to their black tents, the government lays so many 
 fines, and seizes so many camels and horses, that the robbery 
 of a Frank has of late years come to be a perilous and un- 
 profitable game. 
 
 The physician's death is therefore a portent and a sign. 
 The old bonds seem loosened. If such a man were not 
 safe in the hill country, who could believe himself safe ? 
 Would a consul protect a poor Jew ? Would Suraya send 
 out troops to avenge the death of a woodman, of a mule- 
 teer? 
 
68 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 Other stories are afloat : of fires in Esdraelon, of robberies 
 in Samaria, of bloodshed and revolt in Hebron.. Black 
 tents, it is alleged, can be seen from high roofs and from 
 convent walls. The Taamra, a tribe of Bedaween holding 
 the hill country from Bethlehem to the Dead Sea, are said 
 to be astir. Bands of the Adouan and Salhaan Arabs are 
 reported coming up the Wady Cedron ; Suraya is said to 
 have sent troops into the district round Hebron ; the Nabu- 
 liis road is stopped, even to camel-drivers and the mounted 
 post ; and no ordinary news has come in from Nazareth for 
 a' month. Only the poorest Arabs go about with their 
 donkeys. Yakoub protests against pitching our tents be- 
 yond the city walls ; but for once in his life he is forced to 
 give way. 
 
 Though nothing appears to be changed in the usual 
 aspects of Jerusalem, the Greek prior was right in saying 
 that the Holy City might be described as being in a state of 
 siege, for all these hill towns in Judea are governed by 
 niartial law. 
 
 How, indeed, could a city like Jerusalem exist, unless it 
 were governed with the sword ? 
 
 It is a garrison town, with an enemy always at the gate. 
 Look out from the dome of this httle Mosque on Olivet : — 
 you are dwelling on the skirt of a great wilderness, face to 
 face with those wild hordes of the tent who have never yet 
 been either broken into keeping rules, persuaded into 
 growing their own corn and lentils, or caught and confined 
 within city walls. From this dome you may peer down into 
 the blue depths of the Dead Sea, sweep along the Jordan 
 valley and up the mountain lines of Moab ; and you know 
 that in the vast countries lying between the Jordan and the 
 Euphrates, countries larger than France and Italy, no law is 
 acknowledged in practice save that of the stealthy hand and 
 the smiting sword. Time never was in which the men 
 living in tents did not envy and hate the men living in 
 towns; in which the wandering tribes did not bear up 
 against the settlers in cities, spoiling their habitations, carry- 
 
THE HILL COUNTRY. 69 
 
 ing away their corn, levying ransom on their heads. Many 
 of these dwellers in tents, the Anezi, the Shammar, the 
 Mowali, and the Salhaan tribes, are mounted, all of them 
 are armed. In firing from the saddle they have few equals, 
 in thrusting with the lance they have none. No king has 
 ever counted their numbers ; the Anezi alone make a 
 nation ; the Beni Sakkr are a mighty host ; and the asso- 
 ciates of their sheikhs declare that if summoned by their 
 Holy Caliph to defend their faith against the giaours, they 
 could send fifty thousand spears into the field. These 
 formidable hosts may be described as at all times camping 
 round Jerusalem and surging against its gates. The Adouan 
 have an agent at Abu Dis, and the Taamra pitch their tents 
 in the wadies near the walls on every side. Would the city 
 be safe without a vigilant observance of martial law ? 
 
 From our little camp on the Mount of Olives, pitched on 
 the northern slope under the Church of the Ascension, we 
 ride through the hill country to Hebron and Bethel, to Ain 
 Karim and Mar Saba, to Neby Samuel and Bethlehem, 
 ever glad to come back to the holy mount, where we never 
 tire of enjoying the beauty of its scenery and the coolness 
 and freedom of our /Vrab tent. 
 
70 
 
 2 HE HOLY LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ROAD TO HEBRON. 
 
 "O IDING along the stony track above Solomon's Pools, on 
 -"-^ the main road from Ain Karim to Hebron and 
 Egypt, we obsei-ve a cloud of dust rising in our front ; a 
 cloud of dust which appears to be in rapid and boisterous 
 motion, parting and shining near the ground, as with the 
 flashing of swords and spears. Are they soldiers, are they 
 Arabs ? Are they fighting or flying, drilling or playing ? 
 Yakoub is at fault ; for the dust of their feet clouds high 
 and thick above them, and only a glitter of steel comes 
 fitfully through the haze. Pulling up our mares, we hold on 
 by the path, each with one hand on the revolver, another 
 tight on the rein, ready for events, in case we may have to 
 defend our lives. In a moment they are on us — past us — 
 heated and furious, smashing the rocks and shedding sparks 
 from their hoofs ; thirty or forty Bashi Bazouks, with sabres 
 whirling and horses foaming ; five or six empty saddles in 
 their ranks ; in the men's looks that fierce animal light 
 which is said to fill a soldier's eyes in the agony of mortal 
 strife. Yakoub shouts to them as they plunge along — who 
 are they — whither are they flying — where is the foe ? They 
 neither check their speed nor answer to the call ; driven on, 
 it would seem, by an unseen dread. As we stand up in our 
 stirrups, gazing after them in their flight, they sink into a 
 hollow near Bethlehem, the stony road covers them up from 
 
ROAD TO HEBRON. 71 
 
 our sight, and we see them no more. Like a giist of wind 
 through the glen, they came- and they are gone. 
 
 What shall wt do next ? Is it right to push on to 
 Hebron ? Are the Bashi Bazouks whom we have just seen, 
 reeling and broken from some fierce encounter, the troops 
 whom Suraya Pasha had sent into the Hebron district to 
 quell the Arab population ? If so, and Yakoub has no 
 doubt of it, a retreating mob of light horse, with half a dozen 
 empty saddles, does not answ^er very strongly for his success. 
 The Maronite looks pale, and even Said's black face wears 
 a waxen tinge. But where is Ishmael of the piastres, nov/ 
 increased to a score ? At Ain Karim we put the imp on a 
 donkey, and now, while we are gazing after the Bashi 
 Bazouks, he slips away, and getting half a mile in advance, 
 and being deaf to all cries and shouts, he manages, like a 
 vrayward child in a Avood, to govern our adventures, and 
 lead us whither he will. 
 
 On the hill-top beyond Etam we ride into the field of 
 battle, and pull up our horses among the dying and the 
 dead. These are but two in all ; two youthful Bedaween, in 
 their coarse grey shirts and leathern girdles, with bright 
 shawls and fillets round their brows, and two or three gaudy 
 pistols lying near them on the ground. One poor fellow 
 has a slit across his throat, the wound jobbed and gashed, 
 not delicately cut ; the youth is dead as the dust among 
 v.'hich he lies. His companion, having a ball in his chest, 
 is bleeding rapidly away. By their garb they are evidentl}' 
 sheikhs ; but their game of life is over ; and whatever may 
 have been the stake for which they played, they have 
 thrown and lost. Traces of a sharp, short struggle lie 
 about in the road : some bits of rope, some wadding, a 
 pistol, a broken lance, and pieces of spfintered rock. 
 Scarcely have we time to observe these signs of the past 
 onset, when a swarm of horsemen, capped with gay s'naAvls, 
 brandishing long lances, sweep around us, eager and electric 
 as a summer cloud. A few sentences from Yakoub and 
 Ishmael tell them who we are : an English prince, a cousin 
 
72 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 of the Great Queen, a friend of Arabs and Mussulmans, 
 going up to Hebron, into the country of the great sheikh, to 
 see the cave of Machpelah and recite a prayer beneath 
 Abraham's oak. Saluting the sheikh, a fine old fellow, with 
 a grizzly, not an ample beard, I desire that between the 
 English and the Bedaween there shall be peace in the 
 future as there has been peace in the past. At the name of 
 England the sheikh bows his head, in token of peace, and 
 turns to his nephew, the dying man. 
 
 Some who are bending above the youth appear to catch 
 what he says ; but his words are few ; and while the life is 
 ebbing fast from his heart, the old sheikh sits bolt upright 
 in his saddle, silent and siern, with an awful fire in his Arab 
 eyes. When the ebb is past and the suffering has ceased, 
 he whispers a few commands ; two horses are brought 
 round to where the bodies lie; the dead sheikhs are bid 
 across them, and their venerable uncle accepts from his 
 servant a lighted pipe. All being ready to move, the old 
 man bids us join his party, and proceed to the oak of 
 Abraham in his train. 
 
 From this aged sheikh, who remembers with a bitter rage 
 the wars of Mohammed Ali in Syria, when the Arab camps 
 were broken up, the flocks devoured by strangers, and the 
 black tents driven away beyond Jordan into the great 
 Desert, I learn many things ; among others, that the 
 Saxon and the Arab are brethren, and that the English are 
 white Moslems of a Western sect. On these two points the 
 sheikh is beyond reach of evidence. Who is the Arab's best 
 friend ? Who are the Caliph's firm allies ? When the 
 Latin Christians came into the Lebanon, who sent out fire- 
 ships and chased them away ? When the Greek Christians 
 crossed over the Danube on their way to Stamboul, who 
 beat them back into the ice and snow ? When Ibrahim 
 Pasha was at Acre, beating the Shammar and Anezi into the 
 Euphrates, who cannonaded the Eygptian out of Syria ? 
 Who permitted the Shammar and Anezi to return ? When 
 Bonaparte and the Franks came into Palestine, taking their 
 
ROAD TO HEBRON. 73 
 
 best lands from the tribes, who fought against the Franks 
 and drove them into Egypt .and the sea ? Ahvays the same 
 Enghsh Arabs, always the same white Moslems of the west. 
 
 From him, too, we hear the whole story of Suraya's 
 attempt to cow the Esau spirit now glowing in southern 
 Judea ; the high seat of which is at Hebron, a holy place in 
 the opinion of both the Moslem and the Jew. 
 
 The Arabs of this wild and difficult country, while bowing 
 to the Sultan as their spiritual lord, pay as little respect to 
 his temporal rights as the Italians of Genoa do to those of 
 their Pope. For the most part they are a pastoral people, 
 dwelling in tents, driving their camels and goats, their asses 
 and kine, from wady to wady in search of food ; living like 
 their foregoers Abraham and Lot in the same country, with 
 their children, their kinsmen, and their slaves in tents, and 
 owning no masters under heaven, except disease and death. 
 Of the great Sultan in Stamboul they have only a faint 
 and vague idea; a ghostly and spiritual, rather than a 
 mortal dread. When an imperial hatt, or edict, is pro- 
 mulgated in the Caliph's name, they hold themselves free 
 to obey it or reject it, as they please; for the spirit 
 which inspires that edict is too far off for their comprehen- 
 sion, while the voice which commands its execution is only 
 that of Suraya, an intruder and an alien in their land. 
 
 A very unpopular hatt has been sent down from Jerusa- 
 lem to Hebron, for the instant levy of a number of men ; 
 for the new Sultan, Abdul Aziz, being a soldier, a statesman, 
 a patriot, a man of large views and of masculine energies, 
 has resolved, amongst other reforms of the seraglio and the 
 state, on raising his army to a high degree of excellence and 
 strength. From Belgrade to Bagdad, every town, every 
 province of the empire, has been commanded to raise its 
 quota of men by a given day ; among the rest, the Pashalic 
 of Saida, including the whole province of Palestine. Now, 
 the Bedaween, having never yet been broken into the habit 
 of either living in his own house, or cultivating his own field, 
 has an elfish dislike to drilling and marching, to staying in one 
 
74 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 place, to keeping regular hours, and to obeying the word of 
 command. He is a wild man, to whom a city is a prison, a 
 companion a spy. So, when the hatt came from Stamboul 
 to Jerusalem to raise troops, and Suraya sent it down to 
 Hebron and other quarters, the Bedaween sheikhs received 
 it in silence, and laid it aside, saying their sons should not 
 serve and their horses should not be seized. At the first 
 roll of the drum the young men fled into the wilderness. 
 Below the town, on the green slope near the great pools of 
 Hebron, stood the Sultan's white tents ; above which the 
 red banner drooped, and the silver crescent sparkled ; but 
 the sheikhs having set their faces against this levy, none of 
 their young men joined the standard, and the Caliph's 
 tribute of heroes remains unpaid. 
 
 What could Suraya do? Abdul Aziz, who commenced 
 his reign by putting away the odalisques of his liareem, by 
 burning down his seraglio, by exchanging his crown jewels 
 for ships of war, is not a master to be balked of his due. 
 Those who know the new Caliph say that his will is strong, 
 that his hand is prompt, that day and night he dreams of 
 war, his only music being a rolling drum, his chief delight 
 in revie^ving troops. Is such a prince likely to go without 
 his share of Arabs, and permit the servant who fails him in 
 duty to live and thrive ? In the midst of Suraya's troubles 
 came the bad news from Galilee, telling him of the revolt of 
 Akeel Aga, and the disturbances near Nazareth. Thinking 
 it became him to act with vigour, lest a local disturbance in 
 Gahlee should grow into an Arab rising, and finding that my 
 aged but not venerable friend had been one of the busiest 
 in resisting the royal hatt, Suraya despatched a company of 
 Bashi Bazouks, instructed to ride swiftly and secretly to 
 their post ; to sufi"er no man to pass them on the road ; to 
 come upon the black tents in the night ; to invite the 
 sheikh, together with his sons and nephews, to a parley at 
 the Serai ; to use violence only in the last resort ; but in 
 any case, freely or by force, to bring the sheikhs to Suraya's 
 residence on the Temple hill. A part of their work was 
 
ROAD TO HEBRON. 75 
 
 promptly done. Surrounded in the night, surprised by 
 a message which he could neither evade nor resist, the 
 old Arab thought it best to obey cheerily, as though he 
 suspected no evil, and went along of his own good-will. He 
 asked the captain on duty for his pass. When a Bedouin 
 sheikh is called up from the country into a garrison town, it 
 is usual for the Pasha to send him a safe-conduct, which, for 
 the Arab's satisfaction, is commonly signed either by a 
 foreign consul or the prior of a convent , the signature of an 
 English agent being the one most eagerly sought and most 
 thoroughly esteemed. The officer had only Suraya's pass 
 to show; a circumstance highly suspicious in the Arab's 
 eyes ; but seeing himself hemmed round by troops, unable 
 either to escape or resist, the old man pretended that the 
 pass was enough to assure him of the Pasha's good faith. 
 
 The sheikhs were allowed to keep their arms, and to ride 
 their own mares ; they were only asked to make haste. So 
 soon as they were mounted the horsemen closed around 
 them, as an escort or a guard, and while the darkness 
 of night still hung over the tents, the company w^heeled 
 round some houses and gardens and began their march 
 towards Jerusalem, which city they might have reasonably 
 hoped to reach about noon. Some dogs, awakened by the 
 clatter of hoofs on the road, set up a cry, in which other dogs 
 joined them, until the whole country seemed to be rousing 
 itself into a dismal howl. The sheikhs took heart at the 
 sound, for they knew that the Arab camps would soon be 
 astir ; that news of their seizure would spread ; that their 
 friends would muster and give chase. To gain a little time was 
 to gain a fair chance of rescue. A jerk of the rein brought the 
 old man's horse to its knees, and the cavalcade to a pause. 
 A few moments were gained ; but the Bashi Bazouks, seeing 
 that the stumble was a feint to gain time, drew closer round 
 the sheikhs, whom they now began to treat as prisoners 
 rather than as guests. 
 
 Arabs, though tliey ride fast and well, take a long while to 
 muster, and the sheikhs, though as well armed and mounted 
 
76 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 as the Bashi Bazouks, pay them the compHment of seldom 
 assaihng them under an advantage of ten to one ; bat in the 
 bottom of a deep glen, called the Wady Ariub, among 
 fragments of rock and stones, the troops were suddenly beset 
 by a cloud of men in the dark night, when their loose line 
 was broken, and before they could rally and form the enemy 
 was gone. Not a shot had been fired, not a thrust had 
 been made. Eight or ten men had been rolled over by the 
 shock, but no bones had been broken in the fray. When 
 they had again fallen into line, to resume their march, three 
 saddles were found empty, and three of their five prisoners 
 had disappeared. Hopeless of recovering their lost 
 sheikhs, and certain that the Bedaween would return on 
 finding that in the darkness and confusion of the night they 
 had left two of their sheikhs and three of their mares behind, 
 the Bashi Bazouks, drawing their swords and closing their 
 ranks, rode faster and faster as the day began to dawn. 
 The Arab youths, now hugged in their midst, felt sure of 
 the doom awaiting them m Jerusalem ; the resistance and 
 the rescue adding heavy weight to their previous sins ; and 
 they attempted, once too often, to arrest the pace at which 
 they were being hurried to a shameful end. Then, a little 
 above Etam, on the wild and lonely hill-top, had occurred a 
 sharp and sanguinary deed — a throat had been jobbed 
 through with steel, a bosom had been pierced with lead, and 
 two swarthy young Bedaween had been tumbled from their 
 saddles into the Hebron road. 
 
BETHLEHEM. 77 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 BETHLEHEM. 
 
 ■p ETURNING from Hebron by the way of Solomon's 
 Pools, we rest for a while at the Latin convent near 
 Bethlehem ; an hospice which has replaced in that village 
 the more ancient Hebrew khan. 
 
 From the guest-room of this convent you look out upon 
 the ridge and shoulder of the hill on which Ephrath, which 
 -is Bethlehem, stands. This hill holds no high place among 
 the hills of Judah ; it is, in fact, narrow and depressed. 
 Gedor, Gibeah, and ]\Iar Elias, close it round on every side 
 — save only that which falls away into the Wady Cedron, 
 towards the deep chasm of the Dead Sea. The Mount of 
 Paradise looks down upon it from the south, and Neby 
 Samuel soars above it to the north. From all these prouder 
 and more lonely heights, the eye can sweep, either, on one 
 hand, down to the Jordan banks, or, on the other hand, 
 across the plain of Sharon, past Gath and Lydda, into the 
 lustrous bays of Ascalon and Joppa. Bethlehem has no 
 such range to boast. On every side but one some peak or 
 spur obstructs the view : Mar Elias and the Greek convent 
 on its crest hiding the one view which every eye most seeks 
 — the road to Zion and the Mount of Olives. A string of 
 gardens, a few steep fields, much crossing of white roads, so 
 many that the point of junction may be called the Place of 
 Paths, a glen which drops by leaps and steps to the great 
 Cedron valley, make the landscape. Yet the slope vv^hich 
 
78 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 is thus bound in by higher tops and more barren crests has 
 a winning beauty of its own, a joyous promise of bread and 
 fruit, which puts it first among the chosen places of Judea. 
 Nor can it be truly said that all this beauty is borrowed 
 from either the pastorals of Rachel, Ruth, and David, or from 
 the epical events of that night when the shepherds in yon 
 fields were startled by hearing the angehc psalm. Some part 
 of the attraction springs, no doubt, from holy associations, 
 from that abiding poetry on which our youth is fed. Who, 
 in truth, could gaze unmoved upon the fields in which Boaz 
 reaped his corn, the slopes on which David kept his sheep, 
 the road along w^hich the Virgin and her husband toiled, the 
 country in which the shepherds held their watch by night ? 
 But even to those who came to Ephrath in the earliest times, 
 hke Jacob on his way from Bethel, like Saul on going down 
 to Engedi, this lovely and fruitful slope, with its springs of 
 sweet water and its ample rows of oak, must have offered 
 an abiding charm. 
 
 Facing to the south and east, its gardens glow in the heat 
 of noon, and its white stone houses seem ablaze with light. 
 The vines, the fig trees, and the olive trees love the soil ; 
 the grapes have a strong, sweet pulp, of an aromatic taste ; 
 and the green figs of Bethlehem have a flavour which they 
 who have eaten them wdll remember as an Egyptian is said 
 to recollect the Nile. A dark ruddy loam, w^hich the Arab 
 tillers call the Good Earth, lies bright in the clefts and 
 furrows of these rocks, ready to receive, and spongy to retain, 
 the quickening autumnal shov/er. From the fact of fields 
 being rare in this sterile zone, yon few grey patches sinking 
 off towards the wilderness and the Mount of Paradise, give 
 a character, that of corn-land, to the country side, as well as 
 an auspicious name to the sacred town. The old word, 
 Ephrath, meant Place of Fruit ; the newer w^ord, Bethlehem, 
 means House of Bread : one following on the other, as 
 barley and maize come after grapes and figs, and the sower 
 of grain succeeds to the breeder of goats and kine. The 
 little bit of plain through which Ruth gleaned after the young 
 
BETHLEHEM. 79 
 
 men, together with a level of stony ground here and there in 
 the glen towards Mar Saba, .are the only corn-lands occurring 
 in the hill country of Judea for many a league. Thus it 
 happened that the city which grew up beside these 
 fields and enjoyed their produce came to be known among 
 the roving tribes of Palestine, first as the Place of Fruit, and 
 afterwards, when the land was settled and the seed trampled 
 into the ground, as the House of Bread. These ruts and 
 tracks over the hill country, though white and scorched by 
 the desert sun, are not, in their caves and orchards, without 
 many a nook of pleasant and welcome shade. In short, in 
 the one word which to a Syrian ear would express every 
 beauty and grace of heaven, the hill of Bethlehem, in this 
 torrid clime, in the midst of these arid wastes, is almost 
 green. 
 
 On the south front of this teeming slope, looking over to 
 the Shepherd's Tower, with the hot wilderness and the Dead 
 Sea below, stand, as they stood in the days when Samuel 
 came up from Gilgal to choose a king from among the tribe 
 of Judah, groups and clusters of white cubes, called houses, 
 ranged on the sides of a long, nan-ow street or lane, which, 
 starting from the ridge, and jerking and twisting down the 
 hill for about half a mile, sends off court and alley to the 
 right and left, not into fields or into other streets and lanes, 
 but, by bends and turns, up to garden-gates and doorways, 
 and to stone huts and caves in the rock. 
 
 This lovely green ridge of Bethlehem is the scenery of 
 some of our most tender and gracious poems : the idyls of 
 Rachel, of Ruth, of Saul, of David, of Chimham, of Jere- 
 miah, of the Virgin-mother ; the subjects of these poems 
 being the foremost passages in Israel's religious life. 
 
 The first of these Hebrew idyls is the death of Rachel. 
 The tale is so ancient that it carries you back to a time 
 when, as yet, the Hebrews were not, and Bethlehem was 
 not. The green ridge of hill, with its avenues of oak, its 
 gardens of grapes and olives, was then a possession of the 
 Canaanites, in whose idiom it was called Ephrath, the Place 
 
8o THE HOL V lAND. 
 
 of Fruit. The Jebusites held the neighbouring rock of 
 Zion ; and sheikhs from beyond Jordan pitched their black 
 tents around its springs, and lodged their cattle in its caves. 
 Jacob, one of these sheikhs, a man who had been dwelling 
 in the Hauran, the country of his uncle Laban, where he 
 had served fourteen years for his two wives, Leah and 
 Rachel, was journeying along this stony track from Bethel, 
 he and his wives and their little ones, his man-servants and 
 maid-servants, a great host, with a train of camels, a herd of 
 ewes and rams, a flock of steers and milch kine, and multi- 
 tudes of goats. The sheikh was going up to Hebron, where 
 Isaac, his father, dwelt. But Rachel, his younger and more 
 beloved wife, then great with child for the second time, 
 fainted with the pangs of motherhood as the camels drooped 
 down the sharp ridge of Mar Elias into the green country ; 
 and the throes of birth coming fast upon her, she died as 
 her son, whom she called Benoni, child of her sorrow, and 
 her husband called Benjamin, son of his right hand, was 
 being born into the world. 
 
 "And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, 
 which is Bethlehem : and Jacob set a pillar upon her grave." 
 The death of Rachel, the dearly-loved wife, the typical 
 mother of Israel, lent an abiding poetry to Bethlehem ; con- 
 secrating, as it were, the soil of Ephrath to the royal line ; 
 her burial on the green ridge, in the shade of fig trees and 
 olives, making the spot holy for ever in the eyes of all her 
 race. 
 
 Three thousand five hundred years have elapsed since 
 Jacob set up the pillar above Rachel's grave ; but the me- 
 morial stones are still here, protected by Moslem piety ; a 
 Saracenic dome covering that which in the eyes of every 
 Jew is the most sacred dust in the Holy Land. 
 
 The second idyl is that of Ruth. The Book of Ruth 
 presents a picture of the place in which the uncrowned line 
 of Judah had come to dwell. It is a stony country, with its 
 green ascent discernible from afar by the huge fig trees, and 
 by the white pillar set up over Rachel's grave. The plain 
 
BETHLEHEM, 8i 
 
 between Ephrath and the Mount of Paradise stands on 
 the very border of the Desert ; the springs are few, though 
 the waters which well from them are pure and sweet. A 
 year of dearth — a thing not rare either then or now in Judea 
 — will drain the wells and consume the verdure to its roots. 
 Four or five years of scanty rain suffice to bring famine into 
 the land. It was such a dearth that had sent Abraham 
 from Bethel down into Egypt, that had driven Isaac into 
 the plain of Gerar, that had caused the ten sons of Jacob to 
 repair to their brother whom they had sold into bondage : 
 and so it had happened once again in the days of the 
 Judges, in the generation of Boaz the son of Salmon, that 
 there came a long drought on the hill-sides of Judah, and 
 the corn-fields of the Plain below the town, and of the 
 wadies near it, were parched and dry. Now, as Isaac, when 
 he was pinched for food, had gone down into the low lands 
 of Gerar towards the sea-shore, so Elimelech the Beth- 
 lehemite, a kinsman of Boaz, had looked out, in this new 
 day of scarcity, from the city in which there was no bread, 
 towards the abounding fields of Moab, the mountains of 
 which country he could see from the house-top. That land 
 of plenty was the land of his fathers ; and there he might 
 hope to eat and live. So, taking with him Naomi, his wife, 
 with Mahlon and Chilion, his two sons, he had passed out 
 from Ephrath, through the wilderness, going beyond the 
 Dead Sea into Moab, where he had dwelt until he died. 
 His two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, taking wives, Orpah and 
 Ruth, from the women of that country, had dwelt there 
 until they also died. Then Naomi rose up, and, hearing 
 news that the Lord had visited her people with rain, and 
 had given them bread once more, said she would now 
 return to her own city. Orpah, the widow of Chilion, kissed 
 her and went back ; but Ruth, the widow of Mahlon, clave 
 to Naomi, and would not leave her, saying, " Intreat me 
 not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee : 
 for whither thou goest, I will go ; and where thou lodgest, I 
 will lodge : thy people shall be my people, and thy God 
 
S2 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 my God." And so, in the early spring days, when even the 
 Desert hills are alive with the green of herbs and shrubs, 
 the two women who were to renew the blood of Judah, and 
 in whose posterity the whole earth was to be one day 
 blessed, came up from Moab, through the ways of the 
 wilderness, to a city which knew them not. Is this Naomi ? 
 The woman was proud and wretched, and she answered her 
 questioners in wrath. But Ruth, the Moabitish damsel at 
 her side, was soft and comely, of a tenderness and a beauty 
 strange among the Hebrews. Perhaps she was fair, like 
 her descendant David, who had light eyes and a rosy cheek ; 
 and like Solomon, his son, whose skin is said to have been 
 ruddy and white, and his eyes like doves' eyes washed with 
 milk. By the law of Moses, Ruth could have claimed that 
 her husband's next of kin should receive her and take her 
 home to be his wife ; but being gentle and good as she was 
 comely, she would not force him to do her right. When 
 April was come, and the barley harvest ripe for the sickle, 
 the fair woman went down into yon fields of the plain by 
 the Shepherd's Tower to glean after the reapers, trusting in 
 the Lord. Boaz, who was Mahlon's uncle, though not his 
 next of kin, coming down from his house at Bethlehem into 
 the fields, which were his own, said to his servants, as a 
 sheikh going down to the harvest would say to his men even 
 now, " The Lord be with you ;" and the reapers answered 
 '• The Lord bless thee.'' 
 
 When Boaz saw his kinswoman in the field among the 
 reapers, he spoke softly to her, bidding her glean after his 
 men, and keep by the side of his maidens ; inviting her, 
 when she was thirsty, to go up to the pitchers and drink of 
 the water which his people had drawn for their own use ; 
 not being afraid, as he should command his servants not to 
 molest her, or to put any shame upon her. At meal-times 
 he bade her come into the shady place, where the reapers 
 sat with him at meals, and there eat of the bread and the 
 parched corn, and dip her morsel into the vinegar set before 
 them. It was the dawn of a new love in the old man's heart. 
 
BETHLEHEM. 83 
 
 When the barley harvest was gone by, and even the 
 wheat harvest had been gafnered in, as Boaz slept in the 
 threshing-floor, Ruth, by the counsel of her mother-in-law, 
 Naomi, threw herself upon her kinsman's grace. The old 
 man's soul was touched, for he knew what the law com- 
 manded him to do — him after the next of kin — and he loved 
 the fair stranger who had left behind her in Moab her 
 country and her gods. So, when it was day, he went up 
 from his house to the city gate, and, sitting down in the 
 shade of the arch, called to him the ten elders of Bethlehem 
 and the man who was Mahlon's next of kin, and bade them 
 declare before all the people that which the law commanded 
 them to do for Ruth. The man who was her next of kin 
 refused to perform a kinsman's part to the strange woman ; 
 so they plucked off his shoe in the city gate, and Boaz 
 bought up the inheritance of Mahlon in Ephrath, including 
 his field and his widow; and, taking Ruth home to his 
 house, she became his wife, a second Rachel, and the 
 mother of a line of kings. 
 
 Then, after three generations had passed away, came the 
 episode of Saul. When the people rose up and clamoured 
 for a king to reign over them, Samuel, a Bethlehemite by 
 blood, chose for them Saul, the son of Kish, and anointing 
 him with holy oil, bade him repair to Rachel's sepulchre, 
 where — if his kingship were accepted by the Lord — he 
 would meet two men, who were to tell him that the lost 
 asses were found, and that his father, Kish, was in trouble 
 for his son. Saul went down to the tomb of Rachel, near 
 which he received the first confirmation of his Divine call 
 to reign over Israel. 
 
 A little later, in the same succession, came the more 
 beautiful idyl of David. 
 
 Jesse (the son of Obed, the son of Ruth) was an old man, 
 a very old man, when David was born to him. David was 
 the last of Jesse's ten sons, of whom Efiab, the eldest born, 
 was already a man of mature age. From these grown 
 brothers, who were tall and comely, with the strength of 
 
84 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 giants, like the young men of Bethlehem, the boy, who was 
 small of stature and fair of face, having red hair and light 
 eyes, like many of the youths and girls to be seen in these 
 streets of Bethlehem even now, won little of a brother's love. 
 In the East, a slave, a woman, and a youth, are on a par, 
 and are equally despised. They set the boy to do a bond- 
 man's work ; to tend goats and asses ; to wander, at the 
 tail of a flock of sheep, over yon fields and ridges by the 
 Shepherds' Tower; but David had the grace to turn the 
 slave's office into use and beauty. Left to his own will, with 
 his sheep to mind and protect, he learned how to sling 
 stones, to run after the wolf and its prey, to wrestle with the 
 leopard and the ounce, to drive back the Arab robber to his 
 lair. He learned, too, on the hill-side, to bear hunger and 
 thirst, to endure heat by day and frost by night. He grew 
 familiar with every cave and glen, mth every spring and 
 well, between Mar EHas and Engedi. More than all, for 
 his fame and power, he learned how to make lutes and harps, 
 how to play deftly on stringed instruments, how to set his 
 sorrows and his joys to music. Some of his sweetest Psalms 
 come forth from these hills, and breathe the spirit of the 
 savage wady and of the silent night. Like the wild country 
 in which he dwelt, his verse appears to be peopled by the 
 ox and the ass, the hind and the calf, by the fowls of the air 
 and the beasts of the field. In its tunes may be heard the roar 
 of the lion, the yelp of the pard. It tells of the pit dug as 
 a snare in the Desert, and of the man who had dug it falling 
 into that snare. It sparkles with the gloiy of night, with 
 the flush of dawn, with the light of the morning star. In 
 the poetry of the Psalms, this tending on sheep, this doing 
 of a slave's duties, is exalted into a type of the Divine rule : 
 " The Lord is my shepherd : I shall not want. He maketli 
 me to lie down in pastures of new grass ; he leadeth me 
 beside the waters which are stilled." 
 
 When Samuel came up from Gilgal to choose a king in 
 the place of Saul, who had offended God by his disobe- 
 dience, Jesse and his sons were at a feast ; all except David, 
 
BETHLEHEM. 85 
 
 who was out in the .fields with his sheep. But the prophet 
 sending for him to the house, the Lord chose him for king 
 of Israel, and the messenger anointed him with the holy 
 oil. 
 
 On David being brought, as a cunning harper, into the 
 King's house, that he might play upon the harp and drive 
 away the Evil Spirit, the King's son Jonathan, and the 
 King's daughter Michal, saw him and loved him ; but Saul 
 was mad, and in his madness he struck his spear at the 
 minstrel, who, by help o f his wife Michal, had to let himself 
 down over the city wall in a creel, and go up thence to the 
 abode of the prophet in Ramah, perhaps yon height of 
 Neby Samuel which we see on the north, above the line of 
 Mar Elias. From that day, until the King died, David was 
 a fugitive in these hills about Bethlehem ; now dwelling in 
 the Cave of Adullam, near the Mount of Paradise ; now in 
 the passes of Engedi, near the shores of the Dead Sea. 
 The aged Jesse, no longer safe in Judea, went over the Salt 
 Sea into Moab, into the land of his grandmother Ruth. 
 David was hunted like a slave and an outlaw ; now dropping 
 down cliffs, now hiding in caves ; once cutting off the skirt 
 of his pursuer's robe, another time carrying away the cruse 
 of water and the royal spear. Every stone about Bethlehem 
 seems to whisper of his adventures and escapes. 
 
 Even after the fair youth had become King of Israel, his 
 connection with Bethlehem did not cease. The town 
 became known as the City of David. The companions of 
 his watchings and his wanderings were made his captains of 
 the host, his members of the Thirty and the Three. Those 
 who had gathered round him in the Cave of Adullam were 
 his heroes and his mighty men. The fields which had 
 belonged to Boaz the Sheikh remained the fields of David 
 the King ; and the house in which Ruth had lived continued 
 in his possession, until he gave it away in his affectionate 
 old age to one whom he loved as dearly as a son. 
 
86 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE HOUSE OF CHIMHAM. 
 
 'T^HE next idyl of which Bethlehem was the scene, is that 
 -'- of Chimham. 
 
 The story of how the home of Ruth and David came to 
 pass from the royal line into a stranger's hands is a part of 
 the sad history of the Psalmist's heart. 
 
 At the time when the King fled on foot over the brook 
 Cedron and the Mount of Olives, from the threats of his 
 rebellious son Absalom, he found shelter, he and the crowd 
 flying with him, in Mahanaim, a strong city beyond Jordan, 
 in the territory of Gad. There, three great sheikhs of the 
 Eastern bank — one of them an old man, a stranger to 
 David — brought into Mahanaim mats, and flagons, and 
 wheat, and barley, and flour, and parched com, and beans, 
 and lentils, and parched pulse, also honey and butter, and 
 the flesh of sheep, and the cheese of kine, for the King and 
 the King's followers. David was overcome by a kindness 
 which his own children had not shown him. This aged, 
 unknown stranger was Barzillai, the Gileadite : and David 
 never forgot either him or his. When Absalom fell, and 
 the King was returning to his palace on Mount Zion, David 
 spoke to the old sheikh, saying : " Come thou with me to 
 Jerusalem, and dwell with me, and eat at my table." But 
 the Gileadite answered him : " I am this day fourscore years 
 old. Can thy servant taste any more what I eat or drink ? 
 Can I hear any more the voices of singing men and singing 
 
THE HOUSE OF CHIMHAM. 87 
 
 women ? Wherefore then should I be a burden unto rny 
 lord the King ? Let thy servant turn back again, that I 
 may die in my own city, and be buried by the grave of my 
 father and of my mother. But behold thy servant, Chim- 
 ham ; let him go over with my lord the King." 
 
 And so it came to pass that Chimham, son of Barzillai, 
 crossed over from beyond Jordan with the King, and riding 
 up with him from Gilgal by the Wady Cedron to Mount 
 Zion, dwelt in the palace like one of his sons. For David 
 loved the young sheikh, and gave him food from his table 
 and a house from his patrimony in Bethlehem. On his dying 
 bed, remembering the old Gileadite, he entreated his son 
 Solomon that he would be kind to Chimham, and continue 
 to rank him among those who ate from the same dish with 
 himself. He was to stand among the household, favoured 
 among the few, a brother, a companion of the great King, 
 rather than a stranger and a guest in his palace. The gift 
 which Chimham received fiom the King's bounty continued 
 for many generations to bear his name. 
 
 Five hundred years flow by, and Bethlehem becomes the 
 scene of a new idyl, the story of which centres about the 
 home of Ruth, now come to be called by the natives the 
 House of Chimham — the idyl of Jeremiah, when the last 
 band of Israelites turned their faces against the Lord, 
 refusing to hear his prophet and obey his law. 
 
 A host of fugitives, soldiers and husbandmen, nobles and 
 priests, with their flocks and herds, their servants and slaves, 
 came hurrying along the road from Gibeon, chased by a 
 phantom ; men, women, and children, either seated on asses 
 and camels, or trampling along the stony paths ; flying they 
 knew not whither from the wrath of King Nebuchadnezzar. 
 They marched by the site of Jerusalem, where the temple 
 was then a ruin, and the palaces of Zion were dust. They 
 crossed the ridge of Mar Elias, taking their farewell glance 
 of the sacred hill. But near the tomo of Rachel and the 
 home of Ruth they paused and pitched their tents, that they 
 might take counsel for the last time together, and inquire of 
 
88 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 the Lord what they should do, which way they should wend. 
 Among the flying princes was Johanan, among the flying 
 prophets, Jeremiah. 
 
 A great crime had been committed in Judah, and the 
 reip'n of David's house had closed in treachery and blood. 
 In that middle stage from David to Jesus, long after 
 Galilee and Samaria had fallen into the stranger's hands, 
 and the ten tribes of Israel had been dispersed over Syria, 
 Media, and the countries beyond the Tigris, these rocky 
 fortresses of Benjamin and Judah had been also occupied 
 by foreign troops, and the Holy City itself had been taken 
 by Nebuchadnezzar, after a stormy siege. The conquerors, 
 ma-ddened by a long resistance, had levelled its walls, burnt 
 its Temple, and carried its people away captive into Babylon. 
 A remnant only had been left in the land : the poor and 
 the aged, who tilled the soil, and trained the vines, and 
 who were wholly unused i"0 arms. They had been left 
 under the rule of Gedaliah and the ministry of Jeremiah ; a 
 remnant of the weak, the simple, and the helpless ; not men 
 who would be likely to rise upon their masters, yet strong 
 enough to cultivate the earth, to continue the language, and to 
 preserve the ancient law. These men had gone back to their 
 fields and vineyards, and garnered that year an abundance 
 of corn and wine. After fixing their seat on Mizpeh, a 
 height beyond Zion, and threshing the corn, they had been 
 joined by many bands of their countrymen from Ammon 
 and Moab ; among others by Ishmael, son of Nethaniah, a 
 prince of their royal line; a weak and turbulent man, 
 unable to endure the government of Gedaliah, even over a 
 remnant of farmers and shepherds. Ishmael entered into a 
 plot with Baalis king of Ammon, to murder Gedaliah, and 
 deliver the last remnant of Judah captive into his hands. 
 Johanan, one of the few chiefs who had been left behind in 
 Judea, perceiving these designs of Ishmael, reported them 
 to Gedaliah ; but the good man, pure in his own heart, 
 could not be induced to suspect the young prince, and to 
 take any steps in his own defence. When Johanan oftered 
 
THE HOUSE OF C HIM HAM. 89 
 
 to kill Ishmael and save the people from a fatal crime, 
 Gedaliah, treating him as a slanderer, sent him away. This 
 lack of suspicion had cost him his life. At a repast, as they 
 were breaking bread together, Ishmael rose upon Gedaliah, 
 and putting him to the sword, seized the town, and the 
 hareem, with the eunuchs and the king's daughters, the 
 priests, the two prophets, Baruch and Jeremiah, together 
 with all the people who had been left alive in Mizpeh, and 
 would have carried them away captive into Ammon, into 
 the court of Baalis, had not the watchful Johanan, hearing 
 of the murder and capture, called in his bands and followed 
 in pursuit. Overtaken by Johanan and deserted by his 
 partizans, the wicked prince had fled into Ammon, leaving 
 his captives, with the priests and the king's daughters, in 
 Johanan's hands. 
 
 But Johanan had pursued these murderers, not from fear 
 of God so much as from dread of the great king ; and still 
 fearing lest the rage of Nebuchadnezzar should be kindled 
 anew against them on account of Ishmael's crime, he and 
 his captains quitted Gibeon, where they had recovered the 
 spoils of Mizpeh from the ravishers, and marching south, on 
 their way towards Egypt, paused for a few days round the 
 house of Chimham, this Bethlehem khan. 
 
 Johanan and his captains came into the khan to Jeremiah, 
 calling upon him to pray for them to the Lord, that the 
 God of their fathers would deign to guide them in the way, 
 saying that whether they thought his counsels good or evil 
 they would obey the Lord's commands. Then Jeremiah 
 prayed for them during ten days, until the Voice came upon 
 him, and then going out among the tents, he, in God's name, 
 forbade the people to depart into Eg^pt ; saying — " Be not 
 afraid of the King of Babylon, for I am with you to save 
 you, and to deliver you out of his hands." 
 
 Not with joy and rapture, as in the olden days, but with 
 doubt and anger, the band of fugitives received this message 
 from the Lord. They had given their pledge, but they 
 would not redeem it. Much of the old faith of Israel had 
 
90 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 gone out from among them ; they had learned to fear the 
 king of Babylon more than the King of Heaven ; and they 
 had rebelled in their hearts before they had as yet renounced 
 Jehovah by outward signs. Accusing the great prophet of 
 deceit, of a design to yield them prisoners to Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, they rejected his message, and breaking up their 
 camp at Bethlehem before the house of Chimham, they 
 marched away through the plains into Egypt, carrying with 
 them the curse of disobedience, and a threat that they should 
 return to Judah no more, but should die in the strange land, 
 perishing by famine, by pestilence, and by the sword. And 
 so it came to pass ; for neither Johanan nor his captains, 
 neither Baruch nor Jeremiah, neither the eunuchs nor the 
 king's daughters, saw these hills of Jerusalem any more. 
 
 Johanan and the captains being gone, the veil fell down 
 over Bethlehem until the time for the last and greatest 
 idyl — that glorious night when the shepherds of yon plain, 
 in which Ruth had gleaned and David sung, were roused 
 by angelic voices singing hymns of joy at the Saviour's 
 birth. 
 
 St. Luke, who was St. Peter's friend and companion, and 
 who is thought to have heard the story which he tells of his 
 Master's birth from the lips of Mary in her old age, describes 
 the scene as we may figure it even now. Joseph and his 
 young wife, said to be fair and beautiful, like her ancestor 
 David, and like the young girls of Bethlehem in the streets 
 around us, were coming up from Nazareth in Galilee, to be 
 taxed — that is, to be counted and inscribed — in their own 
 tribe and in their own house. The girl fell sick. The 
 khan was full of people ; there was no room in the guest- 
 chamber ; but the throes of nature came upon her ; and in 
 the narrow cave, where the asses were stalled, the Saviour 
 of mankind was born. In these fields below the inn, the 
 shepherds were abroad, keeping watch over their flocks 
 under the stars of heaven. The winter was in its depth, 
 and the starry hosts were frosted into fire. But a figure 
 gleamed upon these shepherds, which outshone the lights 
 
THE HOUSE OF CHIMHAM. 91 
 
 of heaven. It was the angel of the Lord, who spoke to 
 them, saying, " Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy ; 
 for unto you is born this day, in the City of David, a 
 Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." 
 
 And when the shepherds looked up they saw around the 
 angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and 
 saying, " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, 
 good-will toward men !" 
 
92 THE HOL V ZAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SYRIAN KHANS. 
 
 A SYRIAN inn, khan, caravanserai, is not, and never 
 -^^ was, an " inn," as we use this word in London, Sydney, 
 and New York ; a house in which you find good food and a 
 clean bed, an obhging hostess, a cheery welcome, and a 
 heavy bill. Such things are not of the East. 
 
 A Syrian khan is a fort and a mart ; a refuge from 
 thieves ; a shelter from the heat and dust ; a place where 
 a man and his beast may lodge, where a trader may sell his 
 wares, and a pilgrim may slake his thirst. In the most 
 ancient days, before Abraham had yet led his sheep out ot 
 Hauran and pitched his tents in the plain of Moreh, the 
 khan was either a sheikh's house or tent, the best place in 
 the town, the safest corner of the camp ; for a chief having 
 everywhere a right to plunder and protect the strangers who 
 come among his tribe, no other house than his could 
 receive a guest. Where in that old time there was neither 
 sheikh's house nor tent in which to receive wayfarers, as 
 might often be the case in desert roads and in lonely glens, 
 there was still some rude sort of khan, caravanserai, or inn, 
 though it might be little more than a field or a small 
 enclosure, set apart by the tribe as a camping-ground for 
 such merchants and strangers as might chance to travel 
 through their land. The word khan (from the Persian) 
 means a lodging for the night. When this lodging for the 
 night could not be given in either a sheikh's house or tent, 
 
5 \RIA N KHA NS. 93 
 
 on account of distance, a khan would be erected by Arab 
 piety (as in Alpine passes we Franks erect houses of 
 refuge from snow and mist), nearly always near a spring or 
 stream, and in the shade of a goodly tree or a group of 
 trees ; to wit, by the fountain of Elisha near Jericho, and 
 under the Patriarch's oak at Hebron. 
 
 As the sons of Ishmael grew strong, and the merchandise 
 passing through their land became rich, these open fields, 
 in which the merchant lay down under a tree, had to be either 
 fenced with a ridge of prickly thorn, or covered from attack 
 by a wall of stones. Such would appear to have been that 
 khan by the wayside from Egypt into Canaan at which the 
 brethren of Joseph slept that night when they found the 
 money in their sacks and were sore afraid ; such that other 
 wayside khan at which Zipporah, the wife of Moses, moved 
 by the Lord's anger, took up the sharp stone, and witli 
 her own hand circumcised her first-born son. This rude 
 sort of lodging for the night may be seen at this day in 
 many parts of Syria : as at Bab el Wady near Latrun, at 
 Riha in the plains of the Dead Sea, and at Kirjath Jearim, 
 now Abu Gosh. In each of these places the inn is at most 
 a rough shed, perhaps only a small field, having a tree for 
 shade, a heap of flints for protection, and a spring near 
 by for drink. Th^.t of Kirjath Jearim is of the oldest 
 type. The wall is of rough stones, piled up without art ; 
 there is no gate or door by which to enter; no roof or 
 awning stands overhead ; no shade is provided beyond the 
 lacing leaves. A traveller, eager for his dinner of bread 
 and grapes, for a draught of cold water, for an hour of 
 rest, has to leap the fence. But being once within the 
 square of stones, he is safe from the smiting of a fiery sun, 
 from the trampling feet of camels, in some degree from the 
 pilfering children of Abu Gosh. 
 
 From this rough refuge in the fields to such a khan as 
 that of Bethlehem in the days of Jeremiah, and to such 
 caravanserais as those which Haroun and Saladin built on 
 the Syrian roads, the ascent was easy. Raise the rough 
 
94 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 wall ; build it of blocks ; cut a gate through the front \ carry 
 a duct into the centre ; raise a trough and lay a pipe ; set 
 the fountain fizzing and flowing ; throw a line of archways 
 or lewans round the inner face of the wall ; set a man to 
 watch the gate ; and you have provided all the conditions 
 of a good Oriental khan. Such would seem to have been 
 that edifice on Mount Ephraim in which Micah received 
 the Danite spies. Such also was that home of Chimham in 
 which Jeremiah prayed to the Lord, and to which Joseph 
 brought his young wife from Nazareth to lodge. 
 
 An Oriental khan is usually built by a prince or sheikh ; 
 and from its great size must always be erected by a man of 
 wealth. Among Moslem rulers, Haroun and Saladin are 
 remembered and blessed as the greatest builders of khans, 
 for in the piety of Eastern life the raising of a khan is 
 considered a sacred deed, like the planting of a grove and 
 digging of a well. In our own time, a khan like that of 
 Cairo, like that of Beyrout, is more of a market than an inn, 
 and in such cities it may be raised for the sake of lucre ; 
 but the fine old structures which adorned the great roads of 
 commerce and travel between Jerusalem and Alexandria, 
 between Damascus and Ptolemais, between Gadara and 
 Sidon, were monuments of piety and pity, built by their 
 founders without thought of gain, and were almost as sacred 
 in character, as durable in material, as either a synagogue or 
 a mosque. Even when the wars of race or religion swept 
 away towns and villages from these roads, the khans were 
 allowed by common consent to remain ; being considered 
 as a sort of holy property, like the springs and the wells, in 
 which all mankind had an equal and a common right. The 
 Babylonians spared the house of Chimham; the Greeks 
 spared the khan of Joseph's Well ; the Crusaders spared 
 Khan Lebonah. What a hospital is in a modern war, a 
 khan was in an ancient war : a secular building sanctified 
 by its noble use. It was always an edifice set. apart, even 
 when it stood in the midst of a great city, having its own 
 walls, and gates, and its own set of rules. It was never 
 
SYRIAN KHANS. 95 
 
 built in a slight and temporary style of art; but when 
 raised of stone, by one who felt pride in his work, it 
 had the enduring character of an Eastern mekhemeh or 
 a Western town-hall. A great sheikh having the right 
 of hospitality and protection, the strength and beauty of 
 his khan would always prove the best advertisements of his 
 power. 
 
 In the better class of Syrian towns and hamlets, and even 
 in desert wastes when these lie in the routes of commerce, 
 the khan is a large, solid, and durable edifice : some ruins 
 of a khan near the road from Gilgal to Jerusalem, on a hot 
 ridge that has no longer an ancient name to tell its story, 
 cover as large a space as the foundations of a church. 
 When built by a great sheikh like Barzillai, or a rich Sultan 
 like Saladin, a khan would have a high wall, an inner 
 court, a range of arches, an open gallery round the four 
 sides, as in one of Chaucer's inns, and in many cases a 
 tower from which the watcher might descry the approach 
 of marauding bands. On one side of the square, but out- 
 side the wall, there is often a huddle of sheds, set apart from 
 the main edifice as stables for the asses and camels, the 
 buffaloes and goats. In the centre of the khan springs 
 a fountain of water, the first necessity of an Arab's life ; and 
 around the jets and troughs in which the limpid element 
 streams, lies the gay and picturesque litter of the East. 
 Camels wait to be unloaded, dogs quarrel for a bone. 
 Bedaween from the desert, their red zannars choked with 
 pistols, are at prayer. In the archways squat the merchants 
 with their bales of goods ; goods dazzling to the eye and 
 dangerous to the purse ; amber from the Baltic Sea, gold- 
 work from Cairo, shawls from the Indian looms, spices 
 from Arabia Fehx, precious ointments wrung from the 
 gardens of Moab. Half-naked men are cleansing their 
 hands ere sitting down to eat. Here a barber is at work 
 upon a shaven crown, there a fellah fies asleep in the shade. 
 Many people pass in and out ; the faint coming in to drink, 
 the weary to repose, the thrifty to buy and sell ; but there 
 
96 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 is no hostess to cry Good-day, and no cook to prepare the 
 noontide meal. Each man has to carry his dinner and his 
 bed ; to Htter his horse or camel ; to dress his food, to 
 draw his water, to light his fire, and to boil his mess of 
 herbs. The archway in which he lays up his goods and 
 spreads out his carpet being bare, he must bring with him 
 his cruse and his pan, his jar and his dish, together with his 
 bag of rice, his tinder-box, his taper, his coffee-cup, his 
 brazier, and his cooking range. When he finds the khan 
 crowded with pilgrims and travellers — as during the religious 
 festivals, and at gatherings of the tribe for either peace or 
 war — he may have to spread his quilt on the straw, happy 
 in his simplicity and fatigue to enjoy the lodgings of his 
 camel and his ass. 
 
 It is only in recent times, since the opening of Greek and 
 Latin convents throughout the Holy Land, that the native 
 khans have declined in importance and in number. The 
 monks from Italy and Spain, from Greece and Anatolia, 
 though they may appear neither clean nor comely to an 
 English eye, can offer you a bed for the night and a shelter 
 from the Bedaween lance. Lodging with them, your cell 
 may be dirty, your food will be coarse ; but their roof is 
 high, their court-yard is cool, and their gate is barred. 
 At least you can lie down in peace ; your shoes shaken oft" 
 from your feet ; your zannar unwound ; your arms of defence 
 slung up to the convent wall. Your beast, too, can be 
 housed and fed. It seems but little ; though to a weary 
 traveller, who has worn off the strangeness and romance of 
 life in a tent, it is a good deal to be able to lay down his 
 revolver, and fall into sleep without a fear of being roused 
 in the dead of night by either a jackal's howl or a Eeda- 
 ween's grip. 
 
 When the caravanserais were left to the trader and the 
 Arab only, they fell away ; some of them crumbling into 
 dust ; yet many of them have outlived the churches, syna- 
 gogues, and mosques. Sometimes the wall of a khan is the 
 only monument of man's art to be found in a morning ride. 
 
SYRIAN KHANS. 97 
 
 A ruin, or even a memory, of one of these old resting- 
 places for the night, serves to keep alive among the desert 
 tribes some knowledge of the most ancient and famous 
 sites ; such as the inn of the Bridge of Jacob's Daughters 
 on the Jordan, and the inn of Joseph's Well on the road to 
 Caesarea Philippi. 
 
 H 
 
98 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE INN OF BETHLEHEM. 
 
 A QUESTION may now be put : 
 •^^ Was this Inn of Bethlehem, near to which Christ was 
 bom in a cave, the same khan of Bethlehem around which 
 the bands of Johanan ranged while Jeremiah prayed to the 
 Lord for ten whole days ? 
 
 Men who have lived in a tent, and journeyed along Syrian 
 roads, noting the position of old khans, with the strength of 
 their walls, and the extent of their accommodation for man 
 and beast, will ask no proof for the assumption that there 
 never could have been more than one public khan in a 
 place like Bethlehem; always a small town, one of the 
 least among the thousands of Judah; anymore than they 
 would require evidence that there had been more than one 
 mekhemeh, more than one sheikh's house. These inns 
 were built in stages, always at a distance one from another ; 
 about seven miles apart, like our old market-towns ; an easy 
 day's march on foot. Bethlehem, being the first stage on 
 the great southern road, had an inn. About the same 
 distance from Jerusalem on the eastern road, at the present 
 fountain El Haud, he the ruins of an inn. Midway from 
 Jerusalem to Jericho — six or seven miles beyond El Haud 
 — there was a second inn, a hospice on a wild ridge of hill, 
 a half-way house, at which Jesus must often have stopped 
 to rest, and which he made the scene of his noblest parable. 
 This was the usual rule in Syria. Khan Tuman was about 
 
THE INN OF BETHLEHEM. gg 
 
 eight miles distance from Aleppo ; Khan el Mudeirej the 
 same distance from Damascus. Khan Minyeh lay seven 
 miles from Tiberias, on the Damascus road j Khan et 
 Tujjar stood some furlongs farther on the Acre road. 
 No case occurs, either in Hebrew or Moslem days, of two 
 caravanserais being open in the same village. Nor is it 
 likely that where a Syrian inn had once existed it would 
 ever have ceased to stand, until it became a ruin, a recol- 
 lection, and a name. For not only was the khan a public 
 edifice, with a strong frame, and much beauty of detail, but 
 the very ground on which it stood, from being set apart for 
 hospitable uses, would become in a certain sense holy — a 
 site which was not to be disturbed for any common purpose. 
 A church, a mosque, might be built on such ground without 
 offending the public eye, as we see from the basilica at 
 Bethlehem and the white mosque at Ramleh ; but the ruins 
 of a khan, long consecrated to hospitality — in the East a 
 religious duty, almost a religious rite — would hardly ever 
 be removed to make room for a meaner pile. 
 
 Thus, it appears safe to conclude that the inn of Joseph 
 and Mary was the inn of Jeremiah ; and if it were the inn 
 of Jeremiah, it was also beyond doubt the house of Chim- 
 ham ; and consequently it was presumably the house which 
 had once been that of David and of Ruth. 
 
 Every hint afforded by the Bible narrative, as to local fact 
 and local colour, helps to prove that the birthplace of David 
 was the birthplace of Jesus, and that the khan, or residence 
 of Jesse, in which these two men were born, stood here in 
 Bethlehem, on the very ridge now crowned by the basilica 
 of St. Helena, the church of the Holy Nativity. 
 
 Boaz, we are told, was the sheikh of this town ; the chief 
 man, who had the right and duty of receiving strangers into 
 his house. As such he would dwell, like the Arab lords on 
 the Nile in our own day, beyond the town, at its entrance, 
 on what may be called the guest-coming side. This side 
 is seen in the old khan near Ramleh, where the pile stands 
 out on the road towards Cairo ; and in the still older khan 
 
lOo THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 near Bethany, where it is pushed out beyond the village 
 towards Jericho and the Jordan. Jerusalem being taken as 
 the bourne of all travel, the guest-house, in other words the 
 sheikh's house, would be so arranged as to open on the 
 country ; thus, the first gate to which a wayfarer came, near 
 a village, would be that of his host and protector for the 
 night. Now, at Bethlehem, as the shape of the ridge and 
 its relation to Jerusalem imply, the spot on which the 
 house of hospitality would stand must have been a little 
 below the towni, at the junction of roads coming up the 
 gi-eat valleys from Tekoa, Jericho, Herodion, and Engedi ; 
 on a spot lying below the gates and above the fields ; in 
 fact, the very ground upon which the inn of Jesus stood, 
 and on which the church and convent of the Grotto stand. 
 
 Here, then, where by all analogies we should seek it, the 
 Bible tells us that the house of Boaz stood on the green 
 slope, some paces below the town, between the gates and 
 the corn-fields. Ruth, living in the town with Naomi, had 
 to go down into these fields, as the gleaners go down even 
 now : " Wash thyself, therefore, and anoint thee, and put thy 
 raiment upon thee, and get thee down to the floor;" the 
 descent from the hill on which the city is built to the fields 
 being sharp. Boaz, after his night adventure with Ruth 
 among the sheaves of corn, is said to have gone up from his 
 house to the city gate : " Then Boaz went up to the gate, 
 and sat him down there : and, behold, the kinsman of whom 
 Boaz spake came by." The sheikh's house was, therefore, 
 below the town, and above the fields, on the slope of the 
 hill. If the prior went up from his convent into the town 
 to-day, his walk would be described in the very same words. 
 
 The house of Chimham, after Chimham had been made 
 sheikh of Bethlehem and owner of the guest-house, answers 
 like truth to the accounts which we read in the Book of 
 Ruth. It is described as not in the town, but near to it. 
 Jeremiah and the fugitives from Gibeon " dwelt in the habi- 
 tation of Chimham, which is by Bethlehem." By it, near it; 
 not in it. 
 
THE INN OF BETHLEHEAL loi 
 
 Is it not reasonably clear, then, that the inn in which 
 Jesus was born was the patrimony of Boaz, the home of 
 David? 
 
 That the spot once occupied by this khan is that now 
 clothed with the basilica of the Holy Nativity is not less 
 clear. 
 
 Justin Martyr and the Church traditions tell us that the 
 Lord was born in a cave, which Justin says was not in the 
 village but close to it. Caves abound in the w^adies round 
 about Bethlehem. It was in such a cave as the sacred 
 grotto that David hid himself from the ire of Saul, and in 
 another such cave that he cut away the skirt of the royal 
 robe. These openings into the limestone rock are put to 
 all kinds of service ; at Siloam they are used for tombs ; at 
 Urtas for houses ; at Mar Saba for cells ; more frequently they 
 are used as shelter for the sheep and goats. In an hour's 
 ride from the Church of the Nativity you may count a 
 dozen such caves, in some of which people live, as in those 
 of Urtas, and in many of which it will be strange if you do 
 not find an Arab and his flock. 
 
 Justin was bom in Syria, and having travelled into Egypt, 
 was familiar with the scenery and usages of Oriental life, 
 both in the high country and in the flat. That a cave 
 should be found at a khan ; that this cave should be used as 
 a stable ; that when the khan was full of people the wayfarer 
 might have to lodge for the night among the litter ; would 
 be to Justin Martyr facts as familiar as the sound of his own 
 voice. Such a necessity as that of having to lie down in the 
 same shed with the asses and camels must have occurred to 
 him often, as it may occur even now to any man who roams 
 about the East. 
 
 Evidence to the same ettect is found in the church itself; 
 the pile erected by St. Helena on the spot which Syrian 
 tradition had then pointed out to her as the sacred spot. 
 On such a point as the position of* an ancient khan on a 
 great public road, public knowledge could hardly have gone 
 astray. A Syrian khan, with the permanency of a mekhemeh 
 
102 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 or a mosque, has a fame much wider than a mekhemeh or a 
 mosque. Justin knew the place, and no man acquainted 
 with Palestine will easily believe that between the days of 
 Justin and Helena the knowledge of a site so famous as the 
 Khan of Bethlehem could have been lost. The death of 
 Justin was separated from the birth of Helena by less than 
 a hundred years. Is it likely that in so short a period the 
 scene of Jeremiah's struggle with Johanan could be forgotten 
 by the Jews — the scene of Christ's nativity by the Christians? 
 Names last long in Palestine. We know from Holy Writ that 
 the house of Chimham was called by his name five centuries 
 after he had passed away. 
 
 Again, apart from its strange and memorable story, the 
 Khan of Bethlehem was the most notable of all the caravan- 
 serais in Judah ; being the first stage on the journey into 
 Egypt, the first night's rest after leaving Zion ; the place 
 where the camp had to be formed for the march, where the 
 stragglers had to be called in, where the last kisses and 
 adieus were given. It was the rallying point and starting 
 point for all pilgrims and merchants going South. Such 
 inns are not forgotten in a hundred years. Why, even in 
 busy England, in changeful France, the memory of such a 
 site would be kept alive for a longer time than divided 
 Justin from Helena. Have we yet lost sight of the Three 
 Pigeons at Brentford, of the inn at Ware, of the Tabard in 
 the Old Kent Road ? 
 
 The basilica being built, the spot would be fixed for ever. 
 No man has even doubted that the church of Helena is the 
 same in site and substance with that now standing over 
 the sacred cave. This venerable pile, the most ancient in 
 the Christian world, is a silent witness that the Lord was 
 bom in a grotto of the rock ; that this grotto in the rock 
 was near a khan, and part of the khan. The cave is still 
 here ; a natural opening in the rock ; a grotto hollowed out 
 of the soft hmestone, like a hundred others to be found 
 within a dozen miles of the church. Take away this roof 
 of English oak, remove this front of Syrian marble, and the 
 
THE INN OF BETHLEHEM. C03 
 
 grotto would have all the appearance of a common cave ; its 
 mouth opening towards the Shepherds' Tower and the fields 
 of Ruth. As the shepherds came up the hill-side, they 
 would be able to see the lamp burning in the entrance of 
 the cave. 
 
 The tale told in the Gospel narrative is at one with itself 
 and with the site : " She brought forth her first-bom son, and 
 wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, 
 because there was no room for them in the inn." 
 
I04 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 CARMEL. 
 
 " TT is always cool on Mount Carmel," says a Syrian 
 -■■ hajjee, toiling in the afternoon heat along the Plain of 
 Esdraelon towards the sea. " Cool as Mount Carmel," is a 
 proverb in GaUlee ; one which we shall soon be in a 
 position to test, the convent on its brow being full in sight. 
 Plodding through the lines of a Turkish camp, threading the 
 brisk little streets of Haifa, bobbing under a forest of olive 
 trees, ambling over a plain which divides the mountain from 
 the sea, we reach the foot of a steep stair, cut in the rock, 
 more than a mile in height. A course of trotting round the 
 dome of St. Paul's, of racing up the steps of the Ara Coeli, 
 would be no bad training for this ascent to our Lady of 
 Carmel's nest in the clouds. A rude cross stuck into the 
 stony soil, points out to the pilgrim where it is proper for 
 him to rest his feet and count his beads. Here and there a 
 roadside chapel tells him when he should make a longer 
 pause and recite a holy text. All the way up these ramps 
 and ledges the ground is broken, and patches of the pro- 
 tecting wall have slid into the abyss. It is not a safe road 
 to ride down after dinner in the dark. 
 
 A smart tap of the whip, a free dig of the spur, bring us 
 merry and warm to the convent gate, where we are noisily 
 welcomed by a couple of friars and a score of dogs. Unlike 
 the more gentle and chivalrous Alpine breed, these dogs of 
 Carmel are taught to yelp and fight, to guard sheep and 
 
CARMEL. los 
 
 goats, to attack men, especially bronze men dressed in loose 
 sacks and shawls. Bold as lions and fierce as wolves, these 
 dogs appear to belong to that wild race of Esdraelon which 
 tore Jezebel into shreds. They are tame only to the monks 
 who train and feed them. 
 
 Lashing these curs aside, one of the friars conducts us 
 into a refectory, where we eat with thankfulness a dinner of 
 herbs and fowls, washed down our throats with a glass of 
 sweet syrup and a little red Cyprus wine. 
 
 Dinner being done, grace duly said, we go with Father 
 Cyrillo, a thin, dry Spaniard of I^a Mancha, who has lived 
 and grown yellow in the East, to the convent roof, where 
 we taste the salt sea breeze, and find that it is passing cool. 
 The sun is sinking in the waves ; Haifa and Acre, with their 
 white minarets and walls, and the bold loop of bay on which 
 they stand, are all steeped in the purple shadows of the sea. 
 From the chapel hard by, where the servants of our Lady are 
 at vespers, floats the perfume flung about the altar, and the 
 swell and cadence of <^he evening song. High up in this 
 holy mountain, heaven and earth seem to kiss each other 
 into peace. 
 
 But they only seem. The strong gates, the stern watch, 
 the fierce dogs, suggest to a stranger other and less tranquil 
 thoughts. 
 
 The convent of Elijah stands on a spur of the Carmel 
 range, on the last wild bluff beetling above the sea. Beyond 
 its outer fence of wall, and starting from the ridge on which 
 the convent stands, rolls high and inland a sea of mountain 
 crests. Near to the chapel, a field is fenced and cultivated 
 by the monks ; below the wall lies a bit of garden ; in the 
 outer court grow a few olive trees, bending with fruit, though 
 they are said to be older than the flood. A monk, who is 
 also a cook, is providing a repast by shaking ripe berries 
 from one of these aged trees. In the convent yard stands a 
 flock of goats, black fellows, with grizzly beards, brought in 
 for the night, lest any stragglers from the Hanadi and Beni 
 Sakkr camps should be prowling in the woods. Here they 
 
io6 THE HOL Y LAND 
 
 are safe, though Akeel Aga may be lord of yon hill and vale. 
 Sitting on the house-top, behind walls and gates, and having 
 the protection of a hundred dogs, one hears of these Be- 
 daween braves with an even pulse ; yet with spirits in a 
 mood to make the growl of these watchers come not un- 
 welcome to our aerie, even through the swell and cadence 
 of an evening psalm. The hush of nature is so profound on 
 this lonely height, that a bay from a dog disturbs the scene 
 rather pleasantly, like the chirp of birds in a wood, and the 
 roll of surf on a shore. 
 
 The Arab may be kept from the convent interior by gates 
 and bars ; but the whole force of Cabouli cannot keep him 
 from infesting and ravaging the open plain. Now, as in 
 the days of Gideon, the nomad is a robber and the black 
 tent a curse. 
 
 Cabouli, Pasha of Saida, whose camp in the Valley of 
 Nazareth we have just left, is one of the great princes of 
 Turkey ; a poet, a scholar, a soldier ; one of those new 
 statesmen of Islam who play whist and read papers, and 
 aim at being good Moslems in faith and practice, while they 
 are perfect Franks in culture and in speech. Cabouli's 
 French is copious ; his familiarity with men and affairs in 
 Europe large. He has lived in England, and knows the 
 delight of a country house, including bright women, good 
 dinners, and truthful speech. Put aside Layard, Rawlinson, 
 and Strangford, men who have spent much of their lives in 
 the East, who in England can be said to know more about 
 Syria, Persia, and Arabia, than Cabouli knows about England, 
 Germany, and France ? 
 
 It may be added, in favour of men who, being parted 
 from ourselves by barriers of race, of idiom, and of creed, 
 are never likely to have more than justice done to them by 
 Franks, that the habit of searching into our policy and man- 
 ners is not confined to three or four men of rank and genius 
 in the Ottoman Empire. Has any man ever met a Pasha 
 of Belgrade in the living flesh ? Having seen a bright and 
 shrewd intelligence, a wary outlook into Western arts, in 
 
CARMEL. 107 
 
 many an officer of inferior grade, I have come to fancy that 
 the imaginary and amusing pasha must have vanished from 
 the earth, Uke the Memlook and the Janizary, never to 
 come back. In nearly every pasha, every bey, whom I 
 have met in Turkey, Syria, Egypt, and the Islands, I have 
 found a man of gentle manners, of fair information, of un- 
 failing courtesy. Nearly all these men have spoken either 
 French or English ; some have added Russian and Gennan ; 
 few were ignorant of Greek. Yet none of these languages 
 were native to their lips. They all knew Turkish, and most 
 of them read Arabic and Persian, the languages of the 
 Koran and Ferdousi. Do the best men in our service beat 
 them much? A Turk has not ceased to be plump, and 
 languid, and poetical, to smoke over-much, to love colour 
 and pomp, to hold his head high in the world ; but he has 
 pretty well ceased to buy slaves and eunuchs, to pride him- 
 self on his ignorance, to contemn the rest of mankind as 
 infidels and dogs. Cabouli Pasha is a Turk of this better 
 school. 
 
 In Galilee he has a labour before him to test his virtue 
 and to develop his power. 
 
 Unlike most of the Sinaitic and Nilotic Arabs — who keep 
 to one district, jealously guarding their wells and pastures 
 against intruding flocks — the tribes which people the great 
 Syrian Desert, stretching from the Euphrates to the Jordan 
 — the Anezi, the Mowali, the Shammar, the Beni Sakkr, the 
 Salhaan — make a kind of circuit of the seasons, following the 
 grass and herbs as they grow and wither, moving with their 
 tents and hareems, their slaves and camels, and driving be- 
 fore them their goats and kine, in search of markets for 
 cheese and flesh, and of pasturage free of cost. When they 
 have stripped the valley of its herbage and drained the well 
 of its water, they rove into another and another valley, 
 eating up the grass on No-man's-land, and wiien that fails 
 them, breaking into the fenced pieces and the open plains. 
 They come like locusts, and so depart. Orchard, garden, 
 meadow, pasture, vineyard, every green patch of ground is 
 
io8 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 the same to these hungiy herds. In two or three days a 
 peasant's whole substance is devoured ; his house sacked, 
 his field mown, his well emptied, his cattle stolen, his garner 
 swept. Every year the harvests of Sharon, Shefelah, and 
 Esdraelon, tempt these marauders from beyond Jordan, just 
 as the harvests of Kent and Mercia used to bait the Saxon 
 vikings and the Danish jarls. Every year sees the peasant 
 fly from the face of his destroyer, leaving his garden un- 
 planted, his field untilled, his tank uncleaned. The soil 
 falls out of cultivation; thorns sprout among the orange 
 trees and apple trees ; dom, cactus, and prickly pear, take 
 the places of dates and figs. The luxurious plain becomes 
 a desert. 
 
 But when the peasant is gone, and his hut has become a 
 heap, his garden a brake, his well a puddle, the Arabs, find- 
 ing no prey in that quarter, cease to go near it. Then the 
 husbandman is tempted to return, to replant his orchard, to 
 rebuild his house, until the green crops, the fruit trees, and 
 the fresh water in the wells shall again bring the Bedaween 
 upon his labours, and the peasant, after struggling for a 
 season to buy their good-will, relinquishes the spoil. From 
 more than half the rich Plain of Esdraelon, the garden of 
 Syria, the peasants have been driven by these Bedaween 
 raids. 
 
 No government, not even that of Rome in imperial days, 
 has ever been able to stop these inroads and prevent these 
 depredations. Gideon checked them for a moment, and 
 Ibrahim checked them for another moment ; but, just as the 
 Beni Kadem returned to Esdraelon after Gideon, the Beni 
 Sakkr returned after Ibrahim. How to drive back these 
 nomadic races, confining them to the mountains and plains 
 beyond Jordan, is a problem which has always occupied and 
 always baffled the wit of civilized men. 
 
 From this convent-roof, you range over a mass of sea and 
 sand, of wood and plain, of hill and city ; over the landscape 
 which spread its beauties before Elijah when he saw the 
 cloud rise up from the sea; over that on which the Redeemer 
 
CARMEL. 109 
 
 gazed when He crossed the ridge of Carmel, coming out of 
 Samaria into GaUlee after his conversation with the woman 
 at Jacob's Well. At your feet fret the blue waves ; here is 
 the Arab town of Haifa ; there, beyond the bay, lies Acre 
 with its white walls, minarets, and towers; above that city, 
 to the north, stands the bold headland of Capo Blanco, a 
 Syrian imitation of Dover cliff. Beyond that feature of the 
 coast, unseen of the eye, never absent from the thought, 
 lie buried in the sea and the sands, the palaces of Tyre and 
 the ruins of Sarepta ; that Tyre which Joshua described as 
 the strong city, that Sarepta in which Elijah restored the 
 A\idow's son ; and on the site of Sidon itself, the mother of 
 Carthage and Cadiz, a city older than Jerusalem, a rival of 
 Damascus, stands the Arab village of Saida, a heap of walls 
 and gardens, a few yellow houses and a mosque. From the 
 coast above Sidon swell the heights of Lebanon, shoulder 
 on shoulder, high above the line of unmelting snow. Those 
 are the Cedar Mountains, peopled by the Maronite and 
 Druse. Higher than the rest of those heights, soars Her- 
 mon ; holy, beautiful Hermon, with its bold front, its snowy 
 peak, and its shining cloud ; the Alp of Israel ; visible from 
 her high places, her boundary on the north, everywhere 
 glittering in her sight like a star. From the dip at its feet 
 gush the waters of Jordan. 
 
 Between these four natural frontiers — Hermon on the 
 north, Jordan on the east, Carmel on the south, the great 
 sea on the west — lies that province of Galilee in which the 
 Saviour lived from infancy to manhood. 
 
 Below us, in front of Haifa, glow the fires of a Moslem 
 camp, and a few miles up the wady of Nazareth, is Cabouli, 
 busy with that question of questions which has outlived the 
 sword of Gideon and the genius of Ibrahim. He is trying 
 to hold in check the Bedaween tribes, now moved into 
 sedition by the arts of Akeel Aga. 
 
 Fire, theft, and murder, are reported day by day from 
 every part of Galilee. Nazareth is held in a sort of siege. 
 By Cabouli's order, a Frank is not suffered to move inland 
 
1 10 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 from the sea-coast unless he be attended by a guard of ten 
 Bashi Bazouks ; a dashing, frothy addition to your troop ; 
 whom in any case you will have to feed, and in the event of 
 danger to defend. To a painter, to a story-teller, these 
 fellows are worthy of their salt ; they will sit for their por- 
 traits, sing round the watch-fires, prose about robbery and 
 war, hunt jackals and shoot eagles, in short, do anything 
 you require of them save fight. Like all tine Arabs, they 
 shrink and shudder at the sight of blood ; and most of them 
 having been thieves from their youth upwards, they pity and 
 condemn the folly which impels a Frank to defend his sad- 
 dle-bags at the risk of his life. This troop of horse must 
 ride in your front, not because Cabouli believes in a dozen 
 Bashi Bazouks repelling a charge of Anezi spears; he knows 
 that on hearing the first crack of a pistol, they will wheel 
 and fly with a shout. He sends them in some part for show, 
 and in some part for use. Seeing that you are a Frank, he 
 knows that if you fall into a snare, you will be likely to 
 fight, and that when your blood is up, there is a chance of 
 your being either speared or shot; in which case the mur- 
 derers will have to be discovered and fines levied on their 
 tribe ; and he can trust these fellows to bring him news of 
 the fray, the name of the offender, and the amount of your 
 loss. 
 
A KEEL AGA. in 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 AKEEL AGA. 
 
 V\ mo is Akeel Aga ? 
 
 * * The pashas call him an Arab; in one sense he is 
 so ; but the Bedaw^en call him a Memlook. He is 
 certainly from the Nile, and is probably of foreign blood. 
 
 When Ibrahim undertook to keep the peace in Galilee, he 
 planted a strong colony of Arabs from Cairo at the head of 
 those passes above Cana and Nazareth by which the Anezi 
 and Beni Sakkr swarm over from the Lake Country into the 
 great plains of Esdraelon and Shefelah. These colonists 
 from the desert round the pyramids, loyal and brave, well 
 amied, well mounted, and seventeen hundred strong, proved 
 able and more than able to protect their new lands ; and 
 the Syrian Arabs, learning to fear their lances, gave them the 
 name of Hanadi, from an idea that they had come from 
 India ; that is to say, not from India Proper, but from the 
 hot regions beyond the Arabian Gulf. Akeel was a young 
 sheikh in this Egyptian tribe. 
 
 The youth had in him something of that genius for 
 intrigue and war which made his old master, Mohammed 
 Ali, a rulipg prince. Clever, daring, and unprincipled, he 
 seems to have first served, then abandoned, his Egyptian 
 chief; for, while Ibrahim kept his hold on Syria, Akeel was 
 his most faithful slave ; but when Napier shelled the 
 Egyptians out of Acre, Akeel sold his sword to the return- 
 ing Turk. In a country which knew either law or peace, 
 either unity or strength, a man like Akeel could have done 
 
112 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 no great harm to his new sovereign. But Syria is not a 
 country of law and peace. In the province which his tribe 
 had been set to watch, there exists no right, no charter, no 
 ascendancy, save that of the strong arm and the scheming 
 brain. In Gahlee, as in every part of Palestine, there may 
 be tents and towns, convents and mosques, but no race, no 
 people, and no law. Every man fears his neighbour as of 
 old, and in the province of Galilee there are perhaps as many 
 gods as in the times of Herod the Great. From the hill of 
 Nazareth, in gazing over a noble landscape, you may count 
 the habitations of Christian, Jew, and Moslem, each sect as 
 intolerant of the other as in the ApostoHc times an Arab 
 was of a Greek, or a Samaritan of a Jew. In the north 
 dwell the Maronite and the Druse, and, hated by both, that 
 sect of the Ansayreh whose obscene rites no Frank has yet 
 been suffered to see and live. Everywhere you find division, 
 everywhere strife. Men who herd goats detest their 
 brethren who till the ground, as if the quarrel of Cain and 
 Abel had become an inheritance of the tent and field. 
 Every one's hand is raised against his fellow. The 
 charities and affinities which in Europe soften men's hearts 
 are here unknown. Love of country and pride of race, are 
 phrases which convey no meaning to a Syiian ear. In 
 Syria there are now no Syrians; nothing but hostile races 
 and rival sects. The very name of Syria is unknown to the 
 natives — being the delusion of a Greek sailor, from whom 
 it descended to the makers of books and maps. 
 
 In such a community, power lies in the strong man, not 
 in the just law. A sheikh is lord of his tribe, an abbot of 
 his convent, a rabbi of his synagogue. Let the reigning 
 man be called emperor, caliph, king, the true rulers of the 
 land will always be those who are on the spot, the nearest 
 rabbi, priest, and sheikh. In his own tent, a sheikh is both 
 king and judge. When he is daring, like Akeel and Abu 
 Gosh, he may enlarge his sphere. A man of genius may 
 snatch at a crown. Mohammed Ali exchanged a shop in 
 Cavalla for a palace in Cairo. 
 
AKEEL AGA. i\ 
 
 Posted on the hills beyond Nazareth, in the ways by 
 which the Anezi swarm into' these hills and pastures, Akeel 
 very soon made himself a name of fear. No power in 
 Palestine can wholly prevent these Bedaween raids. The 
 Anezi are hmigry and brave, their horses fleet and strong ; 
 they travel in the dark, and carry oft' the maize by stealth. 
 Like Gideon, a man may be threshing his corn by night, 
 and he shall not escape from their hands. Yet much can 
 be done against them by a resolute man who knows their 
 nature and is not afraid to act against them. When they 
 move in large bands, they can be watched, overtaken, and 
 dispersed ; when they move in small bands, they may be 
 captured or slain. Now, in this good work of smiting the 
 Anezi back into their deserts, Akeel won his earliest notice 
 from the Turks. Under his bright eye and trenchant rule, 
 the Arabs were pressed back on the Jordan ; the valleys 
 became a trifle more secure ; the fields of Esdraelon were 
 sown with corn. It never could be said that Galilee was 
 quieted, for the scheming brain of the Egyptian sheikh soon 
 told him that his own importance in the country hung on 
 his power to suppress disorder, and that there could be no 
 room for the exercise of skill, no occasion for his master to 
 grant rewards, unless he contrived that there should always 
 be a good deal of riot to chastise. To keep the Anezi in 
 spirits, he sometimes allowed them to escape with a little 
 booty ; yet after a few years of his reign the hill country had 
 so far improved in order, safety, and prosperity, that the 
 villagers of many places, beyond his own district, claimed 
 his protecting wing, and a very large tract of Gahlee fell 
 under his sway. 
 
 A man of glib tongue, of serpentine manner, Akeel 
 began to court the Christians, to make himself useful to 
 strangers, and above all to ingratiate himself with the 
 English and French. Finding him useful, the Porte 
 increased his powers and enlarged his district. Even in 
 London and Paris his name was mentioned, and princes 
 and emperors vied with each other in doing honour to the 
 
114 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 subtle Egyptian sheikh. The Prince of Wales, whom he 
 escorted through his territories, gave him a fine revolver. 
 Napoleon sent him the ribbon of the Legion of Honour. 
 Abdul Medjid raised him to the rank of Aga, and signed his 
 commission of colonel in the force which he then com- 
 manded, and which was taken into imperial pay. Such 
 favours might have turned an older head. It is alleged 
 against him in Stamboul, that from the date of his receiving 
 that red ribbon from Paris, he fell into intrigue, and became 
 a tool of the French. 
 
 The schemes which some of the Turks attribute to Akeel, 
 
 are not so much the proofs of his genius as evidence of the 
 
 fear in which he is held. Having by his measures in 
 
 GaUlee come into conflict with numbers of the Fedan, 
 
 Weled AH, and Beni Sakkr, branches of the great Anezi 
 
 nation, he artfully converted these enemies into friends and 
 
 allies ; persuading them of his great authority with the 
 
 Sultan, whose officer he was ; and permitting them to make 
 
 an occasional foray into districts which had either neglected 
 
 to make him presents, or had otherwise incurred his wrath. 
 
 Then, it is said, he took to himself a wife from the family of 
 
 a great Syrian sheikh. These steps are supposed to have 
 
 been only the opening moves of his game. It is supposed 
 
 in Stamboul that he sought every opportunity of showing the 
 
 chiefs of the Anezi and Shammar that the land is their own, 
 
 that the Turks keep them out of their right, and that they 
 
 may win it from these conquerors again : first, by healing 
 
 up their feuds ; secondly, by uniting their friendly spears ; 
 
 thirdly, by a succession of rapid and harassing attacks on 
 
 their common foe. Some fancy that the end which he may 
 
 have in view is to form a confederacy of Arab tribes under 
 
 the protectorate of France. The dread of such a union may 
 
 be vague and slight ; for the feuds of the Shammar and 
 
 Anezi are born in the blood and bone ; yet the project 
 
 has been so far annoying to the government of Abdul 
 
 Aziz, as to provoke Fuad Pasha into ordering measures of 
 
 defence. 
 
AKEEL AGA. m 
 
 On being called by the Seraskier to Damascus, Akeel, 
 false himself, and fearful of faUing into a snare, excused 
 himself from obeying his superior officer, on account of the 
 troubles in his country, then slowly recovering from the 
 relief occasioned by the departing Zouaves from Beyrout. 
 Two or three robberies on the road, by agents of his own, 
 caused an alarm at Haifa, and seemed to satisfy the Frank 
 consul that Akeel's presence was required near home. A 
 French boat took the news of these disorders to Stamboul ; 
 M. de Moustier telegraphed it to Paris ; evidence, as he 
 said, that the country was already disturbed, and that all 
 honest men desired the Zouaves to be sent back. But 
 Fuad, the grand vizier and seraskier, having views of his 
 own in Syria, which an army of Franks would not be likely 
 to promote, ordered Akeel to be checked and reduced; 
 when Cabouli recalled his commission, put a new colonel 
 in his place, and brought his services in Galilee to an end. 
 
 Then came the usual stages of a conflict in the Syrian 
 hills. A band of marauders overran Galilee. Some of the 
 Hanadi troops threw down their arms ; and those who 
 remained true to their caliph would not lift a carbine against 
 their sheikh. The Beni Sakkr and the Weled Ali spread 
 themselves joyously though the plains. Every night a 
 village was on fire ; every day an outrage was committed 
 on the roads. Caravans going inland from Acre were 
 obliged to stop; invalids trying to reach the baths of 
 Tiberias were driven back. The consuls declined to give 
 any more passes and protections. From Beyrout to Da- 
 mascus, from Damascus to Hebron, the whole country felt 
 the shock of this man's revolt ; and the consuls of countries 
 which have no love for Turkey, and no desire to see Syria 
 tranquil, called on the government to restore his commission 
 and replace him in his post. But Cabouli, fearing that to 
 replace the rebel in his command would be to reward 
 his revolt by making him master of Galilee, with the ex- 
 ceptions of Acre and other sea-coast to^vns, instead of 
 listening to French counsels, requested Daoud, pasha of the 
 
1 16 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 Lebanon, to keep an eye on the Druses, and begged the 
 seraskier of Damascus to detach a body of horse from 
 Banias, with orders to sweep both banks of the Jordan as 
 far south as the Dead Sea, while he marched in person at 
 the front of some companies of foot into these passes, in the 
 hope of either forcing Akeel to fight, or intercepting his 
 flight to the South. 
 
 Such is Akeel Aga ; a man racy of the soil ; one who 
 has had his counterpart in every age of the history of 
 Galilee. What Akeel is to-day, Judas of Gamala was in the 
 days of Christ, and Joshua ben Sapphias was in the days of 
 Paul. 
 
PROVINCE OF GALILEE. 117 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 PROVINCE OF GALILEE. 
 
 /''^ALILEE has always been renowned as the garden 
 ^^ of Syria. Everything grows on its soil, from the 
 Caspian walnut to the Egyptian palm. While the hills of 
 Judah are stem and bare, and the meadows of Sharon 
 burnt and dry, these wadies of Galilee are almost ever)'- 
 where laughing with herbs and flowers. A forest of oak 
 clothes the sides of Mount Carmel. Cedar clumps nestle in 
 the clefts of Mount Hermon. Myrtles enlarge into trees, 
 and myriads of orange blossoms throw their scent into the 
 air. Every hill is a vineyard ; every bottom a corn-field. 
 The delta of the Nile is not more sunny ; the vega of 
 Granada is not more picturesque ; the ghota of Damascus 
 is not more green and bright. For here the fierce sun and 
 the refreshing rain come together, and water flows through 
 Galilee, not in tanks and pools, but poured out royally 
 towards the sea in streams. 
 
 Going up from Acre to Nazareth, you ride along a bit of 
 old Roman pavement which recalls the Campagna ; then by 
 a broad camel track like the way beyond Memphis j anon 
 you are passing over grass land, and thorny bush, and rough 
 rocky tracks. There is no real road ; yet every turn of the 
 path, every change in the scene, will recall some favourite 
 passage in either Germany, Italy, or Spain. Here you have 
 the woods of Lucca, there the vine slopes near Xeres ; yon 
 tell reminds you of Loja ; and a hundred terraces, rich with 
 
iiS 
 
 THE II OL V LAND. 
 
 the red and white grape, send you off in imagination to the 
 Rhine. Among these softly-rounded hills, many of them 
 clothed to the top with vines, an eye which is familiar with 
 the scenery of Heidelberg and Ulm, may easily feel itself at 
 home 
 
 HILL COUNTRY OF GALILEE. 
 
 It happens now, as of old, that the Arab and the Frank 
 feel an equal attraction in the soil of Galilee. An Arab 
 finds on it the bread and water for which he pines in the 
 desert ; a Frank can see in it the scenery and associations 
 of his youth. There has never been a time in which this 
 
PROVINCE OF GALILEE. 119 
 
 beautiful province was not peopled by a mixture of races 
 from the East and West. 
 
 At the period when our Lord was a child in Nazareth, 
 one of its midland towns — lying on the slope of a hill about 
 four miles from the capital, Sephoris — Galilee was inhabited 
 by a population of Greeks, Jews, Egyptians, Cypriotes, 
 Italians, Arabs ; men speaking separate idioms, following 
 hostile fashions, and kneeling to rival gods. Events had 
 brought these races into the land. Asher, unable to subdue 
 the great cities of the plain and coast — for the Hebrew was 
 a bad rider and a worse sailor, and the rich flats belong to 
 men who can rein a horse, as surely as the isles and shores 
 belong to men who can handle ships — had left them in the 
 hands of that proud race of horsemen and seamen, the 
 English of antiquity, whose cities were Tyre and Si don, and 
 who defended the plains against Barak and David with the 
 same valour and success which they had shown in defending 
 the coasts against pirates and invaders from the West. 
 When these strong cities had fallen before enemies fighting 
 from the sea, the people had retreated towards the hills, 
 carrying with them their arts, their riches, their intelligence, 
 and their gods ; and the dykes being broken by their fall, 
 wave after v/ave poured over from the sea into Galilee ; 
 Cypriotes, Egyptians, Macedonians, Romans ; each wave of 
 invasion flinging new blood into the houses, introducing 
 new arts into the country, and planting strange deities in 
 the groves and temples. 
 
 Thus, the people of Galilee had become a mixed though 
 they were not a blended community. Most of the reapers 
 and sowers of grain were of Syrian stock ; of the Canaanite 
 rather than of the Arab branch. The vine-dressers and 
 husbandmen were mostly Jews ; but Jews who were con- 
 sidered by the men of Judah as provincials. Many of the 
 artizans, most of the traders dwelling in towns, were de- 
 scended from those princes of Tyre and Sidon who had 
 been driven by Alexander and Pompey from the sea. 
 Other artizans and traders had come in the wake of foreign 
 
I20 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 iirmies from Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome. In cities 
 which lay along the coast, like Ptolemais and Tyre, and in 
 strong inland forts like Sephoris and Gadara, lived the more 
 suppfe and artistic Greeks ; the workers in gold and marble, 
 the rhetoricians and painters, the orators, dancers, amatory 
 poets ; the professors of every art, and, as the Jews con- 
 sidered them, the propagators of every vice. From Italy, 
 from Gaul and Spain, a more robust, and perhaps a more 
 licentious rabble, had been poured over the country to eat 
 it up; legionaries, lawyers, gladiators, courtezans, charioteers, 
 procurators and police. But the most picturesque figures in 
 this picturesque group have still to be named. Through the 
 midst of these peasants of the soil, these Jews of the hamlet, 
 these Greek and Egyptian strangers of the city, roved the 
 wild and pastoral tribes, the untamed children of Ishmael 
 and Esau ; men who still dwelt under their black tents, 
 driving their flocks and herds from valley to valley, coming 
 with the verdure, going with the dearth, and owning no 
 allegiance to either Caesar or to his tributary kings. 
 
 These rival lords of the soil — Jew, Greek, and Arab, 
 never mixed with each other, never married, never dwelt 
 together, never fused into one people, like the populations 
 of Ulster, Canada, and the Cape ; but kept in their own 
 lines and their own tribes ; each man fearing his neighbour 
 as a foe ; distinct in blood, in aspect, and in faith, like the 
 Metuali and the Turk, the Maronite and the Druse, the 
 Armenian and the Frank, of the present hour. No art of 
 Greece was bright enough, no might of Rome was strong 
 enough to fuse and bind them. The Hon could not per- 
 suade the lamb to lie down. The Jew would not bend in 
 spirit. In dress, in custom, and in character, the native and 
 the stranger were as rivals and offenders to each other; 
 forbidden by law, and by habit which is stronger than law, 
 to eat of the same dish, to drink of the same cup, to he on 
 the same bed, to walk with the same staff. A jar, a knife, 
 a sack which a stranger touched with his fingers became in 
 the eyes of a Jew unclean. This dark and unsocial spirit 
 
PROVINCE OF GALILEE. 121 
 
 had no existence among the bHthe and radiant Greeks ; it 
 was a Jewish feehng, based on what the Separatist imagined 
 to be his Sacred Law. But in order that two men shall not 
 come together, it is only required that one shall fly from the 
 other. A dozen generations of Greeks and Jews had lived 
 in the same wadies of Galilee, and the people had grown no 
 nearer in love and fellowship than they were on that day 
 when one side stood red with triumph, the other lay crushed 
 by defeat. Nor was a change in their relations likely to come 
 about so long as the empire of Jewish law should last. 
 How could it come to pass in a nation of Separatists ? A 
 Jew could not sleep in a Greek city; a Syrian was not 
 suffered to enter a Hebrew door. 
 
 Speaking then in a broad way of this mixed population of 
 Galilee, it may be said that the Greeks lived in walled cities, 
 the Jews in open towns, the Syrians in huts and sheds, the 
 Arabs in nomadic tents. 
 
 In such great cities as Ptolemais, Sephoris, and Gadara, 
 the public life was that of an Asiatic Athens, and the lan- 
 guage of commerce, learning, and society, was Greek. In 
 his own house, among his own family, a Jew might speak 
 Aramaic, the old idiom of his race, the mother-tongue of 
 Hebrew, as Anglo-Saxon is of English ; that dialect of Abram 
 and Laban, of Rachel and Leah, which in the time of the 
 kings had become a learned language among Jews, as 
 Anglo-Saxon is now among Britons ; but which the course of 
 events had revived and extended until it had replaced among 
 common people, for common uses, the more elastic and 
 poetic idiom of David and Isaiah. Again, the Ishmaelites 
 from beyond Jordan spoke a dialect of Arabic, which Haroun 
 al Raschid would have been puzzled to translate, though 
 Solomon would perhaps have been able to understand it ; 
 for that Hebrew tongue which Moses and the tribes had 
 brought away from Egypt, was not the language which 
 Joseph and the eleven had carried to the Nile, but a fresh 
 growth from the old tongue and the new country ; an idiom 
 which in its turn had begun to fall away after the 
 
, 22 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 Hebrews conquered Syria, until, in the days after the 
 captivity and return, it had wholly disappeared. In the 
 Galilee of Christ, an Arab would have been able to read the 
 Psalms more fluently than a Jew. 
 
 The only tongue that could pretend to be a common 
 vehicle for all these famiHes was that of Greece. Every 
 man of a higher grade than a hewer of wood and drawer of 
 water, every man who had to move about the province, who 
 had to deal with the stranger, to appear in a law court, to 
 consult a physician, to discharge any public function, in 
 fact, the merchant, citizen, priest, and courtier, was com- 
 pelled to practise Greek. It was the only medium of the 
 court, the college, and the camp. In the time when our 
 Lord was a child at Nazareth, this noble language had that 
 predominance in Galilee which English has acquired in 
 Calcutta, French in Algiers, and Turkish in Stamboul. 
 
 The gods of Galilee had been multiplied, but they had 
 not been changed. The soldiers of Alexander and of Caesar, 
 tolerant as Pagans were of all local deities, had rather en- 
 couraged than repressed the religions which they found pre- 
 vailing on the soil. Zeus and Aphrodite feared no rivals. 
 Coming into this country with the phalanx and the legion, 
 they had taken their places quietly in a pantheon large 
 enough for all. 
 
 Syria is the prolific soil of creeds ; the source from which 
 has sprung nearly all the more vivid and enduring systems 
 of the world. Phoenicia lent its gods to Egypt, Egypt to 
 Greece, and Greece to Rome; so that when Venus and 
 Jupiter returned to Galilee in the wake of Caesar, they were 
 only coming home to their parent soil. 
 
 In like manner, the Jews, the Christians, and the Moslems, 
 trace back their faith to these Syrian shores, on which there 
 has always been, as there is even now, an abounding nursery 
 of religious creeds. In the days of Herod the Great, as 
 many deities fought for supremacy in Galilee as fight in the 
 Lebanon now ; Ashtoreth ruling over the Sidonians, Molech 
 over the Syrians, Isis over the Egyptians, Dagon over the 
 
PROVINCE OF GALILEE. 123 
 
 Philistines, Manah over the IshmaeUtes, Artemis over the 
 Greeks, Jupiter over the Romans. 
 
 If any man could have fused these nations into one 
 people — making the Maccabean Jew a fellow-citizen of the 
 many-sided Greek — that man would have been found in 
 Herod the Great ; a prince who, from being a mere captain 
 in Galilee, had risen by natural genius and Caesar's favour to 
 a position higher than the height of David's throne. 
 
124 ^^-^ ^^^ ^ LAND, 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 HEROD THE GREAT. 
 
 "D Y birth an A.rab, by profession a Jew, by necessity a 
 -'-^ Roman, Herod was by culture and by choice a Greek. 
 All his tastes, his pleasures, his studies were Attic. He 
 loved to imitate the Ionian architecture, to revive the 
 Olympic games ; he spent his leisure in reading the poets 
 and historians of Athens ; he gave Hellenic names to his 
 children ; he stamped on his coins the helmet and shield, 
 as though claiming for his house a Macedonian descent. 
 An Arab as Napoleon was a Corsican, a Jew as Henri 
 Quatre was a Catholic, a Roman as Mohammed Ali was a 
 Turk, Herod was an Hellene of his free choice ; with all the 
 strength and all the weakness which belonged to an Asiatic 
 Greek; being graceful, tolerant, quick, luxurious, while 
 he was at the same time cruel, faithless, selfish, and in- 
 sincere. 
 
 His freedom from the darker passions of his race, was a 
 power which he well knew how to use in dealing with his 
 Greek and Syrian subjects ; though it proved a weakness to 
 him when he had to control the Separatist Jews. In one 
 respect he breathed the Jewish spirit and played the Jewish 
 game, for he joined to a splendid taste in art, to a vast capa- 
 city for war, and to a burning lust of territory, the Separatist's 
 hope of driving out the conquerors of Syria, dividing the 
 Oriental empire of Augustus, and stretching his hands, Hke 
 Solomon, from the Euphrates to the sea. 
 
HEROD THE GREAT. 125 
 
 To this end, he tore the crown from the Maccabees, swept 
 away their Sanhedrin, thinned the new princely famiUes 
 by his sword. With a strong hand he divided the great 
 offices which ought never to have been joined ; separating 
 once more the Temporal from the Spiritual Powers. Herod 
 sent to Babylon for a new high priest, whom he found in 
 Ananelus, a man of the sacerdotal house. When Ananelus 
 fell, through an intrigue of the hareem, and Aristobulus, his 
 Maccabean successor, was put to death, Herod sent to 
 Alexandria for Simon, son of Boethus (probably a kinsman 
 of Onias), married his daughter, and made him high priest. 
 In every action of his reign, Herod courted the commons at 
 the expense of their princes ; seeking by art, profession, 
 and expenditure, to rouse in them a hope that they had 
 found in him the Deliverer for whom they daily cried to 
 Heaven. A new palace was laid out on Zion ; new syna- 
 gogues were added to Bezetha ; the city walls were raised 
 and strengthened in every part ; and towers were built on 
 the northern side, where the Assyrian camp came nearest to 
 the w^all. Baths, bastions, gates, seemed to rise from the 
 ground by magical arts. Jerusalem had not been so splen- 
 did in Solomon's days ; for Herod could command into his 
 service of improvement the masons and architects of Greece. 
 It is scarcely a figure of speech to say that he rebuilt Zion 
 as Nero after him rebuilt Rome, leaving a city of marble 
 where he had found one of mud and lime. 
 
 At length, as a visible type of the restored kingdom of 
 Solomon, he commenced a new and more costly Temple than 
 had ever yet been raised in the name of God. 
 
 It seemed as though he might succeed, in spite of the 
 barriers raised up against him by the Oral Law, in recon- 
 ciling Jew and Greek. He chose his wives as much from 
 policy as from love. He won the Maccabeans to his side 
 by marr}dng Mariamne, the daughter of Alexander ; the 
 populace by marrying Mariamne, the daughter of Simon, 
 their new high priest. In like manner he conciliated the 
 nobles of Samaria by wedding Malthace, one of the noblest 
 
126 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 damsels of Sebaste. In the Gentile cities he was adored ; 
 and in Galilee, Samaria, and Judea, he was equally liked 
 and feared. Externally, the chief obstacle to an empire 
 spreading from Euphrates to the sea, was Aretas, king of 
 Petra ; one of those dashing emirs of the desert who had never 
 succumbed to the Roman arms. Aretas not only repulsed 
 his enemies beyond the Moab mountains, but swept into 
 Galilee, ravaged Esdraelon, and rode with his light horse 
 over the Carmel range. Unable to subdue this Arab prince, 
 Herod made offers to him of peace and friendship ; settling 
 their frontier lines, and asking his daughter in marriage for 
 Antipas, then his favourite son, and natural heir to his 
 crown. When peace was signed between Jew and Arab, 
 Herod built for himself a country house at Macherus, on 
 the Moab frontier ; a palace, a garden, a bath, a guard-room, 
 a tower ; which in a few years became the strongest city 
 standing east of the Dead Sea. Through his garrison at 
 Macherus, and his kinsmen in Petra, Herod was able to 
 control the Desert, and during the rest of his long reign the 
 husbandmen of Judah and Galilee could till their soil with 
 very little fear of being plundered by the nomadic tribes. 
 
 Who was now like unto Herod the Great ? The Macca- 
 bean party in Jerusalem was crushed. The Boethus family 
 served in the Temple. In Sebaste, in Sephoris, his power 
 was more firmly established than even in Jerusalem and 
 Jericho. Caesar treated him as a brother. From Damascus 
 to Alexandria his voice was heard and his arm was felt. In 
 the pomp of his court, in the number of his troops, in the 
 width of his dominion, who could compare with him? 
 Simon, the most fortunate of all the Maccabees, had 
 been a mere sheikh, the soldier of a tribe ; Herod was a 
 mighty prince, the successor and the rival of their greatest 
 king. What marvel, then, that many of those Separatists 
 who were praying for a Messiah should have turned to him, 
 and that the Herodians should have become a sect in the 
 synagogue, a party in the court ? 
 
 But the king's unrivalled genius, guided by prudence, 
 
HEROD THE GREAT. 127 
 
 courtesy, and patience, failed to overcome the bigotries 
 fostered in his people by the Oral Law. The grounds of 
 hostihty between Jew and Greek lay deep in the nature of 
 their faith, and in that stage of their growth nothing save a 
 spiritual action could have changed them. Herod fought 
 against the Separatist spirit with a secular arm, and the 
 chivalry which he displayed in dealing with the professors 
 of these adverse creeds was one cause of his failure to 
 reconcile them to each other. In truth, Herod was too 
 large a man for that part of false Messiah which events 
 were thrusting on him. He could not play the hypocrite 
 night and day. Having taken his seat near the holy place, 
 having tasted the paschal lamb and the bitter herbs, having 
 put the phylacteries on his brow, and broadened the bands 
 on his cloak, his means of kindling the Pharisaic imagination 
 had come to an end. Not being a Separatist in soul, he 
 was unable to sound the new depths and shallows of Jewish 
 life, even so far as to answer the popular desire in external 
 show. It was hard for him to talk, impossible to feel, like 
 a partizan of the Oral Law. 
 
 Herod aimed at two points which stand far apart — at 
 being received as a servant of the One God, and as a 
 champion of all the gods. He would have liked to garner 
 the political advantages of being a Jew, while enjoying the 
 personal delights of being a Greek. In pursuance of this 
 vain dream, while he was restoring the palace of David on 
 Mount Zion, under the city wall near the Bethlehem gate, 
 he built a Greek palace for his pleasures at Herodion, the 
 Mount of Paradise, near that Bethlehem khan in which the 
 true Messiah was about to be born. But in all these 
 compromises between Jew and Greek, Herod was frank and 
 open ; never hiding what he did and what he thought ; 
 letting the Gentiles know that he never failed to observe the 
 feasts of Purim and Passover ; and showing the Jews that 
 in cities which he loved much more and favoured much less 
 than Jerusalem — the lustrous Jericho, the pillared Sebaste, 
 the sea-washed Csesarea — he went up to the temples of 
 
^28 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 Zeus and Artemis. The people knew all his ways. They 
 told each other in the gateway, that a prince whom many 
 Jews called their Messiah, had raised a shrine to Apollo in 
 the Isle of Rhodes, and in the city of Antioch had revived 
 the Olympic games ; and they learned to curse him in their 
 hearts, as a man who had put strangers on a level with the 
 
 holy race. 
 
 In like manner, this spirit of Pagan courtesy and concili- 
 ation failed between the Jewish sects, just as it had failed 
 between Jew and Greek. While he was rebuilding the 
 great Temple on Moriah, Herod had given orders to 
 rebuild the Samaritan temple in Gerizim. When he was 
 marrying Mariamne, daughter of the popular high priest in 
 Jerusalem, he had offered his hand and throne to Malthace, 
 a noble maiden of Sebaste. These efforts to heal the 
 great feud of ages had only ended in vexing his friends and 
 maddening his foes. The Samaritan priests could not 
 forgive his being a Jew; the Jewish priests could not 
 endure his Gerizim temple and his Samaritan wife. 
 
 Thus, a man who had read more of Homer and Hesiod 
 than of Micah and Jeremiah, and who was bUnd to many of 
 the subtleties and distinctions of the Jewish faith, though he 
 made himself master of the land by force, exhausted his 
 genius in the vain attempt to make Syria into a nation on 
 the principles of a cultured and liberal Greek. 
 
 Beyond the weaknesses which had their source in this 
 tolerant condition of Herod's mind, his personal life was 
 such as to estrange from him the sympathies of all good 
 and honest men. In freedom of living, not less than in 
 genius, valour, and success, he reproduced in Syria the 
 image of an old Greek tyrant. Some writers have perceived 
 a reflex of Herod in our own Henry the Eighth. That a few 
 points of character and fortune may be found in the two 
 men is not to be denied ; but Henry had passed through a 
 clean and winsome youth ; while no part of the great Arab's 
 life had ever been pure. If Herod had nine wives, all 
 living at the same time, or near it, he had also a far greater 
 
HEROD THE GREAT. 129 
 
 number of favourites who were not his wives. The most 
 famous of his many queens was Mariamne, the Maccabean ; 
 of his many concubines, Cleopatra, queen of Egypt : he 
 murdered the first in his rage, and he coldly designed to 
 betray the second to death. In his love aft'airs he was 
 Eg)^ptian rather than Jewish ; for he took to his bed more 
 than one woman who was nearer of kin to him than the 
 Oral Law allowed. One of his wives was his brother's 
 child, another was his sister's child. 
 
 One of his earliest crimes was that massacre of priests 
 and nobles, seventy in number, on which he based his 
 power. His private murders were uncounted; but it is 
 matter of record that he caused his brother-in-law, Aristo- 
 bulus, to be drowned ; that he slew his wife's grandfather, 
 Hyrcanus ; that he killed his uncle Joseph and his sister's 
 husband, Cortobanus ; that he put Antipater, his own first- 
 born son, to death. Household murder stained his hearth 
 to the last. He not only took away the life of his proud 
 queen Mariamne, but strangled the two princes, Alexander 
 and Aristobulus, his sons by her. He killed their aged 
 grandmother, Alexandra. Some of his nearest friends and 
 companions^ Dosetheus, Gadias, Lysimachus — he either 
 strangled or clove in twain. As age grew heavy upon him, 
 and the dream of empire faded away, his indolent ferocity 
 increased, and the lightest fear that fell upon his heart 
 provoked an order to shed blood. As he neared the grave, 
 life seemed to have lost ail beauty in his eyes. In ever}^ 
 part of Palestine, aged men, unoffending women, young 
 children, were put to the sword. Among other tragedies 
 caused by his rage and fear, that swoop of soldiers on the 
 city of Bethlehem, though it was one of the least, is the best 
 remembered of all his crimes. 
 
 In the very year of that massacre of innocents, this 
 splendid and wicked prince perished like a dog, dying in 
 the great palace which he had built for himself in Jericho ; 
 not of old age, but of putrid sores ; not in the midst of 
 honour and respect, in the presence of wife and child, but 
 
 K 
 
I30 
 
 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 surrounded by quarrelling kinsmen and conspiring slaves. 
 One slave, named Simon, declaring himself the Jewish 
 Messiah, placed the dead man's crown upon his brow, 
 enlisted a troop of Arabs from Perea, plundered the royal 
 palace of its treasures, and burnt the magnificent pile to its 
 foundations. Many of the people hailed this slave as 
 Christ and King ; until Valerius Gratus, the Roman general, 
 marching against him, overthrew his forces, and struck off 
 his head. 
 
 The great kingdom of Herod, recovered from a slave and 
 his gang of marauders by the Roman arms, was not destined 
 to outlive him. Antipas Herod, his eldest son by his 
 Samaritan queen, Malthace, got Galilee and Perea, with the 
 Greek title of Tetrarch, ruler of a fourth part. Archelaus, a 
 younger son of the same queen, had Samaria and Judea, 
 with the Greek title of Ethnarch, ruler of a nation, and a 
 promise from Caesar, never to be redeemed, of the royal 
 rank. Philip, one of his sons by his wife Cleopatra, received 
 Batanea, Trachonitis, Auranitis, all beyond Jordan, and 
 some parts of Sharon near Jaffa, with the title of Tetrarch. 
 Salome, sister of the great king, obtained Jamnia and 
 Ashdod in the plain of Sharon, with Phasaelus, a new city 
 built by Herod in the Plain of Jericho. To make these 
 rents and fissures in the kingdom more complete, the strong 
 Greek cities of Gaza, Hippos, and Gadara were detached 
 from the Jewish provinces in which they stood and which 
 they held in check. Valerius Gratus, while appearing to be 
 only zealous for Herod's kin, took care to arrange his 
 kingdom so that its provinces could be annexed to the 
 empire whenever it might suit the plans of his masters in 
 Rome. 
 
 Genius, valour, courtesy, eloquence, and taste, had come 
 to nothing, to worse than nothing, in Herod's hands. He 
 had crushed the nobles, but he had not raised the multitude. 
 Tn fighting against the intolerant spirit of the Oral Law, he 
 had toiled to a noble end ; but the means to that end were 
 beyond his reach and perhaps beyond his conception. The 
 
HEROD THE GREAT. 131 
 
 way to unite a crowd of hostile sects into one people, is not 
 by pandering to every passion and delusion in its turn, but 
 by kindling in the whole body of rivals a new spiritual 
 passion hot enough to consume the old. Herod provided 
 games, rites, comedies, architecture, for a society too much 
 corrupted ever to become a nation except by being born 
 afresh. To become one in heart, the Jew and the Greek 
 required, not old shows, but a new spiritual life. But this 
 new life of the spirit is a gift which kings and governors 
 have not to give. 
 
132 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 JUDAS THE GALILEAN. 
 
 A FTER Herod's death, the experiment in which he had 
 ■^^^ failed was tried from another side, on Separatist 
 principles ; and the schisms and parties then dividing 
 Galilee, town against hamlet, house against tent, altar 
 against synagogue, temple against grove, received a crown- 
 ing division in that of Pharisee against Pharisee. A new 
 sect was now to rise in Galilee, and to be known by the 
 name of that province ; a sect more Separatist than the 
 Separatists, and more hostile to strangers than even the Jews 
 of Zion. They were to call themselves Zealots, as being 
 anxious for morality and religion ; and when they became 
 formidable to the ruling powers, as they swiftly became, they 
 were to be denounced in the Sanhedrin and the Synagogue 
 under the names of Swordsmen and Brigands. The strife 
 between Samaria and Judea was in a few years to be surpassed 
 in bitterness by the great feud between Galilee and Judea. 
 
 The leader of the new schism was Judas of Gamala. 
 
 One of the worst results of that pohcy of Separation and 
 isolation into which the Jews had sunk under the Maccabees, 
 was the wild misreading of the Messianic prophecies, into 
 which so many of the people fell. Poor peasants and 
 fishermen heard that a Deliverer was to come ; they felt the 
 need of him in their hearts and in their lives ; the more they 
 found themselves straying like lost sheep, the more they 
 expected a Shepherd who should restore them to the fold. 
 
JUDAS THE GALILEAN. 133 
 
 But they had ceased to understand their prophets in the old 
 spirit of their race. They had come to mix up the Persian 
 Vendidad with the Mosaic Pentateuch ; and the poHtical 
 theories by which they had replaced the Mosaic Law, in- 
 clined them to expect a political Christ, a prince, a warrior, 
 a lawgiver of the earth ; a man who could drive out the 
 strangers from their soil, who would march on Jerusalem, 
 occupy the throne of David, and, hating all Gentile nations, 
 dwell among his people in kingly pomp. 
 
 A Sadducee, rich in palaces and gardens, learned in the 
 poetry and philosophy of Greece, might laugh at these 
 dreams of potters and goatherds ; yet the hope of seeing 
 such a prince arise was so common throughout Jewry, that 
 no man of genius, whether soldier, sorcerer, or priest, could 
 spring into fame without exciting in thousands of eager 
 hearts a strong belief that the Messiah for whom they waited 
 had come at last! 
 
 Within a dozen years after the death of Herod the Great, 
 a dozen of these false Messiahs were proclaimed by deluded 
 and deluding crowds ; the most eminent, perhaps, being 
 Judas of Gamala, and his sons Simon and James, Hillel the 
 Babylonian, Athrongseus the shepherd, and Simon the slave. 
 Judas of Gamala, though his career was short, is a figure in 
 Jewish story hardly less important than that of Herod the 
 Great. 
 
 More than all that Akeel is suspected of desiring to 
 accomplish against Turkey, Judas desired to effect against 
 Rome. Akeel draws none of his passion from religious 
 hate. He acknowledges Cabouli's caliph, prays in Cabouli's 
 mosque. Judas of Gamala was driven forward by his 
 spiritual frenzy even more than by his lust of secular power. 
 But if the inspiring cause was different, the results were much 
 the same; a considerable revolt, a yet more considerable 
 disturbance ; vexing the Romans in Galilee very much as 
 Abd-el-Kader teased the French and as Akeel Aga distracts 
 the Turks. Judas of Gamala being a man of the tongue 
 even more than of the sword, his faculties of mischief could 
 
134 THE II OL Y LAND. 
 
 neither be confined to a province, nor extinguished with a 
 hfe. 
 
 Judas, though he is mentioned by Gamaliel as a man of 
 Galilee, appears to have been born in Gaulonitis beyond 
 Jordan, in Gamala, a city built on a mountain spur, shaped 
 like a camel, whence it derived its name. This place stood 
 on the hill side, opposite to Tarichsea, looking down upon 
 the lake. A man of priestly lineage, an Arab of the old 
 type, simple in Hfe, severe in aspect, Judas conceived that 
 like Elijah he had received a message to his countrymen 
 from the Lord. Devoted, soul and spirit, to the Oral Law, 
 and resolved to make the Separatist theory his rule of life, 
 he went through the hamlets of Galilee preaching the great 
 doctrines that national liberty is the chiefest good — that 
 men are all equals in rank and power — that there is no 
 king, no master in the world, save God. Men listened to 
 his words. A party gathered round him, deeming him the 
 Prophet that was to come. Like Judas the Maccabee, he 
 called to his banners those only who were in despair 
 and were ready to perish; and he taught his followers 
 to despise pain and death, to defy the cord and the cross, 
 and to rush on a line of swords with a gladsome alacrity 
 which amazed the most hardened Stoics and veterans 
 of Rome. 
 
 When Cyrenius first came into Galilee and Judea to 
 number the people, as a basis for levying the poll-tax of a 
 denarius — eight-pence of our present English money — per 
 head, Judas hfted up his voice against him ; denouncing his 
 census as unlawful, his levy as impious ; saying that this gift 
 of a denarius to Csesar was an offensive imitation of the 
 half-stater annually paid by a Jew to God. He urged the 
 people to resist the census and the tax. Young and ardent 
 men threw themselves under his flag ; for in the simple life 
 and daring words of Judas they discerned the style of 
 that Christ who was to lead them against the Gentile 
 host. 
 
 As yet his camp had been composed of poor people from 
 
JUDAS THE GALILEAN. 135 
 
 the vineyards, and fisheries, and workshops; but this 
 denunciation of Cyrenius and the poll-tax brought to his 
 side a Pharisee of high rank named Sadok ; after whose 
 adhesion to what they announced as the national cause, the 
 party increased in every part of Jewry, even in the Holy 
 City. Feeling their strength, the Galileans raised the old 
 Je\^^sh standard ; seizing the strong places, proclaiming a 
 holy war, and, like true Arab combatants, plundering both 
 friend and foe. The burning of temples and groves might 
 have been justified on religious grounds, the destruction of 
 Greek cities and castles on military grounds ; but the fol- 
 lowers of Judas and Sadok, despising all property which was 
 not their own, and wishing to drive the peasants to despair, 
 put fire to the granaries and trampled on the vines. Yet 
 the people bore their losses with an Oriental calm. Messiah 
 must know what he ought to do ; if the Jews sufi"ered much 
 from Judas, the Greeks sufi"ered more; and the faithful 
 could find comfort in the thought that on the morrow of 
 their final victory over Rome, the gold and silver of Sepho- 
 ris, Ptolemais, and a hundred other cities would be all 
 their own. 
 
 Cyrenius met this army of fanatics in the open field, broke 
 them at a charge, and putting Judas and Sadok to a cruel 
 death, soon scattered the remnants of their bands into all 
 the hamlets of Galilee. The blow was prompt. The 
 victory seemed to be complete. But it only seemed so ; 
 sword may meet sword, but cannot root up an idea from the 
 soul. These vine-dressers and boatmen, poor in education, 
 but rich in faith, believing that Judas was the Messiah, 
 come into the world to fulfil the Oral Law, and that he 
 would either rise again in the flesh or live in the persons of 
 his children, transferred their loyalty from the murdered 
 prophet to his sons Simon and James. So far from being 
 ended, the revolt of the Galileans had only just begun. 
 But James and Simon, warned by their father's fate, kept 
 quiet in their retreats, watching the course of events, 
 increasing the number of their disciples, and preparing the 
 
136 THE HOLY LAND, 
 
 arms and discipline as well as the passions and animosities 
 of a grander war. 
 
 Twenty years after their father's murder, Simon and 
 fames were at the head of a powerful sect, including most 
 of the Jews in Galilee, many of those in Gaulonitis and 
 Perea, not a few of those in Judea and Jerusalem, especially 
 among the poorer classes. 
 
 A Greek who was at that time studying Jewish politics, 
 misht have ranked these Galileans between the Essenes 
 and Pharisees, for while they were Essenic in their habits, 
 they were Pharisaic in their opinions. With the Essenes 
 they professed to despise riches, to reject pomp and 
 state, to own no master, to give no titles, to kneel only 
 to God ; with the Pharisees they expected a deliverer, a 
 holy war, a conquest of the Romans, and a kingdom of 
 the saints. 
 
 Unlike Herod the Great, who had tried to break down 
 the barriers dividing Greeks and Arabs, Samaritans and 
 Jews, so as to melt a hundred tribes and sects into one 
 great Syrian power, having its unity of life in the Greek 
 principle of toleration, Judas, acting in the spirit of the 
 Oral LaAV, withdrew his people from all intercourse with 
 Gentiles as a thing impolitic and profane. They were to 
 live alone. They were to consider the Greeks as enemies. 
 They were to shun large cities, with their Pagan temples, 
 and their gods of bronze and stone, They were to consider 
 the stranger as a man accursed ; and to have no traffic with 
 him except that of blood. 
 
 In his narrow understanding, Judas of Gamala contracted 
 that Jewish brotherhood which was already far too strait. 
 The Pharisee's rules were wider than his soul could grasp, 
 and the only fighting power in Jewry was now reduced into 
 the sect of a sect. 
 
 But this warlike and devoted party grew in strength and 
 daring ; outlived their courtly rivals called the Herodians ; 
 struggled with and subdued their Sadducean enemies; 
 opposed with success the more popular Boethusians ; 
 
JUDAS THE GALILEAN. 137 
 
 identified themselves in mass with the whole people ; and 
 only perished out of the land when everything was lost. 
 When Jerusalem was carried by assault, when the Temple 
 was burnt to ashes, the gallant men who would call no man 
 lord were exposed and sold for slaves in every market of 
 the Roman world. 
 
 But this catastrophe was yet a long way off. 
 
[38 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE HOLY FAMILY. 
 
 T7OUR miles south of the strong Greek city of Sephoris, 
 ■^ hidden away among gentle hills, then covered from 
 the base to the crown with vineyards and fig-trees, lay 
 a natural nest or basin of rich red and white earth, star-like 
 in shape, about a mile in width, and wondrously fertile. 
 Along the scarred and chalky slope of the highest of these 
 hills, spread a small and lovely village, which, in a land 
 where every stone seemed to have a story, is remarkable as 
 having had no public history and no distinguishable native 
 name. No great road led up to this sunny nook. No 
 traffic came into it, no legions marched through it. Trade, 
 war, adventure, pleasure, pomp, passed by it, flowing from 
 west to east, from east to west, along the Roman road. 
 But the meadows were aglow with wheat and barley. Near 
 the low ground ran a belt of gardens, fenced with loose 
 stones, in which myriads of green figs, red pomegranates, 
 and golden citrons, ripened in the summer sun. High up 
 the slopes, which were lined and planted like the Rhine at 
 Bingen, hung vintages of purple grapes. In the plain, 
 among the corn and beneath the mulberry trees and figs, 
 shone daisies, poppies, tuHps, lilies, and anemones, endless 
 in their profusion, brilliant in their dyes. 
 
 Low down on the hill-side sprang a well of water, 
 bubbling, plentiful, and sweet ; and above this fountain 
 of life, in a long street straggling from the fountain to the 
 
THE HOL V FA MIL V. 139 
 
 synagogue, rose the homesteads of many shepherds, crafts- 
 men, and vine-dressers. It was a lovely and humble place, 
 of which no poet, no ruler, no historian of Israel had ever 
 yet taken note. No Rachel had been met and kissed into 
 love at this well ; no Ruth had gathered up the sheaves 
 of barley in yon fields ; no tower had been built for ob- 
 servation on this height ; no camp had been pitched for 
 battle in that vale. That One who would become deaier 
 to the fancies of men than either Ruth or Rachel then 
 walked through these fields, drew water at this spring, 
 passed up and down the lanes of this hamlet, no seer could 
 have then surmised. The place was more than obscure. 
 The Arab may have pitched his black tent by the well, the 
 magistrate of Sephoris must have known the village name, 
 but the hamlet was never mentioned by a Jewish scribe. 
 
 In the Bible, in the Talmud, in the writings of Josephus, 
 we search in vain for any records of this sacred place. 
 Like its happy neighbours, Nain and Endor, it was the 
 abode of husbandmen and oil-pressers, whose lives were 
 spent in the synagogue and in the olive-grove, away from 
 the bright Greek cities and the busy Roman roads. No 
 doubt it had once been possessed of either an Arab or a 
 Hebrew name, but we do not know that name except in 
 its Hellenic form. 
 
 The Greeks called the town Nazaret or Nazareth. 
 
 Into this nameless Jewish hamlet, there came to live in 
 the days of Judas of Gamala and the Zealots, Joseph of 
 Bethlehem with his wife and Child. 
 
 Joachim of Nazareth had been already a man of great 
 age when his wife, Anna, a woman who like Sarah had long 
 been childless, gave birth to a daughter, whom the parents 
 called Marian, and whom the Church calls Mary the 
 Blessed Virgin. Though they then dwelt in the province 
 of Galilee, her father and mother were natives of Bethlehem, 
 of the tribe of Judah and the line of David. Like many 
 other Jews, they seem to have left the hill country of 
 Judea, in which it was hard for the poor to find bread, and 
 
140 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 to have settled in those busier and more prosperous parts 
 of Palestine in which the Greeks had built cities and the 
 Romans had made roads ; obeying a movement like' that 
 which in our own day draws the Gael to Lanark, the 
 Parsee to Calcutta, the Arab to Algiers. They were not 
 rich people ; they owned goats and sheep ; they lived 
 in a good house, in the midst of a garden ; and could 
 afford money and time for a yearly journey to Zion at the 
 great festivals of their faith ; but Joachim and his wife were 
 richer in blood and in repute than in flocks and herds. 
 
 The thousand years which had passed away since their 
 father David reigned over Israel, an interval little less than 
 that which divides yon hajjee in the green turban from his 
 ancestor Mohammed, might serve in any country to lay the 
 mighty low, to turn a Capet into a carter, a Plantagenet 
 into a ploughboy. In that large flux of years, the house 
 of David, scattered into every region of the East, into 
 Egypt and Persia, into Babylon and Arabia, had so fallen 
 from its high estate, that its members had been glad to 
 practise the most ordinary trades. Hillel of Babylon was 
 poorer than Joachim of Nazareth. But no lapse of time, 
 no taint of poverty, will, in countries like Palestine, deprive 
 of due honour and respect a man who is known to be 
 descended from a royal and saintly race. Yon hajjee 
 in the green folds may be poor enough to beg paras in the 
 public street ; yet his fellow beggar, crouching beside him 
 in the dust, and even dividing with him his scanty loaf, will 
 be forward to acknowledge his princely rank ; and in the 
 mouths of all classes of his countrymen he is still shereef 
 and saib, nobleman and lord. And so it fared with men 
 of the line of David, children of the shepherd king. To be 
 born of that stock, like Hillel and Joachim, was to possess 
 in all Jewish eyes a sacred and inalienable grace. 
 
 Husband and wife both died in Nazareth while Marian 
 was yet a child ; Joachim, who seems to have had another 
 wife besides Anna, leaving another daughter named Mary 
 (not Manun like the Virgin), a woman of mature age, who 
 
THE HOL V FAMIL V. 141 
 
 had been married to a Jew called Clopas, or, as the name 
 was spelt in Greek, Alphaeus, and was left his widow with 
 four or five sons. The two half-sisters dwelt together in 
 their father's house, which by the Jewish law would come 
 to them in equal shares, on condition that they should 
 marry in their tribe and to their next of kin. Mary, having 
 sons who must inherit her part of the estate, would have no 
 rights to preserve by marrying a second time ; but Marian, 
 her half-sister, was obliged by the law, either to marry her 
 next of kin when she came of age, or to forfeit all share in 
 her father's goods. 
 
 The man next of kin to Marian was Joseph of Beth- 
 lehem ; her uncle, it would seem, though some say he was 
 her cousin ; a man already old, with sons of his own, 
 grown up into young men. The Jewish rule was strict ; 
 girls had no choice ; and to marry uncles was a habit of the 
 people. Had not Herod, the reigning king, married two 
 of his nieces? Were not some of his granddaughters 
 already the wives of his sons. 
 
 Joseph, the husband whom Marian was bound by law to 
 marry, was by trade a carpenter ; tradition says a bad one, 
 as Syrian craftsmen of the kind have always been. It may 
 be inferred, from what is still to be seen every day in Galilee, 
 that he built and repaired boats on the lake, as well as 
 made frames and stools, and cut down poles for tents. 
 Except in the Greek cities, the arts of domestic life were 
 rude. When Joseph wTought at his trade in the village, 
 his bench would be placed in the public way, as you see 
 the carpenters at work in Acre and Nazareth now, and 
 there he would saw and hammer at his planks from dawn 
 to dusk. This occupation of a carpenter would lead him 
 away from home, and his busiest hours when abroad would 
 probably be spent in such Jewish hamlets as Nain and 
 Cana among the hills, and as Bethsaida and Capernaum on 
 the lake. 
 
 The Son of Joseph and Marian, born in the grotto, near 
 the great khan of Bethlehem, was called Jesus ; a name 
 
142 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 now sacred and set apart from use ; then common among 
 the Jews as either Simon or Judah, and as William and 
 Henry among ourselves. As the boy grew in strength he 
 was put to learn his father's trade of carpentry, and until 
 his thirtieth year, when he became old enough to teach and 
 preach, he was content to go about the villages of Galilee, 
 among the followers of Judas and of his sons Simon and 
 James, mending chairs and poles, hewing masts and beams, 
 shaping oars and planks. Is not this the carpenter ? said 
 his neighbours of Nazareth, when he began to proclaim the 
 gospel of fraternity and love. With the axe, the plane, 
 the measuring line in his hand, he trudged as a boy at his 
 father's side through these valleys of Zebulon, Issachar, and 
 Naphthali ; passing the great cities, in which they would 
 have found no work for Jewish carpenters to do ; and 
 toiling on the farms and in the villages of their own 
 people, among peasants, carriers, and fishermen, who 
 had little knowledge and less appreciation of the finer 
 arts of Greece. 
 
 The position of Jesus in this Nazareth home was some- 
 thing like that of David when a youth in the Bethlehem 
 khan. His half-brothers, being Orientals, treated him, even 
 when he was thirty years of age, as a young man : which in 
 plain English means treating him very much as they would 
 have done a woman and a slave. The names of these 
 half-brothers, as well as of his cousins, the sons of Mary, 
 being the commonest then used in Israel — James and 
 Judah, Simon and Joses — it is impossible to say how many 
 of them lived in the same house, or even to say which 
 were the children of Clopas and which the children of 
 Joseph. Living in the same town, being all of one tribe, 
 they were known as members of one family, and are only 
 mentioned by writers under the general designation of the 
 Lord's brethren. Clopas left a son named James, and 
 Joseph left a son named James. Each seems to have had a 
 son called Judah. Three sisters lived in the house. More 
 than these facts can hardly be stated, except by guess-work. 
 
THE HOL Y FAMIL Y. 143 
 
 It is only known that of all these men and women, Jesus, 
 like David among Jesse's children, was the youngest born. 
 
 That his mother Marian, who bore him at the age of 
 fifteen, was fair and comely, was a constant tradition of the 
 early Church ; a girl having a style of beauty like that ot 
 David and Solomon, which is rare in hot countries, and 
 when it occurs is most highly prized. If the Church tradi- 
 tions may be trusted on such a point, backed by such 
 evidence as the Byzantine mosaics and the early missals, 
 the Virgin had blue eyes, a pale skin, low colour, a sweet 
 oval face, with abundance of golden hair. 
 
 In her ways of life, she would act no otherwise than like 
 the young Hebrew women of her time and of all times. 
 She would rise early in the day, and going with her creel 
 into the market-place, fill it with melons and fresh figs, with 
 green cucumbers and grapes. At the third hour she would- 
 recite her shema, and at the ninth hour sing a psalm of 
 David. In the evening she would go down with her pitcher 
 to the well and fill it. On the Sabbath, after washing hands, 
 she would go up to the synagogue on the hill-top, where she 
 would sit among the women behind the screen, and hear the 
 Sheliach repeat the lesson set apart for that day. For the 
 rest of her simple and homely life, like the women of her 
 class in these Syrian villages at the present hour, she would 
 boil her pottage over a wood fire, lay her maize on the flat 
 roof to dry, spin thread for domestic use, sweep the dust 
 from her lewan at dusk, and, expecting her husband and her 
 son to come home, spread her mats on the floor and set her 
 viands for them in the shadiest nook of her little court. 
 
 Our Western fancies, working through an instinct of 
 nature safer than half knowledge, have made of this simple 
 life a pastoral full of grace and beauty. Hearing that the 
 best years of her youth and womanhood were spent, before 
 she yet knew grief, on this sunny hill slope, her feet being 
 for ever among the daisies, poppies, and anemones which 
 grow everywhere about, we have made her the patroness cf 
 all our flowers. The Virgin is our rose of Sharon, our lily 
 
144 ^^^ ^^^ ^ LAND. 
 
 of the valley. The poetry, no less than the piety of Europe 
 has inscribed to her the whole bloom and colouring of the 
 fields and hedges. May is her month. Gardens are 
 trimmed in her service, and all her cnapels are decked and 
 •^arlanded with nosegays. The favourites of our meadows, 
 some of them unknown to the flora of her own Gahlee, bear 
 names which are derived from her — such as lady grass, 
 lady smock, lady slipper, lady's key, marigold, and maiden 
 hair. But the rose and the lily — the rose for its lustre, the 
 lily for its purity — are, more than any others, considered as 
 the Virgin's own. These flowers belong to the landscape of 
 lyliddle Galilee no less than to the poetry of the Christian 
 world. 
 
 Until her husband died, an event which is supposed to 
 have happened when her son was a young man, she was 
 once a year mounted on an ass and taken up to Jerusalem 
 for the Passover. 
 
 Every man rich enough to spare time and money on this 
 journey to Jerusalem was bound to make it ; thousands of 
 their neighbour Galileans went up to the Temple every 
 year; still more every second or third year; the bands 
 setting out at one time, marching by the same roads, and 
 keeping close together for their mutual help. I'hese Pass- 
 over pilgrims from Galilee formed a long caravan ; the 
 women and old men riding on asses and camels ; the men 
 and young lads trudging by their sides ; the little folks 
 running about from one group to another, playing with the 
 dogs, gathering the wild fruit, and sometimes getting lost. 
 Avoiding Samaria, as a country of heretics, contact with 
 whom would have rendered a Separatist Jew unclean, they 
 marched by the lower road, though it carried them east of 
 the Jordan and through a somewhat perilous tract. Better, 
 said they, the chance of being robbed than the certainty 
 of being defiled. So they wended through Gilead and 
 Ammon ; camping near a well at sunset ; lighting their fires 
 of sticks, and cooking their frugal meal ; consisting of a dish 
 of lentils and parched corn, fried in a little oil, with a melon, 
 
THE II OL Y FA MIL Y 
 
 H5 
 
 a cucumber, and a bunch of grapes. Recrossing the Jordan 
 at Bethabara, a famous ford on "the river, ten miles eastward 
 of Jericho, they marched under the green date trees of the 
 plain to the city and the mountain base, and then toiled up 
 the rocky passes of the wilderness towards Zion, carrying 
 fronds of palm and branches of myrtle in their hands, and 
 singing their shemas and hosannas as they moved impetu- 
 ously along the mountain roads. 
 
 Their journey ended, the company broke up near 
 Bethany, a poor village on the eastern slope of Mount 
 Olivet, looking down the glen over the desert ways by which 
 
 SYRIAN BOOTHS. 
 
 they had come up. Of all those thousands on thousands, a 
 few might have friends in Jerusalem who were able to 
 receive them into their houses ; only a few ; the concourse 
 of people being too vast for the whole body of pilgrims to 
 find shelter within the walls. Every man lodged as it 
 
146 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 pleased him best. Some got into the poor little hamlets 
 round about; some pitched their tents on the hill-sides and 
 in the shady glens ; but the thousands on thousands were 
 content with the little green booths, called succoth, a wattle 
 of twigs and leaves, such as Jacob had made for himself in 
 Canaan, and such as the Sharon peasant still builds for his 
 family at the Jerusalem gate. 
 
 Mizpeh, Olivet, Gibeon, Rephaim, sparkled with these 
 booths and tents, the slopes of the Cedron being alive with 
 men and women, with sheep and goats, with camels and 
 asses, while the great fountains of En-rogel and Siloam were 
 thronged from morning to night with girls drawing water for 
 man and beast. 
 
 The men from Galilee are said to have pitched their tents 
 and built their booths on a part of Olivet, a little north of 
 the road leading over its brow ; one of three mamelons 
 into which the ridge is divided by nature ; a circumstance 
 which is supposed to 'have led to that mamelon being 
 subsequently known by the name of Galilee hill, or hill of 
 the men of Galilee. 
 
ROMAN JUDEA, 147 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 ROMAN JUDEA. 
 
 T^ROM year to year, as the Holy family came up from 
 -^ Nazareth to Zion for the feasts of their faith, they would 
 find the great city changing in aspect and in character ; be- 
 coming less and less Jewish, more and more Greek ; the plain 
 house of stone giving way to the marble front, the portico, 
 the colonnade, and the paved court. All through these 
 years of the Lord's youth, the Temple was in progress ; for 
 the princes of Herod's line were all artists and builders, and 
 it was the pride of Archelaus to carry on the structures 
 which his father had commenced. 
 
 Then came another change. A man coming up to Purim, 
 or Passover, found Roman soldiers braving about the lanes ; 
 strange hucksters vending goods in the markets and bazaars y 
 a Gentile ruler keeping his court in Herod's palace and his 
 armoury in David's tower. 
 
 Herod's will, executed by Roman officers, held for a short 
 time ; in Judea, for a very short time. On the day of his 
 death in Jericho, two strong and energetic factions had 
 raised their heads in Zion ; the Noble party which the 
 Maccabees had put down ; and that Separatist party, now 
 become the Popular party, which Herod the Great had 
 crushed. These two factions, comprising many of the 
 ablest and richest men in Jerusalem, had made war against 
 the Herodians, the Boethusians, and the new settlement of 
 
148 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 [udea under Herod's will ; the Noble party, actively and 
 with all weapons ; hoping to cast down both Archelaus the 
 Herodian Ethnarch, and Joazar the Boethusian high priest, 
 and to seize their powers ; the Popular party negatively and 
 with some reserve; for although they hated Archelaus as 
 the son of a Samaritan queen, and would have helped to 
 depose him at the risk of bringing on their country a civil 
 war, they had no such animosity against Joazar the high 
 priest, a man of popular manners, of blameless life, and of 
 true sacerdotal descent. 
 
 The Nobles, waging war against the Herodians in the 
 palace and the Boethusians in the Temple, had been led by 
 Annas (Ananus), son of Seth, a man of high birth, of great 
 wealth, of strong and persevering intellect ; and in the 
 course of a ten years' struggle they had succeeded in crush- 
 ing the Herodian party, and sending Archelaus to Rome to 
 answer for his crimes in Caesar's court. It could not be 
 said that the nobles had won this battle by native virtue and 
 native strength ; the Separatists, the strongest party in 
 Jerusalem, had helped them to ruin their half-Samaritan 
 prince ; but they had gained their triumph mainly by the 
 aid of Rome, to which country they had sold their liberty 
 and independence, in exchange for a party triumph and a 
 personal lease of power. 
 
 In his short reign of ten years, Archelaus had made many 
 foes, and every party imagined they would gain by this weak 
 man's fall. His brother, Antipas of Galilee, being an elder 
 son of Herod, and great with Caesar, had fancied that he 
 must succeed to his inheritance in Samaria and Judea, and 
 that with the addition of these provinces to his state he 
 would obtain the royal rank. The priests and nobles of 
 Sebaste had joined in accusing Archelaus, from a wish to 
 get rid of their dependence on Jerusalem. Thus, on his 
 arrival in Rome, Archelaus had found himself the victim of 
 every party in Palestine ; Antipas charging him with having 
 governed his people for his own advantage, not for Caesar's 
 glory ; the chief men of Sebaste and Jerusalem with having 
 
ROMAN JUDEA. 149 
 
 broken their sacred laws by taking a prohibited woman to 
 be his wife. 
 
 Like all the princes of his line, Archelaus had been lax 
 in love. Falling into a passion for Glaphyra, queen of Libya, 
 a young and beautiful widow, the daughter of a Cappadocian 
 king, he had put away his own wedded Mariamne, to make 
 Queen Glaphyra his only wife. In her youth, Glaphyra had 
 been married to his brother Alexander, and had borne two 
 sons, Tigranes and Alexander, to that prince. After her 
 first husband's death, she had accepted Juba, king of Libya. 
 When that prince died, and she returned to Syria, Archelaus 
 had seen her and begged her hand, which she had been only 
 too prompt to give. Such a marriage was said to be con- 
 demned by the Oral Law ; though the question of legality, 
 like that between our own Henry and Catharine, might 
 never have been raised but for the secular interests which 
 hung on the validity of a religious rite. 
 
 The Romans in Syria, like the French in Algiers, the 
 English in Bengal, were only too ready in judging and 
 deposing kings. The prince \vho had risked everything for 
 his love, arrived in Italy to find that everything was lost, 
 even love itself ; for no sooner had the senate condemned 
 him to the forfeiture of his province than Glaphyra expired 
 of remorse and shame. Bereft of his rank, his money, and 
 his queen, Antipas was driven away to Vienne, in Gaul, 
 where he spent in exile the remainder of his miserable days. 
 
 Cyrenius, then serving his second term of office in Antioch, 
 received orders from Rome to annex Samaria and Judea to 
 the empire ; holding them with Roman troops and bringing 
 them within the pale of Roman law. Sebaste and Jerusalem 
 being far from Antioch, the mountains difficult and the 
 people turbulent, he was allowed to treat these new districts 
 of the empire as a sub-province, placing them under a 
 Procurator of their own, with a provincial capital at Caesarea 
 on the coast. The new Procurator of Samaria and Judea 
 was armed with the powers of a general and a judge. 
 
 Cyrenius came in person to Jenisalem ; in part to levy 
 
I50 
 
 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 the poll-tax ; but mainly to see the party chiefs, and to 
 settle a form of local government. Joazar, then high priest, 
 an idol of the crowd, by whom he had been elected to his 
 office, induced the people of Jerusalem to make a true return 
 of their numbers and their properties ; a service which the 
 instant revolt of Judas in Galilee enabled Cyrenius to appre- 
 ciate. But the Nobles ha^dng already made their terms with 
 Rome, and Cyrenius knowing that they were the only persons 
 in Jerusalem who could be considered as permanently re- 
 conciled to a foreign yoke, felt no scruple about degrading 
 the Boethusian Joazar from the high priesthood, and 
 raising to that great office the ablest friend of Rome, the 
 leader of the Noble party, Annas, son of Seth. 
 
 Coponius, the first Procurator of Samaria and Judea under 
 this new settlement, placed a small garrison in Zion and a 
 guard at the Temple gate ; but he lived at Caesarea on the 
 sea, leaving the civil government of Jerusalem to Annas and 
 the partners in his glory and his shame. 
 
 The common people, who saw their independence bartered 
 away, who found the popular Boethusians ousted by these 
 aristocratic Sethians, had to bear as they could the fate of 
 outwitted and vanquished men. With the Roman legions 
 came the Roman fiscal system ; harbour dues, port dues, 
 town dues, customs, excise ; in the streets a house-tax, in the 
 markets a fruit-tax, everywhere a poll-tax. The Jews began 
 to groan under the weight, and sicken under the names, of 
 these Roman imposts. More than the rest, a head-tax 
 galled them ; the Separatists understanding it as a sign of 
 their subjection, as indeed it was, and thinking with the 
 Galileans that the payment of this denarius to Csesar was a 
 travesty of the shekel which they gave to God. 
 
 The faces of these poor Jews of the street and market- 
 place grew sad. Not being priests and nobles, having had 
 no foe to punish, no fight to win, they found none of the 
 consolations which they had expected from changing a native 
 for a foreign rule. They only saw that their nationahty was 
 gone, that a stranger dwelt in Zion, that a distant prince 
 
ROMAN yUDEA. 151 
 
 disposed of their fortunes and their lives, while the man who 
 ruled them with the sword could scarcely be considered as 
 higher in rank than the slave of a slave. They were denied 
 that grain of comfort which an Oriental finds in seeing and 
 kissing the foot that grinds him into dust. For many years 
 after Archelaus left Jemsalem, the poor Jews rarely saw the 
 faces of their lords. Augustus dwelt in Rome, Cyrenius in 
 Antioch, Coponius in Csesarea. Jerusalem was garrisoned 
 by a subaltern, governed by a priest. 
 
 Roman officers, whether Legates in Antioch or Procurators 
 in Judea, held their posts, like our governors of Malta and 
 Gibraltar, for three or four years only, and were then re- 
 placed ; though it might chance that a man who was dear to an 
 emperor, or to an emperor's wife, might hold his seat for two or 
 more terms. The following persons reigned at Antioch during 
 the life of Jesus Christ on earth : — Cyrenius and Satuminus ; 
 Varus ; Cyrenius a second time ; Metellus ; Piso ; Satuminus 
 a second time ; Pomponius Flaccus. During the same period 
 of time, the following procurators lived in Csesarea : 
 
 Coponius 6 to 10 a.d. 
 
 Marcus Ambivius . . . . 10 to 13 
 
 Annius Rufus 13 to 14 
 
 Valerius Gratus . . . . 14 to 25 
 
 Pontius Pilate 25 to 35 
 
 For fifteen years, that is to say, from the reign of Coponius 
 to that of Gratus, the settlement made by Cyrenius was 
 undisturbed ; Annas remaining high priest, and the aristo- 
 cratic party ruling Jerusalem in the name of Rome. But 
 Gratus, a new man, sent out by a new Caesar, courting other 
 parties in Judea, removed Annas from his high place, and 
 set up Ishmael, son of Fabus, in his stead. This change 
 caused a mighty uproar in the Temple courts, where the 
 Nobles declared that no high priest had ever yet been 
 deprived by a Gentile judge — a declaration which was hardly 
 true — and the Jewish congregations were told that a high 
 priest could only be deposed from his office by God. 
 
152 THE IIOL Y LAND. 
 
 Gratus soon found that he had made a false move ; though 
 he feared to go back even more than to go on. He might 
 address his courtesies to Ishmael, and compel the people to 
 pay him outward homage ; but he could not make them love 
 him and obey him. With or without an official title, Annas 
 remained the true high priest ; and in the end, Gratus had 
 to yield before this popular force. Degrading Ishmael from 
 his office, the Procurator restored peace to society in Zion 
 by raising Eleazar, a son of Annas, to the vacant seat ; and 
 permitting Annas, under the name of Sagan, deputy, to 
 discharge the spiritual duties and conduct the ceremonial rites. 
 
 The Noble party proved itself in fact, what it had always 
 been in theory, the trustiest friend of Rome. Yet Gratus, 
 having yielded this point from fear of disturbing the public 
 peace, not from his own sense of right, could not help 
 feeling that he had been foiled by Annas ; and when he 
 believed himself strong enough to force his way, he put 
 down Eleazar and set up Simon, son of Kamith, in his post. 
 But the Kamithians proved as weak as the Fabusians, and 
 his second act of opposition was made in vain. Annas had 
 become too powerful in Jerusalem for any man to govern 
 that city against his will. In less than a year, Simon fell as 
 Ishmael had fallen ; and Gratus made peace with the 
 Nobles, by raising Joseph Caiaphas, the Sagan's son-in-law, 
 to the vacant throne. 
 
 When Pilate came into Syria, bringing with him his wife 
 Claudia and a Roman household, he changed in some de- 
 gree the method of Roman rule; living less in Cassarea, 
 more in Zion ; but he was too wise a man to meddle with 
 the Jewish priests in affairs of faith and worship. He kept 
 on good terms with the noble families, striving to win over 
 to his government every one who could help him to preserve 
 the public peace. Annas remained Sagan, Caiaphas High 
 Priest, during the whole ten years of Pilate's reign. 
 
 But if the Noble Party were content with an arrangement 
 that gave them all the ceremonial, and nearly all the civil 
 authority in the State, the Popular party, excluded from 
 
ROMAN JUDEA. 153 
 
 office, and heavily taxed, were much less satisfied with their 
 Roman masters and their partisans the priests. Great 
 numbers of poor herdsmen and artizans became infected 
 with the Galilean views of Simon and James. The Galilean 
 party — being warmer in zeal than the Separatists — was 
 becoming more and more identified with the Popular party, 
 even in Zion. Their spirit was abroad, and the signs of 
 their progress could be read by strangers. When Pilate 
 rode up from Ccesarea to attend the feasts, the people 
 hooted his banners, derided his eagles, and abused his 
 guards. The Gentile glitter and pomp offended their sight; 
 the effigies of Caesar struck them as impious. They knew 
 that Pilate was not a bad man, not a severe man ; they saw 
 that he was courteous, affable, just to every one ; but they 
 also felt that he was a stranger in their land, and master of 
 their properties and their lives. This last was what they 
 could not bear. On inquiry, the Procurator learned that a 
 sect of fanatics had grown up in Galilee, which called no 
 man lord, and that the opinions of this sect were becoming 
 common among the Jews. 
 
 As year by year, the Roman yoke cut deeper into their 
 flesh, the people, finding no comfort in their aristocratic 
 rulers, prayed more and more loudly for that Christ who 
 was to come. One after another, Messiahs were announced, 
 though the end of most of these dreamers was a swift and 
 cruel death. They appealed to the sword, and they perished 
 by the sword. In time the legions got accustomed to these 
 mihtary Messiahs who flung brands into Greek buildings, 
 made war on Doric sculptures, and rushed with a shout on 
 the Roman lines. 
 
 But Pilate was still young in office when he heard the 
 name of a Prophet of another type ; of a man who carried 
 no sword, yet drew after him a mighty crowd ; who never 
 called himself Messiah ; who never cursed the Gentiles ; 
 who never mentioned the subject of a holy war. The name 
 of this Prophet was John. The scene of his preaching was 
 the Wilderness and the Plain of the Dead Sea. 
 
1 54 THE HOL V LA. YD. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 npHE Wilderness in which John the Baptist dweh until 
 -*- his thirtieth year, and into which Jesus when his 
 time arrived passed for his forty days of prayer and watch- 
 ing, begins at the gates of Hebron and Jerusalem, spreads 
 beyond and below these cities to the south and west, and 
 covers the mountain slopes of Judah from the crest of the 
 high table-land of Ramah and Olivet down to the fountain 
 of Elisha and the shores of the Dead Sea. It is a tract of 
 country about the size and shape of Sussex ; not being a 
 mere waste of scorching sands, herbless and waterless all the 
 year, like the deserts of El Arish and Gizeh, but only a dry, 
 unpeopled region, in which the wells are few, the trees low 
 and stunted, the wadies full of stones instead of water, and 
 the caves tenanted by leopards and wolves. It contains no 
 town, not even a village. It has no road, no khan. The 
 fox, the vulture, the hyena prowl about its solitudes. But 
 even in the wilderness nature is not so stern as man. Here 
 and there, in clefts and basins, and on the hill-sides, grade 
 on grade, you observe a patch of corn, a clump of olives, a 
 single palm; but the men who sow the grain, who shake 
 down the fruit, are nowhere to be seen. They dare not 
 stay upon the grounds which they rip with their rude 
 ploughs, or in which with careless husbandry they watch the 
 olive trees grow. They hie away for protection to the ham- 
 lets and watch-towers on the hill-tops; to Maon, Tekoa, 
 
THE WILDERNESS. 155 
 
 Bethlehem, and Bethany ; for the Taamra Bedaween claim 
 to be lords of the soil, and the spring grass and wild herbage 
 tempt the Adouan from El Belka, the ancient Ammon, into 
 these stony parts. No Syrian peasant dares to build his 
 hut on land over which a Bedaween spreads his tent. In 
 the Wilderness of Judah, the children of Esau are still what 
 they were of old, the only abiding sheikhs and kings. 
 
 Suraya's raid into the Arab camp at Hebron, and the 
 murder of those young men near Solomon's Pools, have 
 roused the Bedaween tribes into fury, not only against the 
 Turks, their eternal enemies, but against every stranger who 
 may appear to be travelling through the country under 
 Turkish escort. Hearing of this revengeful passion on 
 their side, and having no desire to be shot under a mistake 
 of flag, we ride over from our tents on Olivet to Abu Dis, 
 an Arab village standing on the hill over against Bethany to 
 the south ; where Ave find the old chief, Mohammed Arikat ; 
 a man half-peasant, half-Bedaween ; a thief, a rebel, some 
 say an assassin, who in his old age, giving up open robbery, 
 has settled down into a safer and more profitable business 
 as agent between those Frank consuls who wish to protect 
 their countrymen from peril, and the Bedaween shiekhs who 
 regard all strangers as their natural prey. Arikat deals in 
 escorts and passes. Paying head-money to the Adouan, 
 and dividing his profits with the Ehtaimat and the Abu n' 
 Sair, two mongrel Arab tribes who skulk about Jericho and 
 the Wady Kelt, he is able to ofter you a protection from 
 assault in the wilderness, which Suraya cannot always give. 
 The bargain may be lawless ; but in Syria where is the man 
 who ever thinks of law ? The peril of that road from Jeru- 
 salem to Jericho is an ancient text. Christ used it in the 
 most beautiful of his parables ; but no good Samaritan 
 travels that way now^ and the roadside inn is a desolate 
 heap of stones. Bowing to facts, the Franks have made a 
 compact v/ith the robbers ; so many piastres, so many 
 lances ; and you may learn as far away as Pera and Cairo 
 how much black mail you must pay to Arikat and his 
 
156 THE HOLY LA yD. 
 
 partners, if on going down from Jerusalem to Jericho you 
 should prefer to avoid the chance of falHng among thieves. 
 
 Our errand is soon done. Arikat offers the service of 
 his son Sheikh Mohammed, and of his nephew Sheikh 
 Abdallah, two fiery young fellows, who come out from the 
 house to see us, shining in shawls and pistols, ready for either 
 a journey or a fray ; counterparts in look and dress, in age 
 and gait, of the young men whom we saw dying and dead 
 in the Hebron road. They hope that peace will be with us. 
 We give them our hands and cigarettes ; and after smoking 
 a whiff of tobacco, and naming the Wady Alya as our place 
 of rendezvous, w^e trot off towards Bethlehem, in the con- 
 vent of which we propose to rest and sleep. 
 
 Early next day in the saddle, we first sweep round the 
 fields in which the shepherds watched their flocks by night \ 
 then ride up to the Mount of Paradise, that singular hill on 
 which Herodion, the gay and voluptuous country house of 
 Herod, rose among gardens and colonnades in the day 
 when Christ was born in the neighbouring cave. Leaving 
 the camel track behind, we strike the wilderness, due east, 
 into the country owned by the Taamra tribe ; our path 
 being mostly down mountainous chasms, steep as the angle 
 of a Gothic roof; now climbing a little way over stony hills, 
 now running along dry river beds ; but always, in the main, 
 going quick and precipitous, down towards the valley of 
 Bahr Lout, the Sea of Lot. The aspects of the country are 
 changing every moment under our eyes. It is not merely 
 that as we advance into the wilderness the land becomes 
 more and more bleak, and parched, and stony ; that there 
 are fewer gardens and shepherds ; that the watchmen 
 cease their patrol ; that the tracks disappear. The very 
 trees and shrubs are in a few hours not the same trees and 
 shrubs as those in our rear. On the western slope of these 
 hills we found a homely and familiar vegetation, mixed 
 with the flora of a more generous clime. In the valleys 
 about Ain Karim, where John is said to have been born, 
 we saw the dwarf oak, the bramble, the rock-rose, the 
 
THE WILDERNESS. 157 
 
 arbutus, growing in the same soil with the fig, the oUve. the 
 carob, and the vine. On the high ridge which Hnks Jeru- 
 salem to Hebron, plants known to our EngHsh woods and 
 fields cease altogether. Beyond this ridge, oak, bramble, 
 rock-rose, and arbutus will not grow. The line of separa- 
 tion is sharp and straight ; for these plants bloom up to the 
 gates of Jerusalem, and there stop, like an army on a march. 
 Not one of the plants just named, it is said, has been found 
 on either Scopas or Olivet. The olive is seen for about an 
 hour's ride further east ; also the carob, and the lentisk ; 
 but these plants nearly cease on a line which may be drawn 
 through Bethany and Beit Sahur. Even among herbs, rue, 
 tamarisk, and planta genista are almost the only familiar 
 names. The wilderness of Judea, so far as it possesses any 
 flora, has a flora of its own. Salsolas, fagonias, zizyphus, 
 alhagi, and artemisia find a parched and precarious life 
 among the rocks and stones, and in the shady river beds. 
 
 A sudden picture on the hill-side in our front — a group 
 of camels standing near a well, with a herd of goats and 
 black cattle, a woman drawing water for them, three or 
 four swarthy and naked children running and shouting 
 among the flock, some asses tugging at the dry herbage — 
 this desert picture causes me to draw the rein and gaze. 
 
 A well is the centre of nearly all that is sweetest in the 
 poetry of Syrian life. It is the spot for which you long in 
 the heat of noon ; near which you spread your canvas at 
 the close of day. In the dreary waste, it offers you a 
 picture, often a drama. It is wedded to the ideas of woman 
 and of love ; for how can you forget that at the well 
 of Haraun, Rebekah gave drink to EHezar, the servant of 
 Abraham, and was chosen by him to be Isaac's wife ; that 
 at the same well of Haraun, Jacob rolled away the stone 
 for Rachel, and having watered her sheep, kissed her and 
 loved her ; that at the well of Midian, Moses drove away 
 the shepherds and assisted Zippora and her six sisters to 
 draw water for the herd ; that at the well of Nazareth, Mary 
 filled her pitcher; that at the well of Sychar, Jesus spoke 
 
158 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 to the woman of Samaria, surprising her by begging a drink 
 of water from one of an unfriendly sect. 
 
 As I sit gazing for an instant on the woman, the camels, 
 and the flock, a wild cry, followed by an explosive crack, 
 comes over a broad ravine on our left; but I no more 
 dream of mischief in such a sound, than one feels on 
 hearing a bird-piece in an English lane. Yakoub takes up 
 the shout with a wiser ear : " Master, Master, come along ; 
 you stop, Taamra think you afraid ; you ride fast, Taamra 
 fire. Come along — slow." No enemy is in sight : no 
 living thing, except the pastoral group in front — the flock, 
 the camels, the children, and the young Arab woman at the 
 well. But as we drop down the glen into the Wady Alya, 
 we get sight of a new set of objects — the black covers of a 
 Bedaween camp ; an old man smoking at the door of his 
 tent; several young men running and shouting; and in 
 front of these, a tall fellow loading a carbine, which he 
 jauntily lifts and fires. A figure on the left is rapidly descend- 
 ing the ravine, along the opposite edge of which we are 
 moving towards the east. We have no reason either to 
 fear the gun or to return the fire ; for the dip between the 
 two slopes is a mile in width, and we have long ago learned 
 to smile at the range of these Syrian toys. 
 
 Still, it is a sombre sort of joke to be fired into by Arabs, 
 even at a long range ; and as every step is carrying us 
 deeper into our neighbours' lair, we begin to think it would 
 be well for our sheikhs to appear in sight. Why have 
 these shots been fired ? Are they meant to repel intrusion 
 on their land, or only to warn us from using the water of 
 their well ? Ishmael and Said take the latter view, which 
 is afterwards confirmed by our Bedaween sheikhs. 
 
 In Palestine, water is life, and the laws which regulate 
 springs and wells are stern. A well is a work of labour ; 
 of labour and art combined; the limestone rock through 
 which it is sunk being hard, and the shaft having sometimes 
 to be pierced a hundred, nay, a hundred and fifty feet. 
 None but the rich and mighty can afford the cost of boring 
 
THE WILDERNESS. 159 
 
 thus deep into the earth. The most famous princes have 
 been makers of wells and pools, of aqueducts and tanks ; 
 Abraham and Solomon among the Hebrews : Haroun and 
 Saladin among the Arabs ; the Mohammedan rajahs of 
 India, the Moorish caliphs in Spain. To drill a hole into 
 the rock is an act of piety and grace, as well as of power ; 
 and the Arab saying is, that the water-provider will be 
 always blest, being daily remembered by the faithful in 
 their hour of prayer. Some springs and wells have names 
 in history, like to\vns and hills — to wit, Beer-sheba, the 
 well of oaths ; Beer-elim, the well of heroes. Marah, the 
 well of bitter waters, Esek, the well of strife, Sitnah, the 
 well of accusation, are also famous names. Jacob's well 
 near Sychar, Joseph's well near Safed, Moses' well near 
 Suez, are known with more certainty than half our sacred 
 sites. 
 
 By a Syrian custom, older than the oldest law, a well 
 belongs to the man who makes it, and after he is gone, 
 it belongs for ever to his family and his tribe. No lapse 
 of time is held to disturb this sacred right. The pastures 
 of a country-side may be free to all, but the waters of a 
 well are the sacred property of one. To fill up a well is an 
 act of invasion, a challenge to the tribe who own it, a 
 summons of the people to repel force by force. When the 
 Philistines threw earth and stones into Abraham's wells, 
 they meant to efface the witnesses to his having a property 
 in the plain. "When Isaac returned with his flock to Gerar, 
 the herdsmen of Sharon fought with his servants about the 
 water rights, not about his consumption of herbs and grain. 
 The lord of the water is lord of the land. A well is evidence 
 of the owner's property in the soil ; a landmark and a sign 
 which cannot be gainsaid. No bond, no covenant, will in 
 Palestine either last so long, or acquire so wide a fame. 
 A stone may fall ; a pillar may be stolen ; but a shaft cut 
 down into the solid rock can hardly ever be destroyed. 
 Seventeen hundred years after Jacob bought the field and 
 dus: the well in Samaria, the woman of Sychar, in her con- 
 
1 60 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 versation with our Lord, appealed to it in her argument 
 a^^ainst the Jews ; and only the other day, at a distance 
 of eic^hten hundred years from that memorable noontide 
 talk, we pilgrims from the far West stood beside that well 
 near Sychar, finding the curb stones gone, much of the 
 shaft filled up, the outer walls broken and heaped, yet the 
 hollow still damp, though the season is very dry, as if water 
 would flow at a mere tap of the earth. 
 
 While guarding his right over the spring, a Syrian never 
 refuses to share his last drop of water with his brother man. 
 The well is his own, for his own use, and for that of his 
 house ; but the water is a gift of God, which every man and 
 Avoman is free to share. But the Arab draws a line. He 
 will give drink to the stranger, though he may deny it to 
 the stranger's beast. When the supply runs short, as in the 
 fall before rain, the camel and the horse, as we had found 
 at Bab el Wady, may be sent from the troughs parched and 
 maddened with thirst. Are the hills in the Wady Alya less 
 dry than the plains of Sharon ? Have the Taamra of the 
 wilderness more water to give, than the fellahs of Latrun 
 have to sell? 
 
 No doubt the Taamra, fearing that their supplies may 
 fail, would give us to understand by these shots that our 
 troop of horses and mules must not take water from their 
 well. 
 
 A Taamra claims not only an exclusive right over the 
 few springs of this dry district, but pretends to have an 
 exclusive knowledge of their whereabouts. These little 
 reservoirs of moisture in the wilderness are his best defence 
 against the invasion of regular troops, and the Bedaween 
 knows how to hide them with elaborate art. 
 
 A young Frank was one day chatting with the seraskier 
 about these desert tribes, and between two puff's of his 
 chibouque delivered himself of an opinion that a regiment 
 of English rifles and a company of London police would in 
 two months purge all the wadies round Jerusalem from this 
 black pestilence of tents. The grave Oriental smiled, and 
 
THE WILDERNESS. i6i 
 
 for a moment the wide-awake and the turban dipped towards 
 each other over the pipe of peace. In the hlac cloud which 
 rose and curled before the Frank, a picture grew into 
 shape : — scene, a wild hilly country in the Abruzzi ; figures, 
 a captain in green dress and dark feathers, leading on men, 
 agile as panthers, armed to the teeth, and of a courage and 
 endurance equal to their speed ; action, the failing chase of 
 a ragged bandit, ill-fed, ill-armed, who had his home in the 
 forest. And looking into this familiar picture, the Saxon 
 also smiled. " The problem," said the seraskier, laying down 
 his pipe, " is how to follow the Bedaween in their flight. 
 They ride upon good mares. They know the wells. A 
 mounted troop must carry food, must count on finding 
 water. The sun is fierce, and there is neither tree for 
 shade nor town for rest. When the Bedaween find them- 
 selves pressed by an enemy, they stop the wells." 
 
 This power of stopping the well has always been the 
 Syrian's best defence. When the Assyrians were preparing 
 to invade Judah, how did Hezekiah meet them? He 
 fought against the Assyrians as the Taamra would now 
 fight against the Turks, by concealing the wells. 
 
 As the sun sinks at our back, the absence of Mohammed 
 and Abdallah gives an opportunity for gloomy thoughts, of 
 which we try to seize advantage. Night is coming on. 
 Every stride may be taking us further into a snare. A 
 fox starts in our path, a vulture broods on a crag and 
 disdains to fly. The yelp of a jackal comes from a cave. 
 On a high tell we catch the figure of an Arab, erect, a 
 carbine in his hand. From many trifling signs we note 
 that the Taamra are about us, near, though unseen. By all 
 poetic rules we ought to be cowed and silent, eager and 
 alert ; but there seems to be in the air, in the saddle, in the 
 darkness, a spring of animal joy and daring which wakes 
 the spirit like a rouse of wine, like a plunge into the sea. 
 All our best eftbrts to feel hushed and tragic fail. We hum 
 snatches of old tunes, and exchange repartees and tales \ 
 and when in the pause of an Arab song we catch the voices 
 
 M 
 
1 62 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 of our Arikat sheikhs in the wady far below us, we hail 
 them with a laughing protest that they have only met us 
 to spoil our fun. 
 
 It is nearly dark when we reach the towers of Mar Saba, 
 a Greek convent built in the Cedron gorge, midway from 
 Zion to Bahr Lout, in perhaps the very wildest spot on the 
 earth's surface ; appealing all the more to the imagination 
 from the close proximity of a Christian chapel and a Beda- 
 ween camp. 
 
'JOHN THE BAPTIST. 163 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 JOHN THE BAPTIST. 
 
 " I TIIS convent of Mar Saba — we should write it Saint 
 Saba — was founded in the fifth century by a Syrian 
 monk, of wondrous piety, singular taste, and some literary 
 fame. This member of the Greek church composed the 
 Typicus, a book of prayer which all the religious bodies in 
 Judea adopted as their o\\ti. Having wandered on foot 
 through the wildest gorges and deserts of Palestine in search 
 of some spot more savage and sacred than all the rest, in 
 which he might serve his Maker and lay his unworthy bones, 
 he found what he had long sought in this ravine of the 
 Wady Cedron. Nature had torn a cleft in the hill-side ; 
 bare rocks glowed white and hot in the sun ; a little wild 
 herbage grew in inaccessible nooks ; the wilderness howled 
 around him; and the Dead Sea simmered in the valley 
 do"\vn below. The wolf, the lion, and the vulture were his 
 only neighbours. Lying in the Cedron glen, with Essene 
 farms not distant, this cleft had already the charm and the 
 reputation of a holy place. On the walls of the glen were a 
 number of natural caves, like those which abound higher up 
 in the hills near Bethlehem and the Mount of Paradise ; 
 and on climbing to one of these caves, and peering into its 
 mouth, the saint beheld a lion crouching in his lair. Bid- 
 ding the savage beast depart, and being instantly obeyed, 
 Saba felt that this lion's den was the proper place for him to 
 choose j so, entering into possession of his estate, he made 
 
i64 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 the lion's bed in the rock his home. Tapping the ground 
 for water, a spring leapt forth at his feet ; a spring of soft, 
 svv^eet water, which flows, in proof of the miracle, to this 
 very day, under the convent wall. Many anchorites are 
 said to have gathered round the saint, that they might live 
 in the odour of his sanctity ; some had probably been there 
 before his arrival ; for we are told that when Saba died in 
 yon den up the rocky stairs, he left a population in this 
 desolate ravine, and on the stony heights above it, equal to 
 that of Jerusalem in the present day. 
 
 Some members of the Jewish schools — Essenes and 
 Pharisees — were residents here in the reign of Herod the 
 Great ; the place having all the best qualities which the 
 sterner Jews, of whatever rite, would desire in one of their 
 holy retreats. It was not far from Jerusalem, the Temple 
 of which could be seen from a neighbouring height. It was 
 a lonely spot, having nothing in its soil and climate to 
 attract either the Arab robber or the Roman lord. It was 
 too dry to admit of fields and gardens, too hot to allow of 
 a luxurious life. Yet there was some little moisture for man 
 and beast, and a patch of mould on the rocks here and 
 there enabled the anchorites to grow a mouthful of lentils 
 and barley. Of one such recluse from the world we get a 
 parting peep in a Jewish scribe. Banus, a Pha,risee of the 
 hardest rule, was a man who dwelt in a cave, who wore a 
 shirt of leaves, \^ho ate no other food than herbs and roots 
 of the desert, who soused his body in cold water day and 
 night, to render himself clean and chaste. Banus drew to 
 his cave the young men of rank and credit from Jerusalem. 
 Josephus, the historian, is said to have lived with him in 
 the desert for upwards of three years. 
 
 His cell may have been at this present Mar Saba ; for a 
 cave, and a spring, and a savage nook, were all here ready 
 to his hand, within three hours' ride of the Bethlehem gate. 
 
 Some part of the same glen was probably the abode of 
 John the Baptist, cousin of our Lord. 
 
 Of John's early life, before he went down to the Jordan 
 
JOHN THE BAPTIST. 165 
 
 ford in his camel's-hair shirt, and began to call in a loud 
 voice on the Jews to repent of their sins and be baptized, 
 we have only a glimpse. He is said in the Syrian legends 
 to have been bom at Ain Karim, a pretty and verdant spot 
 in the hills, about five miles west of Jerusalem. Some say 
 he was born at Jutta, a town or hamlet six or seven miles 
 to the south of Hebron. Either way, his family was of 
 saintly race ; his father Zachariah being a priest of the 
 Temple, his mother Elizabeth a daughter of the house of 
 Aaron, and a kinsv/oman of the Virgin Mary. From his 
 birth John had been vowed, like Samson and Samuel, to 
 live as a Nazarite ; that is to say, he had been pledged — 
 just as a baby in Sicily and Andalusia may be pledged to 
 the convent — to the observance of certain ancient and 
 ascetic rites : to drink no wine, to eat no grapes, to abstain 
 from fermented juices and from dainty food, to pass no 
 comb through his beard, to use no razor on his head, to 
 dress in the coarsest garb, to indulge in no warm baths, to 
 touch no dead body, not even that of either father or mother, 
 wife or child. Thus, from his birth upwards, he was a holy 
 man, set apart for the service of God. 
 
 At an early period of his life he retired, like Banus, into 
 the wilderness ; which, whether his home were at Jutta or 
 Ain Karim, lay near at hand; retiring from the sight of 
 Jewish corruption, of Grecian luxury, and of Roman might. 
 The Zion from which he fled was that city of Herod and 
 Pilate which the new palaces, theatres, and baths, the 
 soldiers, ensigns, eagles, and inscriptions, had transformed 
 into something more like Athens and Antioch than the city 
 in which David dwelt ; a change unbearable to a pious Jew, 
 who counted the subtleties of Greek art as so many abomi- 
 nations in the sight of God. Going out into the wild 
 country, John put away the robe of his family and his order, 
 to don the garb which had been worn by Elijah and the 
 prophets ; a sack of camel's-hair cloth, caught in at the waist 
 by a leathern zone ; the dress still worn by the children of 
 Abu Dis. It was the habit of all the holy men of old, from 
 
1 66 1HE HOL V LAND. 
 
 the days of Elijah, the man of God, who stood before Ahab 
 and his Sidonian queen, clothed in his shaggy locks, his 
 shirt and girdle, and his mantle of sheep-skin. For the 
 ancient prophets, like the more recent Essenes, setting their 
 faces against crowded streets, and warning their countrymen 
 how much their virtues had decayed in towns, exhorted 
 them, even more by dress and picture than by words, to 
 appease the wrath of God by returning to the simplicities of 
 Arab life. " To your tents, O Israel !" had been the cry of 
 reformers in every age. 
 
 All the great teachers had practised what they taught. 
 Moses retired from the people into Mount Sinai. Elijah 
 lived apart from the world at Cherith. Some sort of retreat, 
 accompanied by prayer and fasting, was the needful prepa- 
 ration for a holy and active life. 
 
 John followed in the wake of Elijah, Jesus in the wake 
 of John. 
 
 To his cave in this desert wady, John drew multitudes of 
 people from Jerusalem, Jericho, and the cities of Judah and 
 Samaria. Many Jews were inclined to believe that the 
 Shiloh whom they expected had come in John. His voice, 
 his garb, his unshaven crown, his abstinence from wine and 
 grapes, his fieiy eloquence, calling on the people to repent 
 and live, inflamed the imaginations of a suffering, supersti- 
 tious, and expectant race. Some said he was Elijah come 
 again. For the Jews, in exercising a poetical instinct which 
 is the common spoil of conquered yet unbroken races, 
 dreamed that Elijah, the most popular figure in their history, 
 would come to life again ; just as our ancient Britons ex- 
 pected Arthur to revive, and the modern Portuguese imagined 
 Sebastian would awake. 
 
 Among the men who came to see and question John, 
 hoping that he would prove to be their Messiah, were a 
 knot of young friends from the lake country of Galilee ; 
 very strict Jews ; enthusiasts for their creed and race. Two 
 of these young men were brothers, Andrew and Simon, sons 
 ofjona of Capernaum. The third young man was John, 
 
JOHN- THE BAPTIST. 167 
 
 son of Zebedee, also of Capernaum. Jona and Zebedee 
 were boatmen and fishennen on the lake ; men doing well 
 in the world ; having boats of their own, and hiring servants 
 to cast out their nets. Old neighbours in Capernaum, and 
 partners in their humble craft, they had seen their sons 
 grow up as companions from the cradle, playing on the 
 beach, handling the tackle, sitting in the same synagogue, 
 until they were young men. These youths had listened to the 
 same Galilean preachers ; they talked with each other about 
 the Messiah and the holy war, and went up to Passover in the 
 same caravan. As the caravan in which they travelled came 
 down to Bethabara, they would hear of John the Baptist; 
 and being full of hope for a priest and king who could drive 
 out the stranger and restore David's kingdom, they attached 
 themselves to his side, receiving baptism at his hands, and 
 expecting every day that he would declare himself the Son 
 of God. 
 
 John told his eager audience that he was not Elias come 
 again ; that he was not the Messiah whom they sought ; 
 that he was but a man who had been chosen to announce 
 God's coming, and prepare His way. The Deliverer, then, 
 had not yet come ; a needful warning to declare ; since the 
 two martial sects of the Herodians and the Galileans taught 
 that the Lord had already lived and died. John told his 
 people that the true Christ was still to come ; that he would 
 come soon ; the kingdom of heaven being nigh at hand. 
 
 He said the kingdom of heaven, not that of the earth. 
 These were strange tidings for a Jew to preach and for the 
 Jews to hear. For neither in Samaria nor in Judea was 
 any other kind of Saviour expected than a mighty prince, 
 one who should prove himself greater than Herod, happier 
 than Judas. If every heart was inflamed with the desire 
 of change, that change was understood to be one of politics 
 and state, beginning in a new Revolt of Modin, passing 
 through fire and blood to empire, closing in a defeat of 
 C^sar, a destruction of the Greek cities, an expulsion of 
 strangers from the land, and a personal reign of the Christ 
 
i68 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 on earth. A Jew found it very hard to conceive of a 
 mighty change that should be personal only — an inward, 
 not a visible revolution. John proclaimed this startling 
 fact, that the coming change was to be one effected in the 
 spirit of man. 
 
 But more than this germ of a new gospel lay in the words 
 he uttered. He called upon the people to repent and be 
 baptized. Repent of what? Were they not the chosen 
 race ? Had they not Abraham for their father ? Why, too, 
 should they go down into the Jordan and be baptized ? 
 Baptism was a rite performed upon an alien, not upon a 
 Jew. The Greek, the Syrian, the Ethiopian, needed bap- 
 tism ; and such an ordinance for strangers who had joined 
 their church they could understand. But a Jew was a man 
 born into the true church. If they were sons of Moses, 
 how could they require this outward sign ? 
 
 The truth was, they were not sons of Moses ; they had 
 forgotten his teaching, and replaced his law. The people 
 had suffered a vital loss, of which they appeared to be 
 unaware. They had separated themselves from their ancient 
 faith. And this was not only the truth, but the key to 
 nearly all other truths. 
 
JE WISH PAR TIES. 1 69 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 JEWISH PARTIES. 
 
 "XITHEN John began to preach, the Jews proper- 
 
 vv 
 
 excludinsf Samaritans and Gahleans — were divided 
 
 ^t5 
 
 into the three great bodies of Sadducees, Pharisees, and 
 Essenes. Most of the Sadducees v/ere men of birth and 
 rank ; princes of the royal house, sons of high priests, heads 
 of great houses, and their kin. Annas was a Sadducee. 
 As a rule, all the old families, and most of the rich families, 
 belonged to this aristocratic school. 
 
 There was something nobler in the Sadducees than their 
 noble blood, though their virtues had already gone much to 
 seed, and many among them seemed to have no higher aim 
 in life than that of making the Law of Moses a means of 
 advancement in Caesar's court. Their masters had taught 
 them that virtue is its own reward, and that a good man 
 will do what is right because it is right, without being 
 spurred into his duty by hope and fear. But they drew 
 from this doctrine a conclusion which is not in the premiss : 
 — that the lure of enjoyment and the threat of pain were 
 pious frauds, strong enough to impose on carpenters and 
 goatherds, but unworthy to enslave a scholar's mind. 
 They showed a genius for Hellenic poetry and art, and 
 found much to admire in Egypt and in Rome. But, then, 
 they were too proud to render their acquirements useful to 
 the land which they governed, and a people whom they 
 despised. 
 
1 70 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 Rich, accomplished, high in station, the Sadducees could 
 defy public opinion, and laugh at the pretensions of more 
 humble priests. A fellow in rags, droppmg on his knee to 
 a rabbi little richer than himself, was a favourite jest with 
 them ; as was also the notion of a tailor going up into the 
 Temple and paying half a shekel to a priest for the 
 redemption of his soul. They said the fellow had no soul 
 to save, and they knew the priest had no salvation to sell, 
 In their daily lives they were easy and quiet ; free from 
 zeal ; indifferent to applause \ blind to all wrongs of their 
 race ; affable to strangers ; inclined to pleasure, yet staid 
 and decorous in their outward mien ; careless of affairs so 
 long as the streets were quiet, and nobody disputed their 
 rank and place. Filling many great offices in the Temple 
 and the city, it was their duty, not less than their desire, to 
 stand firmly by the two great powers of Csesar and of God. 
 
 As to their articles of faith — the faith which they held in 
 private — these noble Sadducees, rejecting the idea that a 
 man should do right from so base a motive as either greed or 
 terror, put their trust in the Mosaic Law and in that law 
 only; casting from them as so much priestly rubbish, all 
 traditions and additions ; all theories, commentaries, secret 
 doctrines, mystical rubrics and interpretations ; all rites and 
 ceremonies, all extensions and developments, which they 
 could not find in the language of their sacred books. A 
 doctrine not found in the Pentateuch they refused to admit on 
 any one's word. Thus, they refused to believe in a resur- 
 rection and an after life. Nothing being said of a soul of 
 man, of an existence after death, by Moses, they put that 
 doctrine down as an invention ; a bit of police, clever in its 
 way ; being at one and the same time a consolation to the 
 poor and a profit to the rich. But such an invention was, 
 in their opinion, good only for the mob, not for scholars 
 and princes. On the contrary side, they taught their sons 
 that the soul dies with the body ; that God has no concern 
 with the affairs of men ; that the human will is free ; and 
 that man is either good or evil by his own election. 
 
JEniSH PAR TIES. 171 
 
 All Jews believed in some sort that the Lord is with his 
 people in the flesh ; with them in the synagogue and the 
 lonely place, at seed-time and harvest, in the chamber and 
 on the march; blessing their obedience to his will by 
 fruitful fields, abounding herds, health, triumph in war, 
 beautiful captives, love, respect, the high seats of the table 
 • — more than all other gifts by length of days and homes 
 full of sons and grandsons. But these Sadducees taught that 
 God's promise to be with his people ends at the tomb. 
 Their God was a God of the earth, of which it was their 
 happiness and their virtue to possess a magnificent share. 
 They laughed at all fables of a life beyond the grave; 
 deriding the notion of angels and spirits ; the sole heaven 
 of which they had any knowledge being about them, in the 
 palaces of Zion, in the gardens of Ophel, in the fountains of 
 Siloam. 
 
 Hence, though a Sadducee might send a kid to the altar 
 and a shekel to the priest, in deference to usage, as Socrates 
 sacrificed a fowl to the gods in whom he put no trust, he 
 offered no private prayers and supplications to Heaven. A 
 garden of palms and olives, of grapes and figs, made the 
 paradise of his heart. Content with his lot on earth, 
 having no hope of heaven and no fear of hell, this learned 
 and refined voluptuary was satisfied to eat and drink, to 
 maintain the peace, and to despise the mob. Men of his 
 easy faith may be found in every country and in every 
 clime. To wear soft raiment next the skin, to eat from 
 golden platters, to dwell in sumptuous mansions, to marry 
 lovely wives, to be served by clouds of servants, to enjoy 
 rank and precedence among men, are strong temptations to 
 the soul. A man may delight in such things without sin ; 
 yet men who would rather be rich than free, happy than 
 good, are not the heroes who will rouse their country from 
 that torpor which commences in excess and ends in death. 
 These Sadducees — in other words the party of Nobles, the 
 friends of Annas — supported Pilate, and lent no countenance 
 to the policy of revolt. 
 
1 72 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 The Pharisees, the second party in point of age, the first 
 m strength of numbers, were a body of men professing to 
 be set apart, selected from the mass, A Pharisee was one 
 of the saints ; one of those for whom the earth was made ; 
 a special object of Almighty care. These Separatists 
 believed that it was only for a time, and only for their good, 
 that God was ruling them by a Roman sword. A little 
 while, and they would chase these legions into the sea. 
 The Lord had promised them this deliverance from of old, 
 written it down in their sacred books. They were always 
 quoting this great Charter, always expecting a Deliverer to 
 arrive. 
 
 In the sense which the Separatists put on the word 
 patriot, they were patriots in the first degree ; men to whom 
 the Roman yoke was odious, and liberty sweeter than love 
 and Hfe. 
 
 To be ready was their motto. Either soon or late they 
 knew that a Deliverer must come \ every eye was straining 
 for him, every heart yearning towards him ; and on his 
 coming they believed that the kingdom of the stranger would 
 melt away, and Christ would reign over his saints for a 
 thousand years. That God was angry with them for their 
 sins, they could well conceive ; evidence of the divine 
 wrath being visible on every side of them ; in the dominion 
 of Caesar, in the prosperity of Samaria, in the cormption of 
 their high priests, in the erection of heathen temples, in the 
 popularity of Ionic arts. But they told each other that God 
 could not be angry with His own for ever. As He had re- 
 membered them in Egypt and in Babylon, so would He re- 
 member them once again. The night of their trial had been 
 long, but surely the dawn was about to break. They must be 
 ready. It was a patriot's duty to get his house in order, to 
 scour his shield, to sharpen his lance. When the blast of 
 the Deliverer sounded, it should not find his sword rusting 
 in its scabbard, the cord of his bow broken, the edge of his 
 battle-axe bent. 
 
 Dreaming of a revolt like that of Modin, of an onset like 
 
 1^ V/X M, iV^YVXI. Xil>.>^ HXtVl, V/i XIJ.X^V.1111, 
 
JEWISH PARTIES. 173 
 
 that of Adasa, the younger Pharisees passed their days in 
 watching events, in exciting the people, in preparing for 
 war. Unhke the luxurious Sadducees, they loved their 
 country and religion better than their lives. In every street 
 riot, in every temple uproar, they had a part. They yelled 
 after Pilate's banner, they urged the GaHleans to revolt. 
 As no man could tell when the day of deliverance might 
 arrive, they held it a sacred duty to be present in every 
 fray, never shrinking from a brush with the soldiers and 
 magistrates of Rome. Who should say? In one of these 
 street riots, the trumpets of celestial warriors might be 
 heard, and the Lord of Hosts might descend in their front 
 with his flaming sword. 
 
 In their religious creed, the Pharisees held a ground of 
 their own ; deriving their theory from the Oral Law, and 
 putting as its foundation an idea in which the School of 
 Hillel and the School of Shammai found themselves agreed. 
 This idea was that God acts on man through temperament, 
 so that his nature and his will are one ; a doctrine which 
 enabled them to teach that a man's deeds and misdeeds are 
 his own, not God's, although God may foreknow when a 
 child is bom every act which he will commit between birth 
 and death. 
 
 The Pharisees believed in an after life ; in a resurrection 
 of the body ; in a scale of rewards for the good and punish- 
 ments for the bad. Being told by the Sadducees that no 
 such theories could be found in their sacred books, they 
 answered that they derived them from the Oral Law, which 
 all the colleges and schools in Israel then taught as of 
 equal authority with the Mosaic text. 
 
 Like the zealots of every creed and nation, some of the 
 Pharisees made a public display of their opinions and of 
 their hopes ; walking the streets with affected gait ; their 
 heads inclined to the earth, their eyes half-closed, their thin 
 lips moving as if in prayer. They took the high seats in 
 their synagogues; they kept the great festivals with 
 ostentatious zeal ; they called on men to witness how strict 
 
1 74 THE HOL V LA ND. 
 
 they were ; they placed on their brows those frontlets of 
 parchment called phylacteries, on which they inscribed a 
 number of Scripture texts ; wearing them not only when 
 they ehtered the synagogue, and during the hours of prayer, 
 but while they stood in the public street, and when they sat 
 do^vn privately at meat. By this addition to their dress 
 they meant to say that they were consecrated priests, that 
 every act of their lives was holy, and that every moment of 
 the day was given by them to God. 
 
 A Jew wore a red stripe on his mantle to distinguish him 
 at sight from an Arab and a Greek j a difference of tribe 
 being always denoted in Palestine by a difference in the 
 garb. To excite more comment, a Pharisee wore this red 
 stripe very broad, making of it what an Irish Celt makes of 
 his green ribbon, a pious and a seditious badge. As he 
 soared in devotion, or sank in despair, he increased the 
 phylacteries on his brow and broadened the red band on 
 his cloak. For with him, worship was a public act ; and he 
 rent his clothes instead of rending his heart. His virtue 
 was impatience, his religion hate. In every movement of 
 his body he wished it to be understood that he was throw- 
 ing down a challenge to the magistrates of Rome. 
 
 Yet many good men, and not a few learned men, were 
 Pharisees. Of this sect was Josephus the historian. 
 Abtalion, Hillel, Shammai, Simeon, Jonathan ben Uziel 
 were Pharisees. Gamaliel was a Pharisee, and Paul was 
 educated in the school of the Pharisees. 
 
 The Essenes, youngest and meekest of the three great 
 parties, were a protest of nature against the easy unbelief of 
 certain priests and princes of the church. They ran into a 
 wild extreme of faith. But, like the Sadducees, they took no 
 part in street politics, dreamt of no Messiah, and strongly 
 opposed the theory of revolt. 
 
 In place of teaching that God has abandoned his 
 children to the government of their own vices, the Essenes 
 taught that Heaven is present in every act performed by 
 every human creature, and that so closely that a man is 
 
JEWISH PARTIES. 175 
 
 neither good nor evil in himself, but only in so far as may- 
 be given to him by the grace and ordinance of God. In 
 place of saying that the ends of life are to feast and marry, 
 to govern and grow rich, to take in turn your pleasure and 
 revenge, they said, by word and deed, that a righteous man 
 should feed on coarse fare, that he would do well to keep 
 single, that he ought to exercise no authority over his 
 fellows, and that when he had weaned his flesh from the 
 world, and become one of the elect, he should sell his lands, 
 and throw all his substance into the common fund. 
 
 The Essenes preached the immortality of the soul, the 
 duty and blessedness of prayer, the merit of submission to 
 God. 
 
 Putting away from them everything which most of the 
 Jews prized so highly — courts, attendance, titles, palaces, 
 gardens, hareems, even books and study, art and music — 
 many of these pious men retired into the desert wadies, 
 where they made it a part of their holy rite to till the soil, 
 to rear bees and birds, to tend sheep and goats, to train 
 vines, grow pulse and corn, wear camel's-hair garments, and 
 to live in their own persons a chaste and homely life. 
 Their aim was to be good for the sake of goodness, and 
 neither to seek nor to accept a recompense for virtue. 
 They strove to be always holy in thought and pure in 
 heart. 
 
 As to the outward facts of his life, an Essene was more 
 than half a monk, but a monk of the most simple and least 
 earthly type. He was bound to dwell apart from the 
 world ; to own neither money nor land, to enjoy no solace 
 of wife and child, to labour for the bread which he ate, to 
 dress in coarse cloth, to rise with the sun, and to fast from 
 food on the Sabbath day. 
 
 In his views and in his habits there was an underlying 
 lode of virtue. An Essene swore no oath. He taught the 
 sinfulness of war, even when war was waged in defence. 
 He held the sacred gospel that under no confusion of right 
 and wrong was a man to be made a slave. 
 
176 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 Like the Sadducees, the Essenes were few in number, as 
 a cehbate order must always be ; but they were of singular 
 power for so small a sect. They nursed the sick and fed 
 the poor. They set a high example of purity and chastity, 
 virtues which, when voluntary, excite a strange respect in 
 the minds of an Oriental crowd. In the midst of much 
 moral corruption and a great spiritual blight, they helped 
 to keep ahve in Jewry some knowledge of the noblest 
 truths. 
 
 The chief seats of this sect were pitched on the western 
 shores of the Dead Sea, about the present Ras el Feshka, 
 and along the slopes of the wilderness by Mar Saba and 
 Ain Jidy. Some of them dwelt in the villages below Beth- 
 lehem. One of the gates of Jerusalem bore their name. 
 Taking no part in affairs, the Essenes gave no trouble to 
 the ruling powers, and their doctrine of obedience was a 
 support to the actual prince. For if an Essene lent no 
 active force to the government, he held that revolt was 
 unlawful ; not because the prince was doing right, but 
 because revolt was contrary to the law of love. An Essene 
 could not tolerate strife, and least of all strife in a holy cause. 
 No pupil of his school was allowed to make a sword, a spear, 
 or any other weapon by which man could be slain. 
 
 Herod the Great had given his favour to these harmless 
 breeders of bees and birds, and Menachem, one of their 
 chiefs, had exercised a merciful influence in the tyrant's 
 court. 
 
 Menachem was a Jewish William Penn. 
 
THE DEAD SEA. 177 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE DEAD SEA 
 
 "O ESTING for the night at Mar Saba, in the wady 
 Cedron, near the seats of these Essenes and Pharisees 
 of old, we spring to our feet as the clocks chime twelve, 
 souse our heads in a dish of water, like Banus and Mena- 
 chem, swallow from the hands of Brother Demetrius a glass 
 of raki, smoke a cheroot on the stone teiTace, near the lion's 
 cave, and leap into the saddle by two o'clock. No moon 
 is out ; but the stars are raining showers of glory into the 
 wild abyss; touching the yellow rocks, the isolated towers, 
 the Gothic chapel, the massive walls and flanks with a 
 lustrous and a sombre spirit. Outside the iron gate, which 
 no Bedaween and no woman is allowed to pass, and which 
 no man may enter without an order from the Greek Patriarch 
 of Jerusalem; on the broad stone ramp, sit our Arab 
 sheikhs, Mohammed and Abdallah, on their slim little 
 mares ; lithe fellows, dark-eyed, fierce, their hands grasping 
 long Arab spears, their belts full of handsome old pistols, 
 useless in a skirmish, but invaluable in a rack. Yakoub, 
 our Maronite guide, and Said, the Nubian muleteer, are 
 packing the baggage, and roping it to the mule. Ishmael is 
 jingling his pouch of piastres and putting the charcoal fire 
 to my second cheroot. Demetrius, the holy brother who had 
 served us with raki and shown us the skulls of six hundred 
 saints, all monks of Mar Saba, stands by with his lantern, 
 
 N 
 
1 78 THE HOL V LA ND. 
 
 keeping an eye on the Bedaween sheikhs, and murmuring 
 softly of backshish ; while a band of his fellow monks are 
 chanting lauds in a chapel hung round with lamps, and the 
 chime of the convent bell goes booming in silvery thunder 
 down the glen. 
 
 For five hours after quitting Mar Saba we see neither 
 house nor man, though we start many a wild fox and 
 vulture, and pass by many a dead camel and ass. This is 
 the district given by tradition to the Forty Days. In a dry 
 well, we find a leopard, which falling into the hole, has 
 died for lack of prey. It is just the kind of pit into which 
 Reuben might have cast his brother Joseph; deep, but 
 without water, and lying near the highway of travel through 
 the wilderness. 
 
 Ere we drop down from the hills of Judah into the ghor 
 or plain, the sun has got up high in heaven; and as we 
 gaze into the valley below, the blue and shining waters of 
 the Bahr Lout appear to our blinking eyes more lovely than 
 the tenderest of Italian lakes when seen from the Alpine 
 tops. How long those tantalizing waters are in sight ! 
 Sinking from dip to dip, we come upon a wide and broken 
 terrace of fine mould, mixed with chalk, which from the 
 heights above had seemed to be the natural bed or level of 
 the plain. But when we reach this terrace, it is found to be 
 only the first and broadest of successive levels. We fall to 
 a second, then to a third smooth table of alluvial soil. 
 These stairs by which you descend from the lowest range of 
 hills to the ghor, the true level of the Dead Sea, have a 
 common character, produced no doubt by a common cause. 
 They have all been under water. Where they have not 
 been worn and furrowed, their smoothness is like that of a 
 sandy beach. They are lapped by ancient shore lines, 
 ribbed by ancient waves. Near the lake end of the river 
 bed the plain is dotted with a multitude of cojies or tells, 
 about fifty feet high, their crowns level with each other, and 
 their sides smooth and round as the ebb and flow of water 
 will wear a platform of marl and clay. These cones are 
 
THE DEAD SEA. 
 
 179 
 
 SO regular in shape as to resemble works of art ; the tombs 
 of sheikhs in times when men were giants, with natural 
 pyramids for graves. 
 
 At some remote period of the earth's history, the great 
 hollow of the Jordan has been full of water, and the terraces 
 of chalk and sand, of g)Apsite, chert, and tufa, have been 
 formed by the sudden and successive lowerings of a mighty 
 inland sea. 
 
 By the Am el Feshka, a saline spring in the ancient 
 territories of the Essenes, we ride into a brake, or forest of 
 canes, oleanders, agnus cacti, and prickly shrubs ; ride into 
 it in line, Mohammed in advance, Said with the baggage- 
 mule in our midst, Abdallah in our rear ; for this forest of 
 spines and brambles, being the only bit of green cover on 
 the plain, is a lurking-place for the Abu n' Sair, and for all 
 the men of marauding and unfriendly tribes. A party of 
 red men on a war-trail could not move with a more measured 
 step than we use in passing through this brake. Mohammed 
 feels the way. Every voice is hushed, and every ear is 
 open. A dozen times we halt among the thorns, while 
 Mohammed rides to the front, or Ishmael swings himself 
 into a neighbouring tree. A long, thin wail brings back no 
 echo and no answer. With ears alert, with hands on our 
 tabanjas (as these Bedaween call revolvers), we proceed ; 
 the two sheikhs holding many a parley between their teeth, 
 in which the words are few, but the glances quick and 
 bright. They know that we are treading on unsafe ground ; 
 not on account of the Ehtaimat and the Abu n' Sair, two 
 bastard tribes of no great strength, who prowl among the 
 ruins of Jericho, and about the pastures of Wady Kelt, but 
 because the whole desert has been roused by Akeel Aga, 
 and the disposition of the Adouan, the warlike tribe im- 
 mediately in our front, but beyond the Jordan, is quite 
 unknown. In common times they are tame enough, A 
 fee they want, and a little bread and jebile they expect ; 
 but a dish of tea pleases them, a charge of gunpowder wins 
 their hearts. In times of strife, when their Salhaan neigh- 
 
i8o THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 hours are in motion, these Adouan are very uncertain 
 friends to the Frank. 
 
 Emerging from the canes and tamarisks on to the sea- 
 shore, we catch sight of a man, the first whom we have 
 seen since saying good-bye to Demetrius in the convent- 
 gate. He is standing on the nearest cone or hillock, his face 
 being towards us, one hand shading his eyes, the other hand 
 grasping an Arab lance. Mohammed, calling to his cousin, 
 pricks forward for the cone, while the rest of our party, led 
 by Abdallah, jerk their way through the burning pebbles 
 towards a little islet, where, the Bedaween tells us, we may 
 enjoy an easy and refreshing plunge into the brine. In ten 
 minutes our young sheikh returns with but slender news, 
 not having caught his man. He thinks the fellow was a 
 scout for the Adouan, or some other predatory horde ; but 
 he guesses, from a hundred signs invisible to a Frank, that 
 no large party of Bedaween has lately passed the ford. So 
 far, the ghor seems safe. Yet, as both the Beni Sakkr and 
 the Adouan are known to be roving and restless, it is likely 
 that a camp of Bedaween may exist near the Jordan, on the 
 Moab bank, from which peril may leap on us at any moment 
 of either day or night. So Mohammed, though he says 
 nothing, looks as if he meant to keep watch and guard over 
 this perilous plain. 
 
 Sending Ishmael on as a scout, placing Said near the 
 shore with the mule, and posting Abdallah in our rear 
 towards the brake, he slips into the water for an instant, 
 throws on his sack and girdle, and rides off into position, 
 while the Saxon is slowly pulling off his boots. 
 
 It is a strange and memorable scene. High mountains 
 to the east and to the west ; the heights of Abraham, the 
 crests of Gilead, the Mountain of the Temptation ; on our 
 right hand the burnt cities of Lot ; on our left hand the 
 ruins of Gilgal and Jericho ; in our front the long flat plain 
 of sand and ashes, the green fringe of the sacred stream, and 
 slanting across that river th'^ Great Ford over which Joshua 
 passed, and on which Jesus ivas baptized by John. Not a 
 
THE DEAD SEA. i8i 
 
 cloud flecks the sky, not a breath stirs the air, not a ripple 
 moves the lake. No voice of bird, no hum of insect, breaks 
 the oppressive hush. Pitiless streams the light upon these 
 blinding sands. Here and there, along the shore, lie stems 
 and boles of trees; old giants, torn by floods from the 
 Jordan banks, dashed down into the Sea of Salt, tossed 
 back in storms from its angry clutch, steeped thick with 
 brine, and left to peel and whiten. As we strip to bathe, 
 two vultures, gnawing at a dead camel, scream and soar into 
 the air, wheel, cry, and sink upon one of these skeleton 
 trunks ; fixing their fiery eyes on a vision of white flesh, and 
 never slackening that vampire gaze so long as we plash and 
 plunge round the rocky isle. 
 
 Some people call the Dead Sea noisome. This must be 
 done in obedience to a monkish tale, invented by Greeks 
 who never wash, and repeated by Italians who cannot swim. 
 Now, bathing on the beach at Malaga is good, in the Nile 
 at Gizeh delicious, in the cave at Capri superb; but in these, 
 and all other waters level with the sea, there is an easy 
 limit to the words which express enjoyment of the bath. 
 The pleasure is human, and may be borne, like the flavour 
 of a fine wine, the taste of a rich fruit, the zest of a quick 
 ride. But a plunge into the Bahr Lout is an essay by itself. 
 Either from the glowing light, from the fevered blood, or 
 from the cooling brine, your first dive into the Dead Sea is 
 not a common bath, but an experiment in the unknown 
 animal delights of life. 
 
1 82 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE JORDAN. 
 
 /^UR first impressions of the Great Ford, the Bethabara 
 ^-^ of St. John, a pathway of stones in the Jordan bed, 
 near the site of Gilgal, lying at the foot of the high mountain 
 of the Temptation, are brightened by a bit of comedy, 
 shaded by a httle trouble of our own ; for in the shallow 
 nook where John baptized his followers, we enjoy the frolic 
 of a Bedaween attack j and near to the spot on which the 
 multitude must have pitched their tents athwart the burning 
 ghor, my parched and docile Sabeah falls to the earth, 
 smitten to her death by sunstroke, 
 
 How much your daily history of travel becomes a record of 
 petty cares ! The homely earth is about you everywhere, 
 when you ride and walk, when you eat and sleep. Fleas 
 pester you in the Alhambra, smells offend you in the Grand 
 Canal. A man on a journey is always mortal ; he may sprain 
 his ankle on the Righi, drop a ring into Como, catch cold in 
 the Catacombs. Let him turn as he lists, the miseries of life 
 go with him, like the slaves who were paid to cry out against 
 pride in the emperor's car. Your pony bolts on the plains 
 of Troy, your tooth aches in Carmel, your boat founders in 
 the Nile. In travel there can be no set scenes, no stage 
 heroics, no speeches aside. The action is direct, the 
 scenery is naked. An Arab steals your purse on the 
 pyramid, a negro stones you from the Haram wall ; and is it 
 not well that you should see and feel all actual facts, so as to 
 
THE JORDAN. 
 
 shed in the quick light of truth all fancies and remembrances 
 of places drawn from books ? The heat and dust, the drought 
 and flood, watch and strife — the robber, the musquito, the 
 hyena — are a part of the Holy Land, no less enduring than 
 the orange grove, the vineyard, and the well. Take the sun- 
 set and the city filth together. The homely thorns and briers 
 upon your path only serve to etch the picture of rock and 
 road, of tree and fountain, deeper into your mind. 
 
 Crossing the ghor from Bahr Lout to El Meshra, the heat 
 above, the dust beneath, grow hot enough to madden either 
 man or beast. Your feet are like burning coals ; your 
 temples beat with pain ; your tongue swells and reddens ; 
 blisters start upon your lips ; your eyes blink and close 
 under this intolerable light. A man who has either walked 
 or ambled through an Alpine gorge on a summer day, two 
 or three thousand feet above the sea, among forests of oak 
 and pine, among cascades and cataracts, with rain in the 
 herbage every second day, and snow in the hollows ten 
 months in the twelve, remembering what it is to be walled 
 up for hours in an airless valley, even under so tame a fury 
 as a Bernese sun, may fancy what it is to tread the 
 sulphurous plain of the Dead Sea before it has been cooled 
 by the autumnal floods. The ghor lies a thousand miles to 
 the south of Berne ; it has no thick forests of oak and pine ; 
 for ten months in the year it feels no reviving rain ; since 
 the age of Lot it has never been cooled by a fall of snow ; 
 and instead of standing high above the sea, like the flat 
 fields about Me)^ringen, about Martigny, it sinks down below 
 it, no less than fifteen hundred feet beneath the tide in Jaffa 
 roads. It has scarcely any verdure to cool the air; it enjoys 
 no shadows from an early hour ; and the face of the m.ountain 
 chain which hangs above it is composed of a shining lime- 
 stone rock. 
 
 Half-way between the lake and the ford, Sabeah, drooping 
 into a walk, from which neither voice nor whip can rouse 
 her, swerves and sinks. She utters no cry ; a slight shiver 
 passes through her back ; a sigh, not a start ; and she reels 
 
1 84 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 and drops into the white dust, as into a bed. Mohammed, 
 riding at my side, and accustomed to these desert scenes, 
 implores me to mount the Nubian's horse, push on with our 
 party to the river, and get into shade and water as soon as 
 we can reach the bank ; leaving Said behind to revive and 
 bring on the mare. Glad enough to mount his horse, for 
 the white ashes burn through the sides and soles of my 
 Ensflish boots, as the hot sand of the Greeks is said to have 
 crept through their folds of mail, I yet hesitate to leave my 
 mare behind with this careless slave ; the same thing, 
 apparently, as leaving her to the vultures and hyenas. She 
 seems to be faint with thirst ; for the poor thing dipped her 
 nose into the salt sea more than once, though merely to 
 snatch it up with a shiver of disgust. Not having a drop of 
 water in the jars, we moisten her Hps with a bunch of grapes, 
 and thrust a thick slice of melon between her teeth. Her 
 jaws seem locked. We stroke her mane, and pat her nose, 
 and talk to her like a child ; but she appears to be unable 
 either to eat or move ; though her eyes are wide open, and 
 her chest heaves heavily in sobs. 
 
 Said now takes her in hand. First he kicks her in the 
 belly, then cuffs her about the head, until my blood begins 
 to boil in my veins against him, and the whip is raised in 
 my hand to strike. I refrain from hitting the brutal slave ; 
 not because he would care for a blow, but on account of 
 the humanities which Englishmen in their travels should 
 always teach. Seeing my anger, the young sheikh springs 
 to the ground, catches up a spine, and jobs it into the 
 mare's nostril ; whence the blood coming thick and fast, she 
 begins to shake and kick. Once upon her legs. Said 
 mounts her, and rides her about three hundred yards, when 
 she drops again. Again bled and raised, we push forward 
 over the plain, until she falls a third time, and has to be a 
 third time bled before we arrive at the Jordan bank. 
 
 There, to have done with her tale, poor beast, she was 
 bathed and fired ; but the stroke which cast her down into 
 the sand was mortal, and early on the following day she died. 
 
THE JORDAN. 185 
 
 As we near the river, Mohammed and Abdallah ride up 
 to Yakoub, and hold with him a long and earnest palaver in 
 our behalf ; the two sheikhs being of opinion that we ought 
 not to pitch our tent near the Great Ford, since signs which 
 they can read, but cannot make me understand, inform their 
 keener eyes that enemies are near. They ask me, therefore, 
 to snatch a hasty meal, to enjoy a plunge in the river, to 
 pick a few pebbles from the shore, and then mounting our 
 horses, hurry away to the Wady Kelt, cross over to Riha, 
 and pitch our camp, for the day and night, near Ain es 
 Sultan, the Grand Spring, where, if either the Adouan or 
 the Beni Sakkr should appear in numbers, we may have the 
 additional protection of a Turkish fort. Into this arrange- 
 ment I refuse to fall. The Jordan is a capital point with me. 
 In London I had dreamt of the Great Ford by which Joshua 
 and his army passed from Moab into Canaan ; of the stream 
 in which John immersed his disciples ; of the river bank 
 along which Jesus walked; and having come three thousand 
 miles to see this place, to rest under these willows, to paddle 
 in this flood, I resolutely demur to quitting it with a mere 
 glimpse, let the Adouan and the Beni Sakkr do what they 
 will. The scout, whom we saw near the cane wood, has 
 not shown himself again. This may be a good sign or a bad 
 sign. Mohammed says he may be following on our track, 
 crawling through the furrows, hiding among the canes ; 
 in which case he will have seen that we are lamed of a mare, 
 and weak to that extent for either flight or fight. If he 
 were a friend, he would not have run away; if he were 
 alone he v/ould have been sure to come in and beg, like all 
 his tribe. Yet, English flesh and blood are not to be dri-.en 
 from a post by unseen foes. To all remonstrance and 
 expostulation I reply by slinging my belt to a tree and 
 dofling my clothes for a swim. Mohammed argues the 
 case, while Yakoub is pitching the tent and Said unpacking 
 the mules ; but finding that he can make no impression on 
 Yakoub, he turns to Abdallah ; and at last, by the time that 
 Ishmael and myself are tumbling in the stream like dolphins, 
 
1 86 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 the sheikhs appear to have fallen in with a humour which 
 they have tried in vain to overcome. 
 
 The Jordan flows through a rent or fissure in the plain, 
 some twenty or thirty feet below the level of the broad 
 ancient river bed ; so that the fringe of reeds and canes, 
 which makes the bank bright and cool, is invisible a few 
 yards off. You are riding through a cloud of dust, hot 
 ashes, and blinding sulphur ; a mountain wall in front and 
 on your flanks ; not a tree, not a shrub, not a blade of grass 
 in sight ; no more sign of vegetation round you than you 
 would expect to see in a furnace ; when suddenly, with a start, 
 like a stage trick, your feet are among wild plants and your 
 shoulders pressing against green boughs. Much of this flora 
 is new and strange. The olive and the vine have now disap- 
 peared. The fig is still found j growing in this heat to an 
 enormous size. The palm, though it is native to the soil, is 
 nowhere to be seen ; nor do many of the plants which flourish 
 in the Wady Kelt and round the springs of Riha, grow in this 
 part of the Jordan bed. The soil is sown with salt. Hence 
 the vegetation consists of salsolas, suasdas, sea-pinks, with a 
 few tamarisks and acacias, the Populus Euphratica, and a 
 long line of reeds and thorns ; through the midst of which 
 winds and eddies the sacred stream. 
 
 A sharp bend in its course has thrown up a bar of flint 
 and chalk ; over which bar, the current being strong, the 
 waters rush and foam. In fording the river, the Arabs have 
 either to cling together in a line, or hold on to their horses' 
 necks. At this point, say the Greeks, the twelve tribes 
 passed over under Joshua, and the twelve chosen men took 
 up the twelve stones from the river as a sign. Here also, 
 say the same Greeks, John baptized the multitudes who 
 came to him from Judea and from Galilee ; among others 
 the Son of Man ; and thus it happens that the same ridge of 
 limestone shingle was a witness of what may be called the 
 first and the second birth of Israel ; the dawn of its career as a 
 separate and conquering people, and the change of its old 
 spiritual life into a system of faith and morals for all mankind. 
 
THE ADOUAN AND SALHAAN TRIBES. 187 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE ADOUAN AND SALHAAN TRIBES. 
 
 C WIMMING across the stream to the Moab bank, wading 
 back along the stony bar, picking up handfuls of white 
 pebbles, ducking and darting through the currents, we spend 
 an ecstatic hour ; when Yakoub, having enjoyed his bath 
 and laid the luncheon under a tree, calls out that the repast 
 is served. It is hard to leave such a stream, even to eat and 
 drink ; but the coolness has brought on hunger ; so turnin'5 
 once more into the whirls for a last lave, we observe 
 Mohammed crawl stealthily from the water, throw a shawl 
 round his temples, and, naked from neck to feet, bound up 
 the bank. 
 
 What does he see ? What does he mean ? I glance at 
 the tree on which my tabanja hangs; a weapon about 
 which an Arab has a wild curiosity ; but instead of running 
 to that tree, Mohammed catches his mare, vaults into his 
 seat, and disappears suddenly behind the shrubs. Abdallah, 
 too, half-dressed from his bath, darts at his lance and his 
 little mare, and poising the one, and flinging himself across 
 the other, leaps up the bank. What evil is abroad ? Before 
 I can swim to the shore and question Yakoub, a sharp cry, 
 like that which the sheikh had uttered in the brake near 
 Ain el Feshka, is answered by a whoop from among the 
 dense green bushes on the Moab side. Ishmael now comes 
 running towards the bar, sounding an alarm ; and in less 
 time than it takes to write the words, we are all out of the 
 
THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 water, huddling on our clothes, snatching down tabanjas, 
 buckling on belts. A dozen Bedaween have by this time 
 shown themselves among the reeds of the farther bank; 
 three or four of them mounted, the rest on foot, and all of 
 them armed with either firelocks or spears. They belong, 
 says Yakoub, not to the Adouan, who dwell in the Wady 
 Hesban and the Wady Seir, but to the Salhaan, a tribe of 
 Bedaween obeying a ferocious chief named Goblan, who, as 
 he receives no part of the plunder drawn from pilgiims by 
 the Adouan and their allies, is not likely to respect the 
 passports of Abu Dis. Our safety must depend upon our- 
 selves. But where are the sheikhs? These young men 
 cannot have fled, one of them without his clothes ? "No, 
 no," cries Ishmael ; " they are near; they are in the shrub ; 
 they will soon come back." Meanwhile some of the 
 Salhaan, crowding down to the ford, appear as if they meant 
 to cross, when Yakoub opens a parley by asking them the 
 news ; adding that he is travelling with a great English 
 sheikh, that the English fire-ships are at Jaffa, that he has a 
 protection from the Adouan and an escort from Abu Dis. 
 A hubbub of conversation can be heard over stream. 
 They seem to know our strength as well as we know our 
 weakness. Bedaween, Syrian, Saxon, and Arab (Said goes 
 for nothing in a fray) must count five guns, some of them 
 doubtless tabanjas. Now an Arab pays a Frank the very 
 high compliment of thinking it madness to attack him under 
 a superiority of many to one. Standing on our guard, and 
 noting every gesture and every tone, we light our cigarettes, 
 and lounge over the stream, as though the expectation of a 
 fight were the last thing in our thoughts. 
 
 At length, one of the Salhaan demands from the great 
 English sheikh, as the price of peace, a tabanja, a supply of 
 powder, jebile', and bread. Mohammed, who now comes 
 dashing down the bank, brandishing his long lance, takes lip 
 the talk, replying that the English sheikh will give them, in 
 that way, neither tabanja, powder, jebile', nor bread; but 
 that he invites the Salhaan sheikh to come over and eat 
 
THE ADOUAN AND SALHAAN TRIBES. 189 
 
 salt in his tent. Two or three fellows rush down into the 
 water, and one of these, bolder than the rest, leads in his 
 mare ; but Yakoub and Mohammed yell out that the great 
 English sheikh is in a rage, and that no man shall step on 
 the Ford on pain of being shot. A new hubbub sets in ; the 
 only questions with the swarthy orators being the number of 
 our barrels and the value of our traps. 
 
 Fear of the tabanja seems to rule the talk. In debating 
 whether they will plunge into the stream, attack our tent, 
 and take their chances of blows and plunder, some fear of 
 offending the Adouan, some dread of calling down Hassan 
 Bey, some shred of respect for the British consul, may be 
 present to their minds ; but the sight of revolvers is the 
 main obstacle on which they dwell. A six-shooter is a 
 weapon which as yet the Bedaween only know by its own 
 report ; and like a steam ship, a rifled gun, a telegraph wire, 
 a railway engine, it is a product of science appalling to the 
 savage mind. Most rovers of the Desert believe that when 
 once a tabanja is set going, it never ceases to fire, and while 
 firing never fails to kill, until its owner bids it stop. It is 
 Shaitan's tool, if not Shaitan's spirit. 
 
 But then, on the other side, the fascination which a ta- 
 banja exercises over the Arab mind, makes him yearn for it 
 with an ardour like that of love ; and the passion to possess 
 a weapon so terrible in his neighbours' eyes may tempt him 
 into perils from which he would otherwise naturally shrink. 
 Here he has the temptation of tabanjas ; how many he does 
 not know ; two he may fairly count on ; and in the present 
 troubles of his government, the perpetrators of a single 
 crime may hope to escape either punishment or pursuit. 
 Are they aware that Hassan Bey is in Stamboul ? 
 
 Such points as these, we know too well, are flowing 
 rapidly through their talk ; but seeing that we can only help 
 them to a decision by indifference to their cries and threats, 
 we lay our loaded pieces on the carpet, full in view of the 
 marauders, and sit down on the slope to eat our lunch. 
 
 The bread being cut, the fowls displayed, the tea boiled, 
 
I90 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 the melons and pomegranates heaped about, one fellow, 
 bolder than the rest, rushes into the water, as though he 
 would compel his companions to decide for action ; but on 
 Mohammed raising his matchlock, and his kinsmen calling 
 him back, he sullenly returns. Falling to the meal, we are 
 beginning to think the affair will come to nothing, when 
 Abdallah rides back slowly into camp, bringing in as a 
 prisoner that very scout whom we had seen and chased near 
 the brake. The wretch is more than half dead with hunger 
 and with fright. He is one of the Ehtaimat, a despised and 
 mongrel race, too cowardly to fight, too lazy to work, who 
 dwell among the ruins of Jericho, drawing wood and water 
 for the Turks, exhibiting their lewd dances to the Franks, 
 and acting as spies to the marauding tribes. Abdallah, 
 having taken him under the tamarisks, making signs to the 
 Salhaan across the river, understands his case ; so slipping 
 from his mare, and seizing a stout bramble, he leads the spy 
 into my tent, points out to him the tabanjas, the fruit and 
 fowls, the bread and tobacco, and after allowing him full 
 time to feast his eyes on the white flesh, to fill his nostrils 
 with the fumes of tea, catches him by the neck, thrusts him 
 down the steep bank, forces him into the river, and with 
 loud thwacks and curses, drives him upon the Ford, and over 
 it, in full view of his employers on the other side. Among 
 Franks such an act would have raised every carbine against 
 the insolent foe, but the sheikh seems to know his country- 
 men ; for instead of these blows and curses causing the 
 Salhaan to foam into passion, they seem to provide them 
 with an admirable jest. The truth perhaps is, that the 
 whole affair has been a game of brag, which the Bedaween 
 begin to see that they have played and lost. 
 
 A voice from the other bank now calls a parley. Yakoub 
 explains to me, aside, that the Ehtaimat spy having told his 
 tale, and the Salhaan chiefs, who so rarely indulge in the 
 taste of flesh, being stirred by the thought of roast fowl and 
 hot tea, of which latter luxury they are passionately fond, 
 will now offer to come over on any terms. And so it proves. 
 
THE ADOUAN AND SALHAAN TRIBES. 191 
 
 In a few minutes Mohammed comes to the tent-door with a 
 message from the Salhaan, saying that the three sheikhs will 
 pay their English brother a morning visit, if they may bring 
 over their mares and carbines. To this there is no objec- 
 tion. 
 
 The first sheikh, not Goblan, but a nephew, is a hand- 
 some young Arab, spare and lithe, about thirty years old, 
 with black eyes, thin hair, and a very swarthy cheek. One 
 man of his kin is fair, his cheek being ruddy, his eye almost 
 blue. Among the Bedaween this young fellow is thought 
 beautiful. Dressed in Frank costume he might be taken 
 for a Saxon, perhaps for a Dane. Asking about his country 
 and his people, we find that, however fair, he is a true child 
 of Esau, a dweller in the Moab mountains, a countryman of 
 Ruth. 
 
 The men first break bread with us standing ; when we 
 have all eaten a piece, they sit down on their heels. After 
 devouring the fragments of our meal, emptying everything 
 except the flask of wine, they beg a little tobacco, and 
 smoke, at our expense, the hospitable pipe. 
 
 When he has calmed his nerves by a few whiffs in silence, 
 the sheikh observes that inasmuch as we have broken bread, 
 and become brothers of the Salhaan, there can be no longer 
 the same objection on our side of the tent to giving him a 
 tabanja. We have two tabanjas, they have none. Our 
 very servant (he means our master, Yakoub) has a tabanja. 
 In Frangistan, he has heard it said, tabanjas may be bought 
 in every bazaar. Can we not spare one for a brother? 
 Deaf to all persuasion, we give them of our fruit, our bread, 
 and our tobacco ; none of our ammunition and our arms. 
 The fair Arab then craves, as a final favour, that I will let 
 him look at the tabanja ; let him hold it in his hand. For 
 love of his countrywomen Rachel and Ruth, I would gladly let 
 him have his will ; but we are sitting on the bank of a rapid 
 stream, and I fear lest his virtue may be as frail as that of 
 Rachel when she stole away the teraphim from her father's 
 house. Seeing me firm on this point, the young man begs 
 
192 THE HOLY LA^fD. 
 
 me to fire it off; but I tell him, with a grave smile, that 
 whenever it is fired it kills a man, and since they have eaten 
 bread and become our brothers, it would be murder to shed 
 their blood. 
 
 The shot goes home. After that, they begin to beg for 
 trifles ; nothing in our tent, from a lucifer match to a dose 
 of quinine, being too foreign for their greed. There is a 
 touch of humour, as it seems to me, in giving a piastre 
 apiece to three swarthy fellows who have only just been 
 debating among themselves whether they should attempt to 
 rifle your saddle-bags and cut your throats. 
 
 So the Salhaan and the Saxon — the rover of the desert 
 and the rover of the sea — sit down together under the 
 canes, eating the Bethlehem grapes and sucking the 
 Lebanon leaf, near the spot on which Joshua had en- 
 camped with the forty thousand fighting men, before 
 marching up to Gilgal, and close to the bar on which John 
 had baptized the multitudes who flocked to him from Judea 
 and Galilee. 
 
 In dress, in manner, and in aspect, John, the cousin of 
 our Lord, must have had something in common with this 
 young Arab sheikh. A man of the same race and lineage, 
 he also wore a shirt of camels'-hair, gathered in at the waist 
 by a leathern belt ; he had the swarthy hue which comes 
 from a Syrian sun ; he dwelt in the desert ; he fed on 
 coarse food, on locusts and herbs, and wild honey ; and he 
 drank no wine or other fermented juice. 
 
JESUS AT BE THABARA. 193 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 JESUS AT BETHABARA. 
 
 A FTER Joseph's death, the date of which is unknown, it 
 ■^ ^ seems clear that Jesus continued to labour in his 
 father's trade; going about the country with his axe, his 
 chisel, his measuring-line and rule ; seeking such work as 
 a Jew could find; and doing it with all his might. A 
 carpenter's tasks were of many kinds : making benches for 
 the synagogues, shaping poles and beams for tents, trimming 
 masts, repairing boats, cutting lintels for doorways, mending 
 roofs, making stools and shelves for domestic use. In 
 labours like these Jesus was engaged until he had com- 
 pleted his thirtieth year. 
 
 It need not be thought that because he tramped about 
 GaHlee, mending benches in the synagogue and boats on 
 the lake, that his occupations were considered mean. They 
 were in fact holy. Every Jew, from the peasant in his hut 
 to the high priest in his palace, learned some craft. If 
 Jesus was a carpenter, St. Paul was a tent-maker. Rabbi 
 Ishmael was a needle-maker. Rabbi Simon a weaver, Rabbi 
 Jochanan a shoemaker. All labour of the hand was held 
 in honour. One of the most despised of all employments 
 among the Jews was that of tending sheep and goats ; the 
 office of a woman or of a slave ; yet David had been taken 
 from the hill-side by Samuel, and after being a shepherd 
 had been made a king. But a rise so great had been 
 accepted as a wonder and a sign; like that of the prophet 
 
 o 
 
194 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 Amos, who startled the King of Israel by saying that he 
 had risen from being a herdsman and a gatherer of the 
 sycamore fruit. Compared with the occupation of David, 
 that of Jesus was exalted; for the craft of carpenter was 
 one of those noble grades from the proficients in which it 
 was lawful to elect high priests. No handicraft could be 
 followed by a slave ; and none but a freeman could learn a 
 trade. Some trades were, indeed, less eminent than others ; 
 to wit : the art of a tanner was condemned as noisome ; the 
 arts of a barber, a weaver, a fuller, a perfumer, were all 
 considered mean ; and no man following these crafts could 
 be allowed, on any pretence, to serve in the sacred office. 
 A tanner, like Jose of Sephoris, might become a rabbi ; he 
 could never be made High Priest. Not so with the craft 
 of carpenter : a craft which had a part of its functions in 
 the synagogue and the temple; which was often adopted 
 as a profession by men of noble birth; and which enjoyed 
 the same sort of repute among the Jews that is given in 
 England to the church, the army, and the bar. 
 
 Jesus followed this trade until his thirty-first year, when 
 the time would arrive at which he could teach and preach 
 the truth. A Levite rule had fixed this age at thirty years : 
 "from thirty years old and upwards, even unto fifty years 
 old, every one that entereth into the service :" and this 
 Mosaic rule had escaped the changes introduced before and 
 under the Maccabees. At thirty, John had begun to 
 preach. So, on closing his thirtieth year, Jesus laid down 
 his axe and chisel, his line and rule ; and going by the 
 caravan road to Bethabara, he saw the multitudes camped 
 about the Great Ford, so full to them of human story and of 
 symbolic beauty; cleansing their flesh, repenting of their 
 sins, and waiting for their Deliverer to appear. He passed 
 the Ford ; walking by the plains of Jericho into the lime- 
 stone hills, into that waste country where the Essenes dwelt 
 in caves ; and there, among the wildest scenery on earth, 
 rocks and chasms, dry wells and lairs of savage beasts, 
 he spent forty days alone, purging his flesh from dross, 
 
JESUS AT BE THABARA. 195 
 
 and chastening his spirit for that baptism which was to 
 be a sign among his people that Israel had gone 
 astray, and that every man must be born again into his 
 holy Church. 
 
 Poor people from the vineyards and workshops flocked to 
 John's camp on the Jordan ; where they heard him preach 
 repentance of sin, and many were baptized ; some being 
 Essenes, some Pharisees, still more Galileans; but no 
 priests from the temple, no princes from Zion; for such 
 men, had they heard of John at all, would have treated his 
 eloquence as raving, his baptism as a jest. 
 
 Though the Sadducees had everything to risk — their 
 state, their opulence, their sanctity — by a change of system, 
 they felt little or no malice against reformers like John. If 
 a preacher disturbed the public peace, so as to give the 
 legions an excuse for coming into the Holy City, they could 
 act with rigour ; but for zeal about the salvation of souls 
 they had the toleration of a sincere contempt. The Phari- 
 sees, having more piety, had more of the persecuting spirit j 
 and their doctors regarded this movement on the Jordan 
 very much as a few years earlier they had regarded that 
 of Judas in Galilee — a sign that a day was coming when 
 stripes on the cloak and frontlets on the brow would not 
 be considered everything to an earnest man. Therefore, 
 though the easy Sadducees, busy with their feasts and 
 pomps, disdained to trouble themselves about John, he was 
 not left to work upon these simple minds unwatched. The 
 elders, being mostly Pharisees, and expecting a Messiah, 
 felt a keen anxiety about him ; and when people began to 
 speak of him in the gateways and the temple courts, urging 
 that he must be either Elias or Christ, they sent down to 
 Jericho some of their trusty but unknown priests, with 
 orders to learn what they could of John. To this end they 
 questioned him before all the people : " Art thou the 
 Christ ?"— " No.", " Art thou Elias ?"— " No." " Art thou 
 the Prophet?" — "No." John's message was not for them, 
 and no duty bound him to assist these spies in their evil 
 
196 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 quest. But they pressed him again, saying that they must 
 have an answer for the Sanhedrin : 
 
 •' Who art thou ? What say est thou of thyself?" 
 
 John rephed to them in the words of Isaiah : " I am the 
 voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the 
 way of the Lord !" 
 
 Then they began to question him as to why — if he were 
 not Christ, not Elias, not the Prophet — he baptized the 
 people ? 
 
 What could he tell them? Baptism was not a Jewish 
 rite. A stranger coming into the synagogue had to be 
 immersed in water, as a sign of his being cleansed from his 
 former sin ; but to baptize a Jew was to announce that he 
 had not previously been his Father Abraham's son. More ; 
 if one man needed this purification of water, every man in 
 Jewry needed it ; the same thing as saying that the people 
 had gone astray, and that these Jews were no longer mem- 
 bers of the Church of God. 
 
 John did not deny that his countrymen had gone astray, 
 and must be received through a new baptism into the 
 kingdom of heaven : 
 
 "' I baptize with water ; but there standeth one among 
 you, whom ye know not, he that cometh after me, whose 
 shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose." 
 
 When He for whom the camp was waiting — though they 
 knew him not — came down from the hill country and 
 stepped into the stream, the swarthy preacher, looking up 
 into the sky, beheld the Holy Ghost descending in the 
 likeness of a dove ; and having been warned in the spirit 
 that he should know the Messiah's person by this very sign 
 of an alighting dove, he felt in his own heart, and told 
 the men who were near about him, that his eyes had at last 
 beheld the Son of God. 
 
 The Son of God ! Then He whom all their prophets 
 had foretold was once again said to have come. Imagine 
 the joy which thrilled through that expecting and tumultuous 
 crowd on the Baptist's words being passed from lip to lip ! 
 
yjSSC/S A T BETHABARA. 197 
 
 A lordly Sadducee might smile at such predictions ; finding 
 his house bright and cheery, his friends in office, his party 
 in high repute ; and reading Isaiah and Micah in the same 
 critical spirit in which he read Homer and Hesiod. But 
 the craftsmen and shepherds believed in their prophets as 
 they believed in hunger and thirst, in sunshine and rain. If 
 anything was true on earth, it was true, in a Jew's idea, that 
 a Messiah would come, and that when this Messiah was 
 proclaimed, the kingdom of heaven would be nigh at hand. 
 But under the light of his Oral Law, he read these Messi- 
 anic prophecies all amiss. His hope was in a great prince ; 
 a man wiser than Judas of Gamala, braver than Herod the 
 Great ; for his fancies were of the world only, of its silver 
 and gold, its palaces and thrones. In his eyes, the kingdom 
 of heaven was a kingdom of the earth, having its chief seat 
 in Zion, and places of honour in its court for all the saints. 
 Most of the Jews had gone too far astray to imagine that 
 the battles of Shiloh could be fought with the sword of the 
 Spirit ; that the captains of His host would be the despised 
 of men; that the only crown which He would wear on 
 earth would be a wreath of thorns. The Pharisees looked 
 for a soldier, a judge, a prince ; a more valiant Gideon, a 
 more fortunate Samson, a more splendid David ; and such 
 a personage they wanted to see in their Son of God. 
 
 Crowding around John, they clamoured for their king; 
 wishing to put him at their head, and to declare his advent 
 with a shout. How would he display his power ? When 
 would he begin his march ? Would he drive out the faction 
 of Annas ? Would he sweep away the legions of Pilate ? 
 Not the least eager of those who put such questions to each 
 other were the three young men from Galilee. Standing 
 near to their Master, soon to be their Master no more, 
 Andrew and John implored him to show them the man on 
 whom he had seen the Dove come down; and as Jesus 
 chanced to be then walking on the river bank, going home 
 to his lodging, John pointed to him as he passed, saying : 
 
 " Behold the Lamb of God." 
 
1 Q 8 TJI£ HOL V LA ND. 
 
 Andrew and John ran after Jesus ; for if he were the 
 Christ whom they had sought, He, and He only, was their 
 Lord : the one desire of their hearts. Hearing these 
 earnest feet behind him, Jesus turned round to the young 
 men, saying : 
 
 " What seek ye ?" 
 
 They asked him where he dwelt, and he bade them come 
 home with him and see. So they walked home with him ; 
 probably to a booth of reeds and twigs, built under a palm- 
 tree ; a long way from the Ford it would appear, since it is 
 noted as the tenth hour when they arrived ; on which Jesus 
 invited them to stay with him for the night. What words 
 were spoken, what deeds were done, in that long April 
 night, we have not been told ; but we know that under those 
 nodding palms and these silent stars the two young fisher- 
 men from Galilee were that night chosen for the kingdom of 
 God. 
 
 When it was day, Andrew ran for his brother Simon, cry- 
 ing : " We have found the Messiah !" on which Simon went 
 back with him to the spot where Jesus dwelt. Seeing the 
 third fisherman coming, the Master chose him also ; giving 
 him a new name, perhaps to distinguish him from his 
 neighbour, Simon the Galilean. 
 
 " Thou art Simon the son of Jona : thou shalt be called 
 Cephas." 
 
 Cephas was a Chaldaic word, meaning rock or stone : 
 the same as Petros in Greek, Petrus in Latin, and Pierre in 
 French. In English the name does not carry its symbolic 
 sense ; for the man's nature was like the basalt tumbled in 
 heaps and lying in quarries about his native hill. And 
 these three young men were the original members of the 
 Christian church. 
 
 A declaration that the Son of God had come and was in 
 their midst, unknown to them, would have placed the man of 
 v;hom it was said in conflict with the laws as taught in the 
 Great College and practised in Caesar's court. A Messiah, 
 whether true or false, was a man to be feared by those in 
 
y£Sl7S A T BETHABARA. 199 
 
 place; by Annas as a rival priest, by Pilate as a pretender to 
 the throne. Being proud and strong, such men might be 
 slow to act, and when they acted would be sure to observe 
 all legal forms. But as magistrates, they were bound to 
 preserve order ; the commons were hot and weak ; and a 
 tumult in the Baptist's camp might bring in from Jericho a 
 sudden array of Roman troops, under the command of 
 captains less discreet than Pilate. No man could yet 
 guess that the new Messiah was to be of another nature 
 than the old ; most men hoped that he would be the same 
 in kind, though higher in his degree of power. Pilate could 
 not know that His words would be those of peace, His 
 triumphs those of patience ; and the Procurator of Judea, 
 wise and fair as he seemed, had shown that he could be 
 swift and savage in chastising disturbers of the public peace. 
 
 Jesus needed to be wary in his steps. The movement 
 around him was in some sort a plebeian secession from 
 Jerusalem ; the Jewish Mons Sacer being the Ford, the 
 Jewish Virginius being John. He could not put himself at 
 the head of a seceding body ; of a fragment of a sect. Nor 
 could he allow himself to be proclaimed their king. They 
 had to come to him ; but before they could call him Lord, 
 they must be changed in heart, they must be bom into a 
 new life. The work which he had to do on earth was a 
 work of time ; to be done with individual men and not with 
 crowds ; in the house, in the workshop, in the vineyard, in 
 the threshing-floor, among the duties and toils of life, not in 
 a tumultuous company and a separated camp. 
 
 In his own beautiful Galilee, under the half-pagan rule of 
 Antipas Herod, among the mixed population of Syrians, 
 Greeks, and Jews, he would be free to teach in the syna- 
 gogue, free to live among the people, free to lay the 
 foundations of his Church in the hearts of men. 
 
 So the day after he had called Peter to himself, he set out 
 from the Ford, going up by the caravan road beyond 
 Jordan into the lake country, leaving the warlike Separatists 
 clamouring for their king. 
 
200 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 CANA IN GALILEE. 
 
 T^AR away from the Pharisees' camp, from the Sagan's 
 -*- palace, from the Procurator's court, the Messiah's reign 
 was beginning ; his princes and captains being three poor 
 fishermen from the lake of Galilee. 
 
 Still swarming into this fertile province, the Greek 
 settlers and the Roman officers were raising cities in the 
 strong places, launching ships on the canals and lakes, 
 wedding towns and stations of imperial value by noble 
 roads. One of their great roads ran through the province 
 from west to east and north. Starting from Acre, a city 
 called Accho in the days of Simeon, Ptolemais in* those of 
 Christ ; touching at Sephoris, the old capital on the hill, a 
 commanding post near the head of Esdraelon ; dropping 
 down the gorges of Hattin, where Jesus now preached his 
 Sermon on the Mount ; entering the gates of Tiberias on 
 the lake ; hugging the shore line from Tiberias to Magdala, 
 Capernaum, and Bethsaida, where it crossed the Jordan by a 
 bridge into the Greek city of Julias ; this road sped thence by 
 the base of Mount Hermon to Damascus : a work of noble 
 art ; paved like the Via Sacra ; defended from Arab thieves 
 by block houses, such as protect the present road from 
 Jerusalem to the sea. Parts of this road can still be traced \ 
 near Acre in the paving-stones ; near Tell Hum in the 
 cutting of a rock. Along this great • avenue poured the 
 streams of Roman and Egyptian life ; the court of Herod, 
 
CANA IN GALILEE. 201 
 
 the legions and their eagles, the buffoons and athletes of the 
 circus, the slaves and concubines of kings, actors and 
 eunuchs, merchants and pilgrims, with the sumptuous 
 traffic, the spices and jewels, the silks and drugs, from 
 Egypt and Cathay. Much wealth passing to and fro, many 
 thieves infested this Roman road : Arabs from the moun- 
 tains beyond the lake ; Moabites and Gileadites ; fathers of 
 these Anezi and Shammai tribes which still swarm over, 
 every spring-tide, into Galilee, and devour the peasants' crops. 
 
 When Jesus and the three young men came up from 
 Bethabara into the lake country, escaping the too early 
 notice of the Pharisees, they passed by the splendid Greek 
 cities, going home to the house at Capernaum in which 
 Peter, with his wife, his wife's mother, and his children, 
 dwelt. Under their humble roof he rested for the night 
 only; adding three new members to his infant Church. 
 There he saw Philip, a native of Bethsaida, a fellow-towns- 
 man of Peter and Andrew, and called him to his side, by 
 the form of invitation : " Follow me." Philip is a Greek 
 name, and the man who bore it may have been a Syrian 
 of Greek descent. He was the fourth disciple called. 
 This Philip had a friend, Nathanael bar Tolmai, a native 
 of Cana, a small town perched on a knoll in the hill country 
 of Galilee, four or five miles from Nazareth ; a man who 
 had been also watching for the Messiah's advent. Philip, 
 therefore, ran and sought him, his friend, saying : "We 
 have found him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote, 
 in Jesus the son of Joseph from Nazareth:" words which 
 seem to imply that both Philip and Nathanael had known 
 Jesus by name and sight ; a fact which is otherwise Hkely 
 in itself. 
 
 " Can any good come out of Nazareth ?" said Nathanael, 
 with the local feeling of a neighbour; to which Philip answered 
 in the brief words: "Come and see." Nathanael was the 
 fifth disciple whom Jesus called. A little incident in this 
 calling of Nathanael may have led Jesus into the first open 
 exhibition of his power ; for on the new disciple from Cana 
 
202 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 expressing his awe and wonder that the Lord should be able 
 to describe him under the fig-tree, where he could not have 
 been seen in the flesh, Jesus told him he would soon see 
 greater things ; and a few hours later, in Nathanael's own 
 town of Cana, the first and most symbolical of all his 
 miracles was performed. 
 
 The next man to be called into the infant Church was 
 James, the brother of John. The father of these young 
 fishermen, James and John, named Zebedee, was a native 
 of the lake country, perhaps ofBethsaida, like his neighbour 
 and friend Jona, a man of substance, and the owner of a boat. 
 Salome, his wife, the mother of James and John, a woman 
 of quick feelings, easily gained to the new faith, eager to see 
 her sons advanced to the high place which she believed 
 would be their lot, was one of the very first female converts 
 to the church. 
 
 But neither John nor Peter, neither Philip nor Nathanael, 
 had any true foresight of what they would have to do. They 
 were drawn to Jesus by his gracious aspect, by his earnest 
 words, by his charm of character j not by any doctrine which 
 they had heard him preach. As yet he had said little, 
 except to their hearts, and that little they had been free to 
 understand in their own way. Nor could he trust them 
 with the mighty charge he bore, until their eyes had been 
 opened, their natures purged, and their affections won. He 
 had to treat these grown men as though they were little 
 boys, training them to think and move, less by the light 
 of knowledge than by the power of love. Hence he bade 
 them follow him, live with him, talk to him, so that they 
 might learn to see as he saw, speak wdth his accent, labour 
 in his spirit. Until a great change had been wrought in his 
 soul, no Jew of that Separatist generation could have 
 tolerated the idea that all men were brethren, and that the 
 whole world might be saved. Yet the mission of Jesus 
 was to announce this truth ; to prove it by the evidence 
 of his life and death ; and to prepare the ministers who 
 should carry it to the ends of the earth. 
 
CAJV^ IN GALILEE. 203 
 
 His mission was divine ; but having to be accomplished 
 by human means, a number of chosen men, Peter and John, 
 Andrew and James, Phihp and Nathanael, with the rest 
 who were still to be found, had to be led gently on, first 
 to hear, then to seize, afterwards to proclaim, the great fact 
 that Jew and Greek were equally called into the kingdom 
 of God. It was a work of time. 
 
 From Capernaum, Jesus and the young men walked up 
 by the Roman road to Cana, a little village on a hill, 
 nestling in the midst of gardens and groves, five miles from 
 Nazareth, and so much nearer to Capernaum. There they 
 found Mary and his brethren come to the wedding of one 
 of Nathanael's neighbours. Jesus, being bidden to the 
 feast, accepted the invitation, that the first public display 
 of his divine power might be for ever associated in the 
 minds of men with the joys of the bridegroom, the festivities 
 of love, and the sanctities of home. 
 
 The piety and grace of marriage were at that time under 
 a passing cloud ; many of the Separatist doctors holding 
 that the love of man for woman was a sign of corrupted 
 nature, and that the state of matrimony was a state of sin. 
 In the early ages, marriage had been given as a precious 
 lot to all the seed of Adam : " A man shall leave his father 
 and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they two 
 shall be one flesh." That gift had been used and abused ; 
 the best of men, from Abraham to Gideon, from Elkanah 
 to David, having taken to themselves many wives, until the 
 evil had reached its height in the splendid hareem of David's 
 son. But from the days of Ezra and the Exile, when so 
 many other things had been changed in Israel, the schools 
 of Jewish thought had grown less easy and indulgent towards 
 domestic love, as this love had been practised in the 
 pastoral tent. No new law had been given ; a man might 
 still marry a hundred wives ; and some men, rich and os- 
 tentatious, had married their six or seven ; but the habits 
 of mind which had led Gideon and David into polygamy, 
 had fallen into disrepute ; the number who inclined to keep 
 
204 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 hareems had become less and less ; until public feeling had 
 grown so hostile to the vice, that the nine wives of Herod 
 the Great appeared to many persons less the signs of his 
 glory than the evidence of his shame. So far the course of 
 thought had been good and pure ; but the reforming Pha- 
 risees had not been able to cool their ardour at the point 
 of allowing a good man to marry a single wife. To some 
 the principle at issue had appeared to be the same whether 
 a man sought consolation of spirit in the love of many or of 
 one. Love itself was the flaw. Love itself was the sin. Many 
 good men had begun to think of marriage as a necessary 
 evil, a compromise with the flesh and the devil, a beautiful 
 and terrible snare to the soul. The more a Jew aspired to 
 holiness of life, the more he affected to shun the society of 
 women, lest his heart should be corrupted through his eyes 
 and ears. A pretentious Pharisee would shut his eyes in a 
 damsel's presence, and knock his head against a wall if he 
 met a female in the street. One Hebrew school had re- 
 duced this feeling into words and rules ; an Essene of the 
 holier grade was not allowed to marry ; and in the lower 
 ranks of his order it was considered a proof of virtue to 
 abstain. Thus there had arisen in Palestine a church 
 which, in the name of purity and grace, had set aside God's 
 holy ordinance of marriage as an evil thing, and introduced 
 in its place a creed which in a hundred years would have 
 delivered up this lovely planet to the dominion of savage 
 beasts. 
 
 Not then without pressing motive was the Lord's first 
 public appearance made in connection with the marriage 
 rite. A monastery may be peopled from the outer world ; 
 a sect may exist though its members are childless ; but a 
 nation cannot prosper without family ties; and a gospel 
 which is to govern mankind must necessarily admit the 
 sanctity of domestic love. 
 
 Jesus did more than grace the feast by his presence. 
 That alone would have been much ; since many of those 
 holy men who had not yet gone the length of describing 
 
CANA IN GALILEE. 205 
 
 marriage as an act of shame, spoke loudly against the mirth 
 and frolic which accompanied the Oriental rite. 
 
 A Hebrew wedding had nothing to do with religious 
 forms ; called in no priest ; implied no offerings to the 
 temple. It was, above all, a social act ; conducted with the 
 laughter and the sports of an English May-day and a harvest 
 home. A feast was given in either the bridegroom's house, 
 or in his father's house. Neighbours and friends were 
 bidden to come in ; stone vessels with water stood near the 
 door, so that every one might lave his hands before sitting 
 down to eat ; and as the sun went down, the bridegroom 
 and his friends, attired in gay robes, anointed with oil and 
 scented with myrrh, set out from the house, preceded by 
 drums and pipes, attended by singers and torchmen, followed 
 by a jocund multitude of boys and women, to fetch home 
 the bride. Zoned in her mystic belt, garlajided with flowers, 
 clothed in a long white veil, which hid her person from head 
 to foot so fully that the sharpest Jacob in Cana could not 
 have told whether the lady were Rachel or Leah, the bride 
 and her maidens awaited this procession ; the act of taking 
 her away from her father's house being the essence of the 
 j)ublic ceremony. The bridegroom on coming to the house, 
 took his beloved in his arms, set her under a canopy, and 
 with a swell of drums and songs, marched her merrily 
 through the streets. A Ruler of the Feast, perhaps riding 
 on an ass, went first, the pipers behind him, then the bride 
 and her maidens, afterwards the bridegroom and his friends, 
 followed by the torchmen, the singers, the guests of the 
 night, and, last of all, the rabble of the place. The merri- 
 ment lasted long ; seven days, fourteen days ; during which 
 time of feasting, the guests sang songs, made riddles, played 
 games, and rejoiced with the bridegroom in his joy. 
 
 Men less pure and wise in heart than Jesus feared lest 
 the lights and unguents, the glancing veils, the sounds of 
 music, the night processions of youths and maidens, the 
 merry meetings in which wine went round, and talk ran 
 chiefly upon love, should lead to sin. Menachem would 
 
2o6 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 have fled from a marriage feast. Banus and John the 
 Baptist would have denounced such scenes. The Essene 
 and the Pharisee shrank from human nature ; but the ways 
 of Jesus were not their ways. Menachem was the leader of 
 a sect ; Jesus the legislator for a world. He entered into 
 the house of mirth ; he mingled in the feast ; he shared in 
 the bridegroom's joy; and when the wine ran out, he ordered 
 the six great lavers into which the guests had dipped their 
 hands to be filled with fresh water, and carried up by the 
 servants to the Ruler of the Feast, who, pouring it out, 
 discovered that it was good wine. All Cana was the witness 
 of this miracle ; and Nathanael saw the first of those greater 
 things which Jesus had promised at Capernaum that he 
 should live to see. 
 
 This miracle was, in some sort, the consecration of love 
 and wine ; the richest blessing and the happiest gift of God 
 to man. In this sudden separation of his system from that 
 of John, Jesus gave the first grand lesson to his infant 
 Church. John drank no wine ; ate only wild food ; lived 
 in a cave; renounced the joys of marriage; set his soul 
 against everything that could delight the eye and quicken 
 the pulse. Jesus began his diviner labours by showing that 
 nature is innocent, that mirth is lawful, that the use of all 
 good things is good. And what he had done that day in 
 Cana, he never ceased to repeat until the night before 
 Calvary. He loved to feast and make glad ; to anoint 
 himself with oil ; to put his feet into the bath. He said, I 
 am the vine. He compared himself to a bridegroom. Many 
 of his discourses were made at the table ; his most holy 
 sacrament was founded at a supper ; he adopted bread and 
 wine as the symbols of his own flesh and blood. 
 
 When the feast was ended at Cana, new scenes began to 
 open on his Church. " The Jews' Passover was at hand, 
 and Jesus went up to Jerusalem;" being his first visit to 
 the Holy City in his new character of Lord and Christ. 
 
JERUSALEM UNDER THE PASHA. 207 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 JERUSALEM UNDER THE PASHA. 
 
 /^N the whip hand as you ride from the rocky plateau 
 ^-^ lying west of Jerusalem into the Bethlehem gate, the 
 way of all those who come up from Egypt and from the sea, 
 stands the strong Tower of David ; a pile of rocks, bevelled 
 and shaped by the art of man into a solidity resembling 
 that of nature. Fronting this tower is the tall house or 
 palace of the English bishop; and between these edifices of 
 the old and the new ages, a lane and open court, unpaved, 
 unkempt, uneven, a place encumbered with the litter of 
 men and beasts, runs along the high ridge of Zion. A 
 camel is lying down under its load, a swarm of dogs fighting 
 for a bone, a knot of peasants waiting to be hired. Dotted 
 about this open court, in their white sacks, their gabardines, 
 and their gaudy shawls, squat the barbers and cooks, the 
 pipe-cutters, donkey-boys, money-changers, dealers in pot- 
 tery and in fruit, all busy with their work or chaffering 
 about their wares. 
 
 In the Jerusalem of Suraya Pasha, this court in front of 
 the Bethlehem gate — the chief entrance for trade and pil- 
 grimage into the Holy City, just as the Damascus gate is 
 the chief entrance for pomp and honour — is the market, the 
 exchange, the club, the law-court, the playhouse, the parlia- 
 ment of a people who despise a roof, and prefer to eat and 
 drink, to buy and sell, to wash and pray, in the open air. 
 Plere everybody may be seen, everything may be bought, 
 
2o8 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 excepting those articles of luxury found in the bazaar. Yon 
 negro dozing near his mule is a slave from the Upper Nile, 
 and belongs to an Arab bey who lets him out on hire. 
 These husbandmen are waiting for a job ; their wage is a 
 penny a day. Last week they were shaking olives for the 
 Armenians ; next week they will be carrying water for the 
 Copts ; but their chief employers are the Greek monks, who 
 own nearly all the best vineyards and olive grounds lying 
 within a dozen miles of this Bethlehem gate. They are a 
 hardy and patient race ; Moslem in creed, Canaanite in 
 blood. The man clothed in white Hnen, with an inkhorn 
 in his belt, is a public scribe ; a functionary to have been 
 seen in this gateway any time since the days of Ezra, 
 perhaps since the days of David, who likened his tongue to 
 the pen of a ready writer. These jars and vases, these urns 
 and mugs, are made of native clay, spun in the Potter's 
 field, and also in the dark vaults adjoining the Damascus 
 gate. In colour, in pattern, this domestic earthenware is 
 probably as old as the age of Ruth. These rude clay cups, 
 pinched in at the side, are still called Virgins' lamps ; they 
 are similar to those trimmed by the Seven; and they are 
 still fed with sweet olive oil and carried by the Arab and 
 Jewish girls. 
 
 All centuries, all nations, seem to hustle each other in this 
 open court under David's tower. In pushing through the 
 crowd of men, you may chance to run against a turbaned 
 Turk, a belted Salhaan, a gaudy Cavash, a naked Nubian, 
 a shaven Carmelite, a bearded papa, a robed Armenian, an 
 English sailor, a Circassian chief, a Bashi Bazouk, and a 
 converted Jew. In crossing from the gateway to the con- 
 vent, you may stumble on a dancing dervish; you may 
 catch the glance of a veiled beauty ; you may break a pro- 
 cession of Arab school-girls, headed by a British female ; 
 you may touch the finger of a leper held out to you for alms. 
 
 Your feet are now on the high place of Zion, in the court 
 of David, in the forum of Pilate. On your right hand and 
 on your left, glaring grey and hot in the October sun, rise 
 
JERUSALEM UNDER THE PASHA. 209 
 
 the strong forts built by Herod, the barrack of Saladin. the 
 palace of a Latin priest, a Jew money-changer's shop, a 
 London missionary church. The phantoms of all time 
 seem to hover round you. Beyond the barrack of Saladin, 
 on the line of wall going south, springs the round Asiatic 
 minaret of a mosque; under the shadow of adjoining towers 
 lie the green wastes of the Armenian garden ; while behind 
 the English palace hides the deep pool of Hezekiah, from 
 the waters of which project some richly-wrought columns 
 of an age unknown. Into this great pool peer down the 
 windows of a Coptic convent and a German inn. East and 
 north of this pool stand Calvary, Golgotha, the dome of the 
 Sepulchre. Looking down the slope of Zion from the battle- 
 ments of David's tower, the eye falls on and over the Arme- 
 nian convent ; the hospice of St. John, once the proud home 
 of Knights Templars, now a shapeless ruin ; the Moslem 
 bazaar ; the Jewish wailing-place ; the Temple platform, 
 with its green cypresses and prickly pears, its marble screens, 
 its mosque of El Aksa, and its beautiful dome of the Rock ; 
 a scene framed by the mountain chain of Scopas and Olivet, 
 through a depression in which chain you catch a ghmpse of 
 the Dead Sea. 
 
 This Zion ridge was always the commanding point in 
 Jerusalem. The Macedonians built a castle lower down, 
 near the Temple gate, which Herod afterwards enlarged 
 into the fortress Antonia ; but this defence was erected for 
 the purposes of a city police ; and the true strongholds of 
 Jerusalem were always erected, from the times of David to 
 those of Saladin, on the west and north; that is to say, 
 around this present open court by the Bethlehem gate. It 
 is not the highest spot within the city walls ; for an ancient 
 tower within the vSaracenic lines controls it ; but these new 
 Arab lines stretch far beyond the more antique walls, inclos- 
 ing part of that high ground from which the city was assailed 
 by Titus and Nebuchadnezzar, still known as the Assyrian 
 Camp. Zion was the city of Jebus ; afterwards the seat of 
 David and of David's sons. Here Herod completed his 
 
 p 
 
2IO 
 
 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 three great towers of Hippicus, Phasaelus^ and Mariamne j 
 and here lay the head-quarters of the Roman force. 
 
 From these battlements Jerusalem unrolls itself before 
 
 /; 
 
 ,^ Damascus Gutjff^ .^ ^^^^JfJ^X ^V \\^ "^^ 
 
 ^^"^3 
 
 
 — A D 
 
 
 -^-^rtj;^^ Gatejg 
 
 'U 
 
 Serii''- 
 
 
 
 ■'^^^ 
 
 
 l?^Vo r^ /7V ff 
 
 eP^ '] David:. % r 
 
 JERUSALEM. 
 
JERUSALEM UNDER THE PASHA. 211 
 
 you like a map. The platform at your feet is Zion and the 
 prolongation of it to your left is Gareb; that trench, running 
 visibly through the city from north to south, is the Cheese- 
 monger's valley ; yon second platform, rising beyond the 
 great trench, and parted into two halves by the Haram wall, 
 gives you Bezetha and the Temple hill. 
 
 In its social and civil aspects, the Holy City is nov/ 
 Moslem and Arabic ; but the Christians and Jews are 
 strong enough to lend it features; and with the fierce re- 
 pulsion of class from class, of race from race, which exists 
 in every part of Palestine, it has come to pass that though 
 the Arab people may be found dwelling in every quarter, 
 the foreign nations are each confined to one. 
 
 The Christians live for the most part on this crest of Zion 
 in a quarter extending from the Tomb of David, near the 
 EngHsh cemetery, along the high ground to the Holy Sepul- 
 chre. In this quarter stand the Greek convents of St John, 
 St. Demetrius, St. Bazil, St. Theodore, St. George, St. Con- 
 stantine, St. Nicholas ; the Armenian convent of St. James, 
 with their church of St. Saviour, their great hospice, and 
 seminary \ the Latin convent of St. Saviour, with the school 
 and hospital of St, Louis ; the Coptic hospice and convent ; 
 the English church ; the palaces of the Latin, Greek, and 
 Armenian patriarchs ; the houses of the Russian and Angli- 
 can bishops ; Hauser's Inn j the English carpenters' shops, 
 for the use of converts ; and the Protestant schools. Of 
 course, it is the finest quarter for shops and trade. Here, 
 the streets are a shade less gloomy than elsewhere, and 
 some of them are wide enough for a camel and a man to 
 pass. 
 
 On the same ridge of Zion, but lower down the slope, 
 where it falls away into the Cheesemonger's valley, lies the 
 Jewish quarter, which a man may smell afar off; a quarter 
 goodly in itself, once covered with the palaces of priests and 
 kings, but now the danger and opprobium of the Holy Land. 
 There lie, in the midst of alleys ■ and courts unspeakably 
 offensive to eye and nostril, the synagogues of the Ashken ■ 
 
212 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 azim and Sephardim ; the Polish synagogue, a new and 
 tawdiy work, with a cupola built in the Saracenic style ; the 
 ancient synagogue, a vault half-buried in the soil ; a Jewish 
 hospice for pilgrims ; and a Jewish infirmary for the sick, of 
 whom there is abundant supply. Around these edifices reek 
 and starve about four thousand Israelites, many of them 
 living in a state of filth as unlike the condition of their clean, 
 bright ancestors as the life of an English gentleman under 
 Victoria is unlike that of a British serf under Boadicea. 
 
 Beyond the great natural trench called the Cheesemonger's 
 valley rise Bezetha and the Temple mount, the two Moslem 
 quarters ; one secular, one holy. Bezetha wears a more 
 eastern and secluded aspect than her neighbour Zion ; the 
 walls being loftier, the gardens greener, the streets wider, 
 and the houses better. A few Franks of the higher grade 
 dvv^ell here among the Turks. East of Damascus street live 
 the Turkish pasha and the English and Austrian consuls ; 
 there will be found the school of Saladin, the Austrian 
 hospice, the house of Dervishes, the Military hospital ; in a 
 few words, the best public buildings and the more aristocratic 
 retreats. The Temple mount, divided from the secular city 
 by lofty walls, makes a quarter of itself ; a quarter of mosques, 
 terraces, colonnades, and gardens ; having its peculiar physi- 
 ognomies, and being governed by laws and usages of its own. 
 
 Beyond this second ridge, and beyond the Haram wall, 
 flows the Wady Cedron, the mysterious valley of Jehosha- 
 phat ; a glacial hollow, dark and steep ; dry in the spring 
 and summer, a mountain torrent in the fall ; which torrent, 
 joining the waters coming down the Wady Hinnom and the 
 Cheesemonger's valley near Enrogel, rolls thence through 
 the great wilderness of Judah, past the convent of Mar Saba, 
 to the shores of the Dead Sea. A sprinkle of fig trees and 
 olive trees dots the slopes of this gloomy ravine of Jehosha- 
 phat ; trees bare and twisted with old age ; in keeping with 
 its ghostly reputation as the antique Valley of the Shadow 
 of Deaiii. Along the white stony sides of Cedron, lie the 
 ashes of a hundred generations, Jebusite, Hebrew, Syrian, 
 
JERUSALEM UNDER THE PASHA. 213 
 
 Macedonian, Egyptian, Roman, Persian, Saracen, Frank, 
 and Turk ; some of whose tombs, as those which are called 
 by the names of Absalom, St. James, Jehoshaphat, and 
 Zechariah, rank among the oldest structures in the land ; 
 being true rock temples, carved like those of Petra, with 
 infinite art and labour, into shapes not less enduring than 
 the earth on which they stand. Around these saints and 
 princes lie the unnamed hosts ; each man with his white 
 heap or slab above his head, so that the lower part of 
 Olivet is scarred with a countless multitude of ghostly 
 memorial stones. 
 
 No rich local colouring brightens the outward aspect of 
 the Holy City. A ruddy grey stone is the material basis of 
 wall and roof; for the upper rooms being vaulted, and the 
 covering flat, the house-tops are composed of the same 
 materials as the upright shell. A gilt cross gleams from a 
 church ; a silver crescent sparkles on a mosque ; a belt of 
 white colonnades adorns the Temple hill ; a parapet of red 
 tiles surrounds some of the high roofs ; here a patch of 
 mosaic quickens into beauty a modest dome; and there 
 a palm-tree waves its elegant fans against the azure sky. 
 But these specks of colour on the prevailing ground only 
 serve to set the landscape in a lower key. A sky of variable 
 tone, Sicilian in its usual depth of blue, yet English in its 
 occasional wealth of mist and cloud, hangs over this mass of 
 limestone roof and wall. 
 
 If the colours of Jerusalem are cold and scant, the 
 architectural forms excel in richness and in interest. Cairo 
 and Rome appear to have met. Gates and bastions which 
 would be the pride and glory of any other place — of such a 
 Saracenic city as Seville, of such a Saracenic palace as the 
 Alhambra — only frame and protect the more precious art 
 which they here enclose. In the Church of the Sepulchre, 
 in the Mosque of Omar, you see the two grand cupolas of 
 West and East ; the type of the Pantheon and that of the 
 Memlook kings. This Latin dome of the Sepulchre, like 
 the ^Roman arch, its parent, is low and round, the upper 
 
214 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 part of a globe, the cup of an Italian orange ; that Semitic 
 dome of the Rock, like the Saracenic arch, its parent, is 
 high and pointed, the long end of a cone, the section of a 
 Nilotic melon, of a Syrian grape. 
 
 Taking it in mass and detail, yon group on the Temple 
 hill — the Mosques of Omar and El Aksa, the domes, the 
 terraces, the colonnades, the kiosks, and fountains — is 
 perhaps the very noblest specimen of building art in Asia. 
 The Saracenic cupola of the Mosque of Omar may be said 
 to defy comparison, even with the proud domes of St. Sophia, 
 St. Peter, and St. Paul. The marble octagon from which 
 that cupola leaps into the air, with the arabesque frieze and 
 circle of pointed windows, may search through Europe for 
 its equal in either grace or strength. In like manner, the 
 whole city of Jerusalem, though it cannot be called beau- 
 tiful, like Florence, Genoa, Bordeaux, and Edinburgh, is full 
 of hint and contrast — sparkling with epigrams in stone. 
 Twenty light minarets lift you in imagination to the Nile. 
 The rotunda carries you to Constantinople and to Rome ; 
 the immediate model of the church of the Holy Sepulchre 
 being St. Sophia, as the model of that basilica was the 
 Pantheon. Who shall appraise the corridor of El Aksa, 
 the tower of the Serai, the span of the Golden Gate? A 
 convent here, a synagogue there, add elements to the 
 picture, anomalies to the scene. A thousand low, round 
 cupolas, borrowed from Byzantine art, break the level sky 
 lines into beauty, and in some degree atone for the lack of 
 a second material and for the absence of a brighter tint. 
 
S TREE TS OF JER USA LEM. 2 1 5 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 STREETS OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 A S the sun goes down over Soba, four of the five gates 
 ^ now used by the people of Jerusalem are closed and 
 barred. These are^ the Damascus gate on the north, near 
 Jeremiah's cave and the Potter's vaults ; St. Stephen's gate, 
 more commonly called Our Lady Marian's, leading out 
 towards Bethany and Olivet on the east ; Dung gate, near 
 the Jews' quarter, in the flow of the Cheesemonger's valley ; 
 Zion gate, lying between the lepers' sheds and the tomb of 
 David. But the Bethlehem gate, the inlet of trade and 
 travel from Egypt and from the sea, stands open for 
 half an hour after gun-fire ; when the oaken valves swing 
 inward, a sentinel turns the key, and no man has the 
 right to pass that portal until another morning shall have 
 dawned. A special pass fronl Suraya is the only lawful 
 means of ingress during the hours of night ; so that in all 
 common cases, a stranger who arrives too late, a citizen who 
 has loitered in the fields too long, must wind himself in his 
 cloak, select a smooth stone for a pillow, and take his rest 
 under the stars of heaven. A warm climate, a wandering 
 life, an indifference to dirt and dew, enable the natives to 
 bow to such necessities with a patient shrug. A Frank is 
 less easy ; and after riding up from Jaffa in a long day, an 
 Englishman will often spend his night before the closed 
 gate, stamping and yelling for the imperturbable Turkish 
 guard. 
 
2 1 6 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 Piastres, pushed through the grill, are said to have a 
 miraculous power of slipping back bolts and bars ; but the 
 experiment has been known to fail. In the mystic creeds 
 of the East, even metals lose their virtue on particular days. 
 
 The streets of the Holy City should be trod by day ; not 
 only because noon is everywhere warmer in colour than 
 evening, but because Jerusalem is a Moslem and Oriental 
 town, in which the business of life suspends itself from 
 sunset to sunrise. 
 
 No gas, no oil, no torch, no wax lights up the streets and 
 archways of Jerusalem by night. Half an hour after gun- 
 fire the bazaar is cleared, the shops and baths are closed, the 
 camels stalled, the narrow ways deserted. An Arab has no 
 particular love for lamps and lights. A flicker satisfies him 
 in his room, and he never thinks of casting a ray from his 
 candle into the public street. Darkness comes down like a 
 pall, and by the time that Paris would become brilliant with 
 lamps and gas, Jerusalem is like a City of the Dead. For a 
 little while about the edge of dark, a white figure may be seen 
 stealing from house to house ; at a later hour you may catch 
 the beam of a lantern carried by a slave ; a Frank has been 
 out to see his friend ; a cavash is going to the consul's house ; 
 a bey is visiting his posts. These men have lanterns borne 
 before them ; for in Jerusalem, as in Cairo and Stamboul, a 
 man going home without a light may be arrested as a thief. 
 
 What should tempt the inhabitants into their sombre 
 streets ? In a Moslem town, there are no plays, no concerts, 
 no casinos, none of the impure public revelries which help 
 to seduce the young in London, Paris, and new York. Bad 
 men, and worse women, may exist in Zion, as in any other 
 populous place ; but here they have to hide their shameful 
 trades, having no balk, no theatres, no taverns, in which 
 they can meet and decoy the unwary youth. Gaieties of 
 any kind are rare. The nuptial processions which enliven 
 the night in Cairo with lamps and drums have no existence 
 in the Holy Land, where the bridegroom fetches home his 
 bride by day. No one gives dinners, scarcely any one plays 
 
S TREE TS OF JER USALEM. 2 1 7 
 
 whist. A Moslem loves his home, his hareem, and his 
 offspring, but his house is seldom the place in which he 
 chooses to see his friends. A Frank may invite his neigh- 
 hours to come and sip acids and repeat to each other that 
 there is still no news ; a mollah may call some sheikhs to 
 his roof, where they will squat on clean carpets and recite 
 their evening prayers. Refreshed with lemon-juice, inspired 
 by devotion, these sober revellers, each with his servant and 
 his lantern, seek their homes and beds about the hour at 
 which men in London are sitting down to dine. 
 
 But neither feasts nor songs, if there were any such things 
 to be enjoyed in Jerusalem, would tempt from his rooms, at 
 night, a man in whose excited imagination the streets are 
 less safe than the heights of Mizpeh and Olivet, the glens of 
 Tophet and Gehenna, nay, the howling wilderness itself. 
 Not to dwell on the Bedaween thief, though he is deft and 
 quick, nor on the Bashi Bazouk, though he is proud and 
 hot, a man living in Jerusalem has a right to fear that in 
 passing through the streets at night he may be touched by 
 a leper, he may be kicked by a camel, he may be bitten by 
 a cur, he may fall into a pit. The alleys of Zion, and above 
 all others the alleys of the Jewish quarter, reek with decay- 
 ing fruit, dead animals, and human filth, offensive alike to 
 eye and nostril, in the midst of which fertilizing garbage 
 innumerable armies of rats and lizards race and fight. The 
 hungry dogs, too, prowl by night, savage as wolves and not 
 less brave. A Syrian, tender of heart towards animals of 
 every kind, is particularly zealous in protecting rats and 
 snakes, the friends of his house, and hounds and curs, the 
 scavengers of his court ; so that no one dares or desires to 
 purify the Holy City from these dangerous vermin. But 
 worse than the dread of these plagues of Jerusalem by night, 
 is that of the wandering fakeers who devote their lives to 
 Allah, and hang about the holy places, ready to chastise 
 such giaours as in their untaught opinions profane the 
 mosques. The sultan crushes these wretches with unpitying 
 arm ; for he has sense enough to see tliat they act no less 
 
2i8 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 against policy than against law ; yet they spring up afresh ; 
 coming in from the ends of the earth, from the Soudan, from 
 Borneo, from the Punjaub ; new converts to the faith, 
 inspired with the martyr's zeal. You cannot guard against 
 these fakeers, except by day, for you never know of the 
 oifence you have given them, and you cannot tell where 
 they may lie in wait to avenge their imaginary wrongs. A 
 fakeer may have watched you go into the Haram es Shereef 
 — the Temple court — marvelling in his heart why the soldier 
 walking at your side did not chop you down. He may 
 have noticed you uncover your head in the Mosque of 
 Omar ; a deadly insult in his eyes ; for which he has sworn 
 to take your life. Who can tell the ways of this untaught 
 child ? Even now he may be waiting for you in the dark, 
 in the shadow of yon wall, to thrust his poniard into your 
 side. 
 
 A wise pilgrim in Jerusalem will keep his convent after 
 gun-fire ; enjoying a chat on the roof, a pipe in the garden, 
 a book in his cell. 
 
 Streets in the European sense of words have no existence 
 in Jerusalem. No Oriental city has them, even in name. 
 An Arab, who has a thousand words to express a camel, a 
 sword, a mare, has scarcely one word which suggests a 
 street. A Hebrew had the same poverty of speech ; for 
 such a thoroughfare as the Broadway, the Corso, or the 
 Strand, is quite unknown to the East. Solomon never saw 
 a Boulevard. Saladin never dreamt of a Pall Mall. An 
 Arab city must have sooks in which people trade, quarters 
 in which people live ; for such a city, even when it has 
 grown into the greatness of a capital like Cairo or Stamboul, 
 is still but an intricate camp in wood and stone. It must 
 have quarters; but it need not have the series of open ways, 
 cutting and crossing each other, which we call streets. Its 
 houses are built in groups ; a family, a tribe, a profession 
 occupying each group of houses. A group is a quarter of 
 itself, having its own sheikh, its own police, its own public 
 law, and being separated from the contiguous quarters by 
 
STREE TS OF JER USA LEAL 2 1 9 
 
 gates which a stranger has no right to pass. Free commu- 
 nication from one to another is not desired; and such alleys 
 as connect one quarter with another, being considered no 
 man's land, are rarely honoured with a public name. Only 
 two streets are mentioned in the Bible : Baker's Street in 
 Jerusalem, Straight Street in Damascus ; and these two 
 examples are not even the exceptions to a common rule ; 
 the first being evidently Baker's Place (the sook or market 
 of that trade), while the second was probably a Roman 
 work. No true Oriental city has streets with native names. 
 The great thoroughfare of Cairo is known, in one part as 
 Jeweller's Place, in another as Crockery Place. It is the 
 same in Aleppo and Bagdad. Ten years ago Stamboul 
 enjoyed the same poverty and simplicity, and it was not 
 until the Western Armies occupied Pera and Scutari that 
 the natives began to appreciate the value of this Frankish 
 art. The pious names, by help of which Christians find 
 their way about Jerusalem, such as David Street and Via 
 Dolorosa, are still unknown to the native race. 
 
 Except in the sooks and bazaars, the streets are all 
 unpaved. Here the natural rock peeps out through the 
 filth ; there a stone of the grand old Tyrian size has fallen 
 into the way, and nearly blocked it up ; but commonly the 
 surface on which you walk is composed of mud and sand. 
 Cairo is not paved, Bagdad is not paved. From the days 
 of Solomon to those of Herod, Jerusalem remained unpaved. 
 Nor did that splendid artist, though he laid the main street 
 of Antioch with marble as a kingly gift to the inhabitants, 
 ever attempt to do the same great service for his Jewish 
 capital. In Agrippa's time the work was still to be done. 
 In an Oriental town, where a broad path does not exist, 
 and open communications are not desired, a smooth floor 
 would be of no particular use. Why make it ? In the few 
 nooks and corners of Jerusalem where the lanes are paved, 
 as in the markets and bazaars, the work appears to have 
 been done ages ago, by some strange hand, and never to 
 have been repaired. The alleys of the bazaars have once 
 
220 THE HOL Y LA ND. 
 
 been laid with marble, now much w'orn and broken, in one 
 place bare and bright, in another place buried under a cake 
 of mud. In front of the shops in David Street, the floor is 
 laid wdth huge round stones, skull-shape, on w^hich neither 
 man nor beast can keep his feet. An open sew^er runs down 
 each lane, in which offal and carrion, decaying fruit, dead 
 cats, dead curs, the dung of camels and donkeys, fester and 
 wait for the cleansing rain. More than once, when the city 
 has been choked with filth and threatened with pestilence, 
 the gates are said to have been opened in the night for the 
 hyenas to enter and devour the waste ; a means of escape 
 from the abomination which would be used more frequently 
 w^ere the inhabitants not more terrified by the chance of a 
 visit from the Adouan than by fear of the plague. 
 
 Dark, arched, and picturesque are all these lanes. Tall 
 houses, bald to the front, with basements and vaults of the 
 time of Herod, with lattices and upper stories of the time of 
 Saladin, some of them having bevelled foundation-stones, 
 with jambs and arches of the richest Arabian art, line the 
 streets of Jerusalem, and nod to each other like the palazzos 
 of Genoa and Venice. Shops and coffee-houses occupy the 
 first flat, as in the chief street of Cairo ; but with greater 
 depth and variety than the Cairene shops. The rows of 
 houses being interrupted at every turn by public buildings, 
 now in ruins — old convents, hospitals, churches, mosques — 
 and rents being high and custom lax, the vaults of these 
 crumbling piles have been seized by Arab and Hebrew 
 traders, partly cleared out, partly propped up, and converted 
 into stables, baths, and mills. The fallen hospice of the 
 Knights Templars, on land adjoining the Holy Sepulchre, 
 affords shelter in its vaults and corridors to a great many 
 braziers, barbers, and corn-chandlers ; one room in the 
 great ruin being used for a bazaar, another for a tannery, a 
 third for a public bath ; the Syrian burrowmg in the founda- 
 tions of the old hospice, just as an Egyptian herdsman 
 cowers into a tomb, and a Roman smith finds lodging in a 
 palace wall. 
 
STREETS OF JERUSALEM. 221 
 
 Enter this coffee-house, where the old sheikh is smoking 
 near the door; call the cafigeh, the waiter, commonly a 
 negro slave ; command a cup of black comfort, a narghiley, 
 and a morsel of live charcoal. Then look round the vault. 
 A dozen men, all bronzed and bearded except yourself, 
 some in rich robes and shawls, some naked to the waist, 
 some dressed in sacks and sandals only, squat about the 
 chamber, each with his hookah and his cup, either dozing 
 by himself, chatting with his neighbour, or listening to a 
 story-teller's endless adventures of love and war. A fountain 
 bubbles in the centre. Mules are feeding in the rear. A 
 heap of stones and mortar fills a corner of the room, and 
 through rents in the ceiling you catch a strip, a circle, of the 
 celestial blue. In fact, you are seated in the crypt of a 
 church, of which the roof and nave have long since fallen 
 into ruin ; an example which the crypt will some day follow 
 with a crash. Ask the cafigeh why he does not mend those 
 holes in his ceiling ; he replies that his house belongs to 
 the Greeks, and that no one objects to a hole in a roof, 
 except when it rains. But why do not the Greeks repair 
 and preserve their property ? He cannot say. No one 
 would ask them. God is great and the effendis are wise. 
 
 Remains of all ages litter and adorn these alleys ; here a 
 broken column, there a Corinthian capital, elsewhere an 
 Egyptian sarcophagus. A porphyry shaft may be built into 
 a garden wall, and a plinth of verd-antique may serve as a 
 tailor's board. Many of the common kinds of trades are 
 conducted in the street, and especially such trades as con- 
 cern feeding the stranger and the poor. 
 
 A public thoroughfare is often the poor Arab's only 
 house, where he must eat and drink, and buy and sell. 
 When he wishes to wash, to rest, and to pray, he repairs to 
 the court of his mosque, and at stated times to the mosque 
 itself; for the mosque is the true Moslem's home, which he 
 has a right to enter, and from which no official can drive 
 him away. In the court of his mosque he is sure to find 
 water, in the sacred edifice he is sure to find shade. After 
 
222 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 finishing his devotions, he may throw himself on the mats 
 and sleep. No verger has the pretension to expel him from 
 the house of God. But the offices for which the solemnity 
 of his mosque would be unsuitable, must be done in the 
 public places ; where he may have to load his camel, to 
 feed his ass, and to dine and smoke. Humble cooks and 
 cafigehs wait for him at the street corners. On three or 
 four broken stones, the cook lights a bunch of sticks ; throws 
 into a pan a few olives and lentils, a piece of fat, a handful 
 of parched corn, and holding this pan over his embers, 
 stirs and simmers these edibles into a mess, the very smell 
 of which ravishes an Arab's soul. A twist of coarse bread, 
 a mug of fresh water, and a pipe of Lebanon tobacco, make 
 up the remainder of his meal ; after which the tired way- 
 farer will wrap his mantle about his face, lie down among 
 the stones, and pass the soft summer night in dreaming 
 of that happier heaven of his creed in which the heat is 
 never fire and the cold never frost, in which the wells are 
 always full, the dates always ripe, and the virgins ever 
 young. 
 
JERUSALEM UNDER THE HIGH PRIEST. 22: 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 JERUSALEM UNDER THE HIGH PRIEST. 
 
 TN its noble outlines, if not in its more ruinous details, 
 the City of the High Priest must have presented many 
 of the aspects which the City of the Pasha wears to-day. 
 Nature has not changed her forms and colours ; her hills 
 have the same verdure, her valleys the same sweep as ot 
 old. 
 
 A man entering Jerusalem by the North gate, as Jesus 
 sometimes entered it from the Shechem road, would have 
 Mizpeh and Olivet on his left hand, their grey slopes dotted 
 with sycamores and figs, with great clumps of olive trees, 
 and with here and there a herdsman and his flock. He 
 would see a large open suburb advancing from the gates to 
 meet him, and covering with houses and gardens much of 
 that high plateau which was afterwards enclosed by Agrippa's 
 wall. A tower of grand masonry commanded the north 
 road from the spot now marked by the Damascus gate ; 
 and from this tower the deep natural trench called the 
 Cheesemonger's valley, flowing down through the city into 
 the glens and gardens of Siloam, parted the headland of 
 rock, on which Jerusalem stood, into two main crests ; 
 on the right Gareb-Zion, on the left Bezetha-Akra ; the 
 second crest ending in the platform of Moriah and in the 
 dropping ridge of Ophel. From the Cheesemonger's valley, 
 the ascent to these crests was steep ; but lanes and covered 
 ways ran up the slopes, the houses huddling close upon 
 
224 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 each other, while the more spacious palaces and synagogues 
 crowned the tops. 
 
 Near the northern entrance into this open suburb, on 
 each side of the great tower, the ground was high and 
 almost level ; a plateau wedding the two spurs of Akra and 
 Zion to the mountainous table-land of Judah and Benjamin, 
 and just roughened into picture by mounds and clefts 
 through which the live rock showed its face, and by abun- 
 dance of almond trees, terebinths, and figs. On all the 
 other sides, west, south, and east, the three dark ravines, 
 called Gihon, Hinnom, and Jehoshaphat, swept round the 
 feet of these parting crests, defending the quarters built on 
 Akra and Zion by mighty natural ditches from any assault 
 that could be delivered by an enemy occupying the neigh- 
 bouring heights. 
 
 Strong walls, with embattled gates and towers, hung over 
 these ravines ; two solid and lofty walls, enclosing the old 
 city and the new, which had borne the brunt of every onset 
 of the Assyrian and the Greek. The first of these walls, 
 embracing the city in which David reigned, started from 
 the Lishcath ha-Gazith, the Great Hall of the Sanhedrin 
 on Moriah, crossed the Cheesemonger's valley from east to 
 west, clomb the slope of Zion up to David's tower, and 
 sweeping thence by way of the Essene gate, along the 
 ridge overhanging Gihon, as far south as the fountain of 
 Siloam, curled sharp round Ophel, the priestly quarter, and 
 struck the eastern angle of the Temple mount. The space 
 enclosed within this circuit of the first w^all was the old city 
 of Zion. In time, when the people multiplied, and the 
 lower ground to the north, comprising the bed and slopes 
 of the Cheesemonger's valley, became covered with houses, 
 palaces, and mills, a second wall had been thrown round 
 these suburbs ; starting from David's tower, and curving 
 like a bow to the Garden gate and the North gate, leaping 
 the Cheesemonger's valley, at a higher point, and thence 
 going south to join Antonia, a castle built by Herod, on 
 the site ot a Macedonian fort, as an outwork and defence 
 
JERUSALEM UNDER THE HIGH PRIEST. 225 
 
 of the Temple court. Within this second circuit lay the 
 lower city, of which Antonia was the citadel, as David's 
 tower was that of Zion. In height, in substance, and in 
 aspect, the outer walls were much what they are now ; the 
 main differences being, as the foundations declare, that the 
 stones were then more massive, the chambers more frequent, 
 and the gates of a severer style. 
 
 In all the finer trifles of man's art, the city of Annas had 
 many and signal points of variation from the modern 
 town. The Giant's Castle did not then exist ; the third 
 city of Bezetha-Gareb not needing a citadel for its defence, 
 since it had not yet been taken within the military lines. 
 A man coming into Jerusalem from Shechem would first 
 arrive at this new city — an open suburb, already invading 
 Gareb and covering Bezetha, as well as filling up all that 
 part of the Cheesemonger's valley which had been left 
 beyond the second wall. Bezetha had the appearance of a 
 goodly town. Gareb was only as yet very sparsely occupied 
 by houses ; the ground on this side of the north road being 
 rough, a place of gardens and graves, and for that reason 
 shunned by all builders except lepers, beggars, and the 
 poorest class of Jews. The gate opening from the city into 
 this quarter was called Genath, the Garden gate. Almond 
 trees grew in such profusion that the Pool of Hezekiah, 
 l}dng close by, had come to be known as the Almond Pool. 
 On Gareb, outside the Garden gate, a monument had been 
 erected to the high priest John. A few paces from this 
 structure, Joseph of Arimathea, a noble Jew, a member of 
 the Sanhedrin, had bought a bit of garden, with a wall of 
 uncovered rock, in which he had hcAMi for himself a 
 sepulchral vault. Outside Joseph's Garden stood a mound, 
 called Golgotha, Skull Place, the Tyburn of Jerusalem ; 
 on which thieves, assassins, pirates, heretics, traitors, teachers 
 of falsehood, men the most odious in Jewish eyes, were put 
 to a shameful and cruel death, being nailed by the hands 
 and feet to a wooden cross, and left in the burning sun to 
 die. 
 
 Q 
 
226 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 These rocks and caves, these groups of ahiiond trees and 
 figs, covered much of Gareb, and only ended where the 
 suburb ended, under the city wall. But near the Garden 
 gate they ceased. No green space, no square, no planted 
 yard, no line of verdure, brightened and refreshed the actual 
 streets. As rule and custom forbade the introduction of 
 manure into the Holy City, nature herself appeared to be 
 almost banished from Jerusalem. There was only one ex- 
 ception to this rigid prohibition of trees and flowers. A 
 part of the Temple area, not being inhabited, was planted 
 with the national tree — the emblem of Judah — the sacred 
 palm. But no fig-tree waved its boughs above the house- 
 top, no vine threw its tendrils round the lattice. A Jewish 
 garden was not made near the house, but was built and 
 laid out beyond the walls, among the cemeteries in the 
 Wady Cedron, on the plateau of Gareb, by the pool of 
 Gihon. The Rose Garden mentioned in the Mishna, in 
 which figs might be sold untithed, was probably a sook or 
 market in Jerusalem like Covent Garden in London. The 
 royal gardens lay at the foot of Ophel, among the sweet 
 waters of Enrogel and Siloam, where Solomon had first 
 planted them for the solace of his Egyptian queen. In the 
 later ages of Herod and Pilate the courts of the palace on 
 Mount Zion were planted with shrubs ; but these gardens 
 were made for the delight of strangers, not for that of the 
 citizens ; and their presence under the palace wall must 
 have made it difficult for a Separatist Jew to enter into the 
 gates of Pilate's house. 
 
 The common gardens of the people were small, and 
 fenced like the garden of Gethsemane of the present day ; 
 and were known by the name of some plant which they 
 contained, such as the garden of nuts, the garden of cu- 
 cumbers, the garden of olives. They were kept for use, 
 even more than for pleasure and beauty ; growing herbs for 
 the kitchen, fruit for the table ; having a kiosk or chapel 
 for purposes of devotion ; and not unfrequently a sepulchre 
 in which many generations of the family had been laid. 
 
JERUSALEM UNDER THE HIGH PRIEST. zi-j 
 
 Every Jew of rank and station in Jerusalem desirecl to 
 possess a garden and a grave under the city walls ; the new 
 comer equally with the old dweller ; and a stranger from 
 Sharon or Galilee, when building himself a house in Zion or 
 in Akra, would consider it a duty to hew himself a tomb in 
 Gareb or Jehoshaphat. Joseph, though a stranger in Jeru- 
 salem, had pierced a cavity in that rock near Genath and 
 the almond pool — a grave in which never man had yet been 
 laid. 
 
 Passing from the open suburb through the north gate into 
 the pent city, you entered a network of narrow, winding, and 
 unpaved streets. The houses were high, the lanes dark and 
 arched. None of the beautiful domes and cupolas which 
 adorn the modern city existed in the time of Annas. Jeru- 
 salem owes that beautiful feature, first to the Byzantines, 
 next to the Saracens. A Hebrew roof was flat, having a 
 screen of open tiles going round the ledge, at once to 
 prevent children from falling off and women from being 
 seen. No belfry broke the sky line ; no minaret reared its 
 graceful form into the air. The Temple may, indeed, have 
 been a nobler edifice than the Mosque of Omar ; a native 
 must assuredly have thought it more imposing and august ; 
 though it might not have seemed more brilliant and 
 picturesque to a Roman eye. The style of all Jewish 
 building was tame and flat ; and it may perhaps be said with 
 truth that the capital of Judah owed its magnificence of 
 aspect mainly to its rocks, its ravines, and its walls, to the 
 heaving ground on which it stood, to the splendour of 
 Pilate's palace on Mount Zion, and to the gold and marble 
 of the Temple front. 
 
 The two groups of regal and sacred edifices on Mount 
 Zion and Mount Moriah, divided by the Cheesemonger's 
 valley, known in this part of the town as the Xystus, were 
 connected by a grand bridge, crossing the trench, and 
 leading by flights of steps into the temple courts. That 
 bridge was built of enormous stones, and was worthy of the 
 palace and temple to which it led. 
 
228 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 Each group of buildings may be pictured to the mind. 
 
 David's tower, enlarged and beautified by Herod, capped 
 the high top of Zion, balanced by two towers which the 
 great builder had raised upon its flanks, called Phasaelus 
 and Mariamne, from the names of his favourite brother and 
 his murdered wife. These towers were built solid to a 
 height of forty or fifty feet ; on which solid base of artificial 
 rock stood cisterns for water thirty feet deep ; over which 
 came guard-rooms, armouries, magazines ; and above these 
 chambers stood those breastworks and turrets behind which 
 the slingers and archers fought. From base to parapet these 
 towers of defence were about a hundred and forty feet high ; 
 the stones of which they were built being thirty feet long by 
 fifteen feet broad, levelled and smoothed, and fitting to each 
 other so cleanly that it was said a shekel could nowhere be 
 thrust between the joints. David's tower had a cloister, a 
 bath, and a regal hall ; for under every change of dynasty 
 during a thousand years this noble work had always been the 
 centre and home of the ruling power. 
 
 Below these three towers, which Herod called Hippicus, 
 Phasaelus, and Mariamne, lay the new palace, then occupied 
 by Pilate, his wife Claudia, and their household ; a series of 
 Greek buildings, having court within court, portico behind 
 portico, columns of serpentine and porphyry, a vast wall of 
 marble, terraced for promenade and bastioned for defence, 
 two halls of reception and of audience, and sleeping-rooms 
 spacious enough to receive and accommodate a hundred 
 guests. Two royal apartments in this palace bore the 
 names Csesarium and Agrippium, and in every part of the 
 enclosure the taste of Rome and Antioch reigned supreme. 
 The open courts were planted with trees, through the midst 
 of which verdure a canal was cut and abundance of water 
 poured. Fountains gushed from the mouths of nymphs and 
 dolphins. Flocks of doves and pigeons fluttered through 
 the air. A garden nestled on the low ground to the south. 
 Before the palace gates stretched an open court, in the 
 middle of which, since Herod's dwelling had become the 
 
JERUSALEM UNDER THE HIGH PRIEST. 229 
 
 Roman praetorium, lay the bit of mosaic pavement, marking, 
 in a Roman town, the seat of judgment. The Jews called 
 this ground Gabbatha : on it stood a small raised stone or 
 bench, inlaid with curious marbles ; on which stone, when 
 public sentence had to be pronounced on criminals, the 
 palace officers fixed the great chair of state. For although 
 a criminal cause might be heard, and the sentence 
 determined in the audience chamber within the palace, it 
 was the custom in Jerusalem to announce this decision in 
 the open air, from the judgment-seat on the Gabbatha, in 
 presence of the assembled people and their priests. 
 
 Antipas Herod, having no longer a home in his father's 
 magnificent house on Zion, yet wishing to stand well with 
 the Jews, over whom he still dreamt that he should one day 
 reign, built for himself a new palace in the city ; not on the 
 royal hill, not even within the walls j but in the open suburb 
 of Bezetha, where the site of his modest home is still marked 
 by a ruined mosque. 
 
 Near the three towers and the king's palace on Mount 
 Zion stood a group of sacred buildings, known as the Seven 
 Synagogues, a mass of edifices loosely resembling the Seven 
 Churches of Bologna : not far from these synagogues stood 
 the palace of the Maccabees, the palace of the Archives, the 
 palaces of Caiaphas, nominal high priest, and of Annas, real 
 high priest. 
 
 All these structures, standing on the height and slope of 
 Zion, looked down on the Xystus, the great bridge, and the 
 opposing ridge of Moriah, crowned by the marble walls and 
 golden turrets of the Temple, and displaying the broad white 
 screens, the Corinthian gates, the double colonnades, and 
 majestic halls of the Temple courts. 
 
 But Moriah demands a yet closer view. 
 
2:;o THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE TEMPLE. 
 
 A MONG the many warm debates which divide the 
 Churches, no doubt has ever been raised as to the site 
 of Mount Moriah, the Temple hill. Bible, Talmud, Koran : 
 Jewish Classics, early Fathers, Greek and Latin pilgrims : 
 Pagans, Christians, Moslems : all scholars, all ecclesiastics, 
 all worshippers, all enemies, declare that this grand open 
 space, which the Arabs call Haram es Shereef, the sacred in- 
 closure, was the Temple platform. It stood over against 
 Olivet ; looking down on one side into the gardens of Ophel, 
 on the other side into the graveyards of Jehoshaphat. 
 
 The Haram is about the size of St. James's Park within 
 the rails ; much of it garden : a Syrian garden ; that is to 
 say, a place in which there are some green clumps, a few 
 flowering plants, a little wild grass, and a good deal of cypress 
 and prickly pear. Near the centre of this great square 
 stands a marble dais, having Saracenic screens and colon- 
 nades of singular beauty; from which dais springs the 
 Mosque of Omar, properly called the Dome of the Rock. 
 South of this mosque lie the great fountains and tanks of 
 water; washing of hands and feet being part of both the 
 Moslem and the Jewish religious rite. Round about the 
 mosque stand many kiosks and altars. Yet a little farther 
 south, on a lower level of the platform, rises the mosque el 
 Aksa; beneath and beyond which pile rest the mighty 
 foundations by means of which Solomon and Herod had 
 
THE TEMPLE. 231 
 
 levelled and enlarged the hill. The upper wall of the Haram 
 is Saracenic art of the best period, having much of the solid 
 picturesqueness seen in the walls of Granada and Seville; 
 but the lower tiers of stone are of older date and more 
 rugged strength. Saladin's sons tried to pull down the 
 pyramids of Gizeh ; a task as easy as any attempt to pluck 
 out the stones from this temple wall. 
 
 On this great natural platform, levelled and enlarged by 
 art, the Temple stood ; not filling it, even with its outer 
 courts and double colonnades ; for the sacred buildings of 
 the Jews were small when compared against an English 
 abbey or a Roman church. 
 
 Every Hebrew pile, a house, a palace, a synagogue, a 
 temple, was modelled on the outlines of a pastoral tent. A 
 Jew was a man without art ; one who could live without 
 painting a picture, without modelling a bust, without 
 striking a coin. Between Moses and Annas he had 
 erected only two structures on which an Athenian would 
 have deigned to smile — the two temples of Gerizim and 
 Moriah; and these structures could pretend to no higher 
 excellence than that of being pretty faithful copies in marble 
 of a nomadic tent. A Hebrew of the golden age, whose 
 eyes had not been dazzled by Greek and Babylonish 
 architecture, had needed for his devotions no higher art. 
 Driving their herds before them in search of grass, the 
 tribes had carried the ark of the covenant through the 
 desert in a tabernacle of the same form with their common 
 tents ; the only difference being that the work was finer, 
 the materials costlier, the pillars made of brass, the rods of 
 acacia wood, the fillets of silver, the roof of camel's hair 
 drawn and dyed. The shape of their simple tabernacle was 
 an oblong, ten yards wide and twenty yards deep ; parted 
 into two rooms of equal size by rich hangings ; one room 
 being the Holy of Holies, in which were placed the ark, the 
 cherubim, and the mercy-seat; the other room being the 
 Holy Place, in which were kept the candlestick, the altar of 
 incense, and the table of shew-bread. These two chambers 
 
2 1 2 THE HOL V LA ND. 
 
 differed in uses, though not in form. Into the Holy of 
 HoUes, no man, not even the priest, could enter, except on 
 rare occasions. In that adytum God was supposed to 
 dwell. Into the outer room, the Holy Place, the porch of 
 which stood open to the sun, the priests could always go, 
 but no one save a priest could pass the tabernacle door. 
 The laity stood without. Around this sacred oblong, and 
 of like shape with it, stretched a screen of cloth, fifty yards 
 long by twenty-five yards broad ; enclosing a double square ; 
 of which the upper end contained the tabernacle, while the 
 lower end formed an open court before the sacred door. 
 In this area, called the Court of the Priests, stood the altar 
 for burnt offerings, also the bronze laver or basin in which 
 the priests washed their hands and feet before entering into 
 the Holy Place. 
 
 When Solomon built a stone temple, as a sign that 
 Israel had ceased to be a wandering race, he erected a 
 magnificent tent of marble ; larger in dimensions than the 
 tabernacle of Gibeon and of Zion, and of the finest work 
 that his power and riches could command. A double 
 square, a Holy of Holies, a Holy Place, an outer court, a 
 surrounding screen, were all produced in limestone and 
 cedar ; also a second screen to enclose the first with an 
 open space ; making a Court of the People around the 
 original and more sacred Court of the Priests. 
 
 The second temple copied the first; the third temple 
 copied the second ; except that the outer work of Herod 
 was larger in size, nobler in material, higher in art, than the 
 structures which it replaced. 
 
 Herod, as you may still see from the glorious vaults and 
 passages, visible beneath the Aksa, employed on his works 
 the masons of Athens and Antioch. Indeed, it may be 
 said of Herod's temple, as of Herod himself, that in 
 outward face and polish it displayed far less of the Hebrew 
 genius than of the Greek ; yet the core of his new edifice 
 kept its original shape ; and the temple of Herod, like the 
 Temple of Solomon, was a marble tent. 
 
THE TEMPLE. 233 
 
 Deep in the heart of the mass of buildings on Moriah, on 
 the highest level of the rock, the Temple proper, the tent or 
 stone, had been raised by priestly hands. As the tread of 
 any secular foot, whether of Jew or Greek, would have 
 profaned the holy place, the Ionian builders were thrust 
 aside from this inner range ; enough for these heathens to 
 labour on the gates, the colonnades, and the open courts. 
 This sacred block was parted like the tabernacle into two 
 grand chambers : the adytum, the Holy of Holies, a square 
 room, in shape a cube ; being ten yards in length, in 
 breadth, and in height. This Holy of Holies stood to the 
 west. In front of it, parted from it only by a veil or screen, 
 was the naos, the holy place. As in the old tabernacle, the 
 inner chamber was the dwelling of the Most High ; a room 
 now bare and empty, since the ark had been lost in the 
 Babylonish war; yet not to be trodden, not to be seen, 
 except on rarest occasions by mortal man. In the outer 
 chamber, that lying to the east, stood the candlestick 
 bearing seven lamps, perhaps to typify the seven planets; 
 the table of shew-bread, with twelve loaves to represent the 
 months \ the altar of incense, having thirteen spices burning 
 night and day, to signify that all the produce of the earth 
 belongs to God. These ornaments were of gold. The 
 veil which divided the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place 
 was a curtain of finest work. 
 
 The true front of this edifice, facing towards the sunrise, 
 stood high and square, having in the middle a great porch 
 or opening like a Roman arch, before which hung a second 
 veil; a magnificent curtain of rich Babylonian art, em- 
 broidered with blue and flax, scarlet and purple; colours 
 which were meant to be a reflex and image of the world — 
 the scarlet representing fire, the flax earth, the blue sky, 
 the purple sea. No figures, no sculptures, as in Persian 
 and Egyptian temples, adorned the front. Golden vines 
 and clusters of grapes, the typical plant and fruit of Israel, 
 ran along the wall, and the greater and lesser lights of 
 heaven were wrought into the texture of the veil. The 
 
234 
 
 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 whole fa9ade was covered with plates of gold, which, v/hen 
 the sun shone upon them in the early day, sent back his 
 rays with an added glory, so great that gazers standing on 
 Olivet had to shade their eyes when turning towards the 
 Temple mount. 
 
 Twelve steps led down from this platform of the Temple 
 proper, to a second level, occupied by the Court of the 
 Priests. Here stood the great bronze laver, the altar of 
 burnt offerings built of unhewn stones, and a number of 
 marble benches on which were laid the flesh of victims 
 waiting to be burnt. Three flights of stairs led down from 
 this court to a third level, occupied by the Court of the 
 Israelites, sometimes called the Sanctuary. Here stood the 
 chief edifices connected with the Temple ; houses of priests, 
 oflices, guard-room, with the Lishcath ha-Gazith, hall of the 
 Sanhedrin. In this Court of the Israelites, facing the porch 
 of the Holy Place, rose a magnificent gate of Corinthian 
 brass, said to have been brought from Alexandria by 
 Nicanor, and sometimes called by his name. It was of 
 Greek design, and some persons believe it to have been 
 that Beautiful Gate by which the lame man sat begging 
 alms when Peter and John went up to pray. Other gates 
 were of wood, but covered with either gold or silver 
 leaf 
 
 A third flight of stairs, fourteen in number, dropped to an 
 outer court; that of the cloisters, commonly called the 
 Gentile Court, because, not being a part of the Temple, it 
 was open to men of all nations, and had become a kind of 
 sacred exchange and market-place. Here the brokers had 
 their hhanoth, shops or stalls, at which the Jew from Galilee 
 or Perea exchanged his drachm and stater for the sacred 
 shekel ; the dove-seller kept his cotes for the accommodation 
 of persons too poor to sacrifice a kid or lamb ; and the' 
 huckster who sold sheep and oxen for burnt offerings had 
 his pens. 
 
 An open market, lying close to the altars, was a con- 
 venience to the stranger and to the priest : for as no money 
 
THE TEMPLE. 235 
 
 could be offered in the Temple except sacred shekels, and 
 as no dove or lamb could be slain unless it were of a 
 certain age and breed, many a man might have left Jeru- 
 salem without oftering his gift, had he not been able, 
 through this arrangement of the dealers, to buy sacred 
 coins and acceptable sacrifices near the Temple gate. 
 
 Such a market has its counterpart in almost every old 
 city of East and West. In Cairo and in Stamboul, the 
 outer court of a mosque is a market, where people may buy 
 and sell, and into which any stranger who likes may come. 
 Though a sacred coin is not now taken at the porch, nor a 
 firstling of the flock burnt on the altar, yet the money- 
 changers keep their stalls, the dealers sell sheep and oxen, 
 and the poulterers have coops of pigeons in these markets 
 of the mosque. So too in England, Italy, and France. It 
 is only a little while ago that our fairs were commonly held 
 in the churchyard ; and in old cities, like Rouen and Aix-la- 
 Chapelle, the market is still found in the very gateways of 
 the church. 
 
 On this Court of the Gentiles, this market frequented by 
 Greeks and Egyptians, Herod had exhausted the riches of 
 his taste. The Holy of Holies had been left to the priests, 
 who completed their task in about eighteen months; but 
 the surrounding courts had occupied Herod himself for 
 more than eight years ; and the porticoes, colonnades, and 
 stairs, with many of the halls, ofiices, and gates, had been 
 left unfinished at his death. At first his son, afterwards the 
 priests, carried on his ambitious work ; not to enhance God's 
 glory, but to foster human pride. Cloisters ran round the 
 wall on the inner side, sustained on rows of columns 
 exquisitely wrought, the capitals being ornamented with the 
 acanthus and water-leaf, as in the famous Tower of the 
 Winds. West, north, and east, these columns were in three 
 rows ; on the south they were in four. The floor made a 
 shaded walk, like the colonnade in Venice, and the roof an 
 open walk, like the gallery of Genoa. The pavement was 
 inlaid with marbles of many colours. Leading into this 
 
236 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 court from the city and the country were many noble gates \ 
 one of those on the eastern side, facing the Mount of 
 Ohves, was called Solomon's Porch, and a second near by 
 it was called the Beautiful Gate. 
 
 When the whole group of buildings — Temple, courts, 
 halls, cloisters, terraces, and walls, were seen from a Httle 
 distance — say, from the shoulder of Olivet, where the road 
 winds round from Bethany — they had the appearance of a 
 rough and sparkling pyramid ; the base being the line of 
 foundation wall, the apex being the golden front of the 
 Holy Place. 
 
THE GREA T COLLEGE. 
 
 237 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 THE GREAT COLLEGE. 
 
 /CONNECTED and contrasted with the Temple as the 
 ^^ seat of Jemsh ritual, stood the Great College, the 
 centre of Jewish thought. The Separatists considered this 
 College as of higher authority than the Temple, and 
 Simeon their Rector as a person of greater dignity than 
 Annas the High Priest. There was a Temple faction and a 
 College faction ; the first consisting of the Sadducees, the 
 second of the Pharisees; those treating the College as a 
 thing of yesterday, as in truth it was ; these asserting that a 
 Jew might live, as he lived in Egypt and Babylon, without 
 coming to Moriah with doves and rams, but that he could 
 not observe the law without the assistance of learned men. 
 
 In the pious old days from Exodus to Exile, the Israelites 
 had passed through a thousand years, a length of national 
 life like that which parts the age of Victoria from that of 
 Alfred, during which they were free from the necessities and 
 temptations of a critical school. They read the law. They 
 endured no doubts. So long as judges, priests, and kings 
 had spoken the sacred language, they wanted no herme- 
 neutical rules to tell them the plain intention of their sacred 
 text. What sense could Nathan, could Micah, have put 
 upon Hillel's seven canons ? What need had Samson, 
 Gideon,^ Saul, for definitions and refinements ? They had 
 the text itself. They read the law as a child would read it, 
 taking it to mean precisely what it said. For those thou- 
 
THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 sand years, the spirit of Israel ran into poetry, wisdom, and 
 prophecy ; as when David sang the psahns, when Solomon 
 distilled the proverbs, when Isaiah wrote his odes and idyls. 
 As yet, they had never heard of Mishna and Gemara ; but 
 with the return from Babylon came a mighty change. 
 Then the Covenant was lost, the ark of God was lost. 
 New habits had been acquired ; and as their fathers 
 yearned for the flesh-pots of Egypt, so the later Jews, 
 brought back from Babylon to Jerusalem, pined after the 
 schools and the arts which they had left behind. 
 
 This new state of mind had compelled their rulers to 
 adopt new methods; for Ezra in Judah, like Moses in 
 Sinai, saw that he must educate the returning tribes afresh. 
 The upper classes, those who had kept their learning, had 
 been defiled by scepticism ; the lower classes, in losing 
 their sacred idiom, had lost their religious fervour. To 
 check the first of these evils, a great College had been 
 founded in Jerusalem, for training young men of wealth and 
 leisure in a truer knowledge of holy things. Lesser colleges 
 flowed out of the Great College. With colleges came 
 learning, with learning analysis, with analysis definition, 
 with definition division into schools. 
 
 Of the Great College which inspired and guided the 
 course of Jewish thought, the chief luminary had been 
 Hillel, surnamed the Great. Hillel was a Babylonian Jew 
 by birth, though in blood (on his mother's side, at least) he 
 belonged, like Joseph of Bethlehem, to the royal line. 
 Hence he was of kin to Mary and Jesus. Like Joseph, 
 too, he was a craftsman in one of the noble trades. When 
 he left the farther East for Syria, he was already forty years 
 of age ; when he came to Jerusalem, and entered himself a 
 student in the classes of Menachem the Essene and 
 Shammai the Pharisee, he had to labour for his college fees 
 and for his daily bread. He sat under Shemaja and 
 Abtalion, called by Jews the proselytes ; that is to say, 
 the children of men who had been converted to Juda- 
 ism. Each of these eminent scholars had risen by his 
 
THE GREA T COLLEGE. 
 
 239 
 
 virtues and learning to the high rank of Rector of the Great 
 College. 
 
 In Herod's time, the Jewish schools were no longer free 
 and open to all comers, as of old ; but were placed under 
 State control, like the French and German universities in 
 our time. A daily fee had to be paid on entrance ; not to 
 the teachers, but to the official porters. This fee being 
 high for a man who had to earn his bread by labour, one- 
 half of Hillel's wages went to the doorkeepers of his school. 
 When work was scant in his trade, the poor student, having 
 no coin in his pouch, was thrust back by these porters from 
 the college door ; but being resolute not to miss one of the 
 lessons, he scaled the window outside, and screwing himself 
 into a corner, listened to the teacher's discourse without 
 paying his official fee. This fervour of appHcation nearly 
 cost him his life. For on one of his poor days, arriving at 
 the class-room with a full head and an empty pocket, and 
 being driven aside by the keepers, he betook himself as 
 usual to the window ledge, where he soon forgot his poverty 
 and situation in the lessons of the day. It was mid-winter ; 
 snow on the ground, frost in the air ; and Hillel, numb and 
 asleep, is said to have remained out all night, and to have 
 been covered with snow to the depth of three hands. 
 Early on the morrow, Shemaja and Abtalion entering the 
 school-room, found it darkened by what they imagined fo 
 be a cloudy sky, but on the pupils rushing out, they dis- 
 covered Hillel buried and insensible. In spite of its being 
 a Sabbath day, when their law forbade them to light a fire, 
 they carried him into the class-room, set him before a 
 blazing heap of wood, and chafed his limbs until the blood 
 returned to his lips, the animation to his frame. From that 
 time the college students opened their eyes to his merits 
 and his acquirements, and many of the younger men began 
 to quote his sayings and to follow him as a guide 
 
 Abtalion was then Rector of the Great College, and 
 Judah and Joshua, sons of Bethyra, were the next in order 
 of succession to the rectorial chair. But in a spirit of the 
 
240 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 noblest sacrifice these learned men gave way before the 
 claims of Hillel, and the poor Babylonian citizen was raised 
 by the general voice to the rectorship of that college, of 
 v/hich he had lately been unable to pay the fees. 
 
 Under Hillel, the Great College of Jerusalem made a 
 new start for fame ; but the fame which it acquired was of a 
 critical and scholastic even more than of a religious kind. 
 Hillel invented the seven rules. A thousand pupils entered 
 his classes ; eighty of whom are said to have become famous 
 as men of letters, doctors, and scribes. One of his pupils, 
 Jonathan ben Uziel, is supposed by some critics to have 
 translated the prophets into Chaldaic, the common language, 
 for the benefit of Jews to whom Hebrew was become an 
 unknown tongue. 
 
 In the Great College, Hillel found a rival not unworthy 
 of his powers in Shammai, a Jew of immense learning and 
 fiery zeal, who represented in the lecture-room the Pharisaic 
 spirit in its more intemperate mood. Each master had his 
 party, and the college became divided into the School of 
 Hillel and the School of Shammai ; a moderate party and 
 a fanatical party ; the pupils of which not only wrangled 
 with each other in the classes and the synagogues, but drew 
 swords upon each other in the streets and in the Temple 
 courts. While Hillel leaned to the critical and religious 
 side of a question, Shammai regarded it mainly from the 
 practical and political side. Hillel was unworldly ; and he 
 counselled his countrymen against taking up arms. Sham- 
 mai was for the patriotic war, in the spirit of his teaching 
 even more than in his actual phrase. One day, a battle 
 was fought between these factions in the Temple court, 
 which the Roman soldiers could not enter ; and many of 
 Hillel's scholars were killed before the high priests could 
 separate the combatants, by declaring that a voice from 
 heaven had been heard to declare that both sides in this 
 wicked fray were in the right. The luxurious Sadducees 
 took Hillel's part against the mob, and though Shammai was 
 able to count more partizans in the city, Hillel got the 
 
THE GREAT COLLEGE. 241 
 
 Upper hand in the schools. His influence was used in the 
 cause of peace. 
 
 A main effort of Hillel's Hfe was an attempt to reconcile 
 the proud sect of the Sadducees to the common church ; 
 but in this main effort he failed. A minor attempt was 
 made on the Essenes, whose pupil he had been, and in this 
 he also failed. Yet his long life of a hundred and twenty 
 years was in a high degree beneficial to his country, and 
 when he died his followers expressed their love for him by 
 electing his son Simeon to fill his place ; an event which 
 happened in the tenth year of our era, when their kinsman 
 Jesus was about fourteen years of age. 
 
 Jesus may have seen Hillel ; may have talked with him 
 in the Temple, on that memorable visit to Jerusalem, when 
 he surprised the doctors by his marvellous knowledge of the 
 Mosaic Law. 
 
 Many of Hillel's sayings have a grace and beauty far 
 beyond the teaching of his school — that of the moderate 
 Pharisees. Three or four of these golden axioms may be 
 quoted : 
 
 " Have no confidence in thyself until the day of death. . . 
 Judge not thy neighbour until thou art in his position. . . . 
 If I care not for my soul, who can care for me ? . . . Love 
 peace and pursue it. . . . Whoever exalts his name shall 
 abase it. . . . Whatsoever thou wouldst like another to do 
 to thee, do that to him : this is the whole law." 
 
 Simeon succeeded his father in the Rectory of the College, 
 and was still alive when Jesus began to preach. His son, 
 Gamaliel, helped him in the duties of his chair; giving 
 promise of a future not less brilliant than the founder of his 
 house. Gamahel was already the master of a school ; the 
 best scholar in Jerusalem; the settled successor to his 
 father's seats in the Great College and in the Sanhedrin. 
 
 Among Gamaliel's pupils in the College there was a 
 young man named Saul — Saul of Tarsus, afterwards St. 
 Paul. 
 
242 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 PURGING THE TEMPLE. 
 
 " T ESUS went up to Jerusalem, and found in the Temple 
 J those that sold sheep and oxen, and doves, and the 
 changers of money." So writes St. John, an eye-witness of 
 the scene which he describes. The feast of the Passover 
 (unleavened bread) had been founded as a sign of the 
 departure out of Egypt. On the night when the angel was 
 to go round and slay the first-born of man and beast, each 
 Hebrew had been told to choose either a lamb from the 
 sheep or a kid from the goats ; a male of the first year, pure 
 and without spot ; to kill it at sundown, striking the blood 
 with a sprig of hyssop on his Hntels ; to roast the kid or 
 lamb whole before the fire ; when the night came down, to 
 call in his household, both man and woman, each with his 
 loins girt, his feet shod, his staff in hand, ready to begin the 
 march ; and then to snatch up the meal of roast flesh, 
 mixing it with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs. 
 This feast of deliverance was to be kept for ever ; and from 
 the times of Moses to those of Christ, the paschal lamb had 
 been eaten in the same fashion. It had, however, become 
 usual to slay the lamb in the Temple court, and to make a 
 present in sacred money to the priest ; regulations which 
 filled the Temple with an uproar of unseemly trades, and 
 brought enormous profits to the sacerdotal class. 
 
 When Jesus and his five or six followers entered into the 
 
PURGING THE TEMPLE. 243 
 
 Temple court, it would seem that the brokers had encroached 
 upon those sacred precincts in which it was unlawful for 
 them to buy and sell. A wall no higher than a man's 
 breast, in which wall there were many openings, was the 
 only separation between the Gentile court and the Israelite 
 court; that is to say, between the open market for doves 
 and shekels, and the Temple itself. These bounds could 
 be easily broken by unscrupulous men. 
 
 From what we find done elsewhere in holy places, it is 
 easy to see how the offence of carrying the traffic in doves, 
 in sheep, and in sacred shekels, from the appointed market 
 into the Temple courts must have come about. A thing 
 for sale runs after the buyer, even into shrines and chapels ; 
 say, torches into a Greek church, and beads into the door- 
 way of a mosque. But this habit of buying and selling on 
 consecrated ground is not an evil of any one place or time. 
 You may purchase candles and rosaries in almost every 
 Latin church. In the churches of Asia you find a brisk 
 trade in relics ; in those of Italy and Spain there is a sharp 
 demand for crosses and flowers. Yet the best illustration of 
 this encroachment of secular upon sacred things lies nearer 
 home, in no less solemn a place than our own St. Paul's. In 
 the plays and pamphlets of the age of James the First, we see 
 how the traffic had crept from the churchyard into the church, 
 until the main aisle had become an open market, having 
 goldsmiths' benches and hucksters' stalls, with mercers' bills 
 on the columns, a crowd of people chaffering with cheap- 
 jacks, and a litter of lap-dogs and poultry on the floor for 
 sale. The same class of facts would be found in nearly 
 every city of West and East. Shops still cling to the 
 cathedral doors in Rouen. Booths encrust the venerable 
 pile of Aix-la-Chapelle. The chief sook in Cairo is the 
 Ghooreyeh, held under the windows of a mosque. In 
 Jerusalem itself the markets are connected with holy sites ; 
 for the Moslem bazaar adjoins the Haram, a Frank fair is 
 held under the Holy Sepulchre, and most of the things 
 required by a pilgrim in his devotion — rosaries, torches. 
 
544 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 candles, beads, and books — may be purchased within the 
 Rotunda gates. 
 
 Now, in the ancient Temple, every Jew had a right to 
 enforce the' rules of public order and personal decorum, by 
 driving any such dealers from the inner court into the 
 proper market for such things as they had to sell — the 
 Gentile court ; and in exercising this right of every citizen a 
 man would be guilty of no offence against either the Temple 
 reeulations or the Roman law. These intruders into the 
 sacred precincts must have been Jews, not Romans ; for a 
 local rule, admitted by Pilate and promulgated by the high 
 priest, prohibited strangers from entering into any part of 
 the Temple courts. Had the offenders been Gentiles, a 
 Jew could not have raised a whip against them without 
 stirring up a riot, only to be quelled in blood ; but being 
 natives of the soil, subject to their own police, they could 
 be expelled from the sacred place without raising any 
 question of municipal right. 
 
 Jesus snatched up some cords from the floor, and making 
 a scourge of them, drove the traders from the Temple court, 
 saying, " Take these things hence ; make not my Father's 
 house a house of merchandise." But although a man might 
 beat these dealers back again into the market-place without 
 putting him.self into Pilate's hands, no one could perform 
 such an act of piety and duty without attracting some notice 
 from the elders, perhaps from the sagan, and the high priest. 
 What kind of man was this, that took upon himself the 
 office of Ezra and Hillel ? A prophet, a reformer, a chief 
 priest, might presume, in a flooding of holy wrath, to redeem 
 the Temple of God from this soil of forbidden trade. But 
 who was this unknown purger of the court ? A crowd 
 gathered round him ; such a crowd as would thicken round 
 any stranger who should even now attempt to drive from the 
 Church of the Holy Sepulchre the dealers in torches, 
 candles, rosaries, and relics; and as Jesus chased the 
 butchers and money-changers from the Temple court, the 
 people, following after him, cried out : 
 
PURGING THE TEMPLE. 245 
 
 " What sign shovvest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest 
 these things ?" 
 
 "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise 
 it up." 
 
 They rejoined: — "Forty and six years was this Temple 
 in building, and wilt thou rear it in three days ?" 
 
 Such words as these were dark to the Pharisees ; for he 
 spoke to them in parables, to the meaning of which they 
 had no clue. A time would come when he might speak to 
 their spirits, no less than to their e^rs ; and then they would 
 carry him out to Golgotha and crucify him for the truth. 
 But before that day could dawn, a work had to be done on 
 earth, affecting its history to the end of time. The Church 
 of God had to be founded in the human heart ; and until 
 this work should be achieved, Jesus was content to watch 
 and pray, to talk in parables, to excite inquiry, to announce 
 himself by facts. 
 
 What hope had he from the priests and elders — from 
 Sadducees who made a jest of the after-life, from Separatists 
 who expected the advent of an earthly king ? 
 
 Yet there was a grand distinction between the two bodies 
 holding sway in the Temple and the College : from the 
 Sadducees he had nothing to hope and little to fear ; from 
 the Pharisees he had nothing to hope but everything to 
 fear. We see how much this must have been his case, not 
 only from his words, which were sparing of the Sadducees, 
 but from what is known of the laws of moral growth. A 
 reformer's first battles are fought against reformers. Princes 
 and prelates may hear of him in time, and they may act 
 with rigour when they fancy that the public welfare is at 
 stake ; but his early troubles will be almost sure to come 
 from the men whose zeal he offends and whose followers 
 he steals away. Fox was beaten by Brownists. Wesley 
 suffered from the Moravians. Mormon chapels are disturbed 
 by Ranters. An innovator in faith is mobbed by porters 
 and colliers long before he falls into the clutches of "Primates 
 and Secretaries of State. 
 
246 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 That which happens in other places happened in Jerusalem. 
 Proud and unbelieving, the high priests and their party kept 
 aloof from the popular politics of the city gate and the 
 Temple court, while the common people, with the Scribes 
 and doctors of the law, living in hope of a Messiah, were 
 alert and curious as to every sign which might announce his 
 coming reign. 
 
 Unhappily, the man who from his rank and learning 
 might have helped to calm these excited spirits, Simeon, 
 Rector of the Great College, was too old and frail for the 
 duties of active life. Like his father Hillel, he was a man 
 of gentle thoughts and gentle words ; a moderate Pharisee 
 in his opinions, a moderate Essene in his way of living ; but 
 the good old man was bowed to the earth with age. The 
 date of his birth is not known ; but his father is said to have 
 died at a hundred and twenty years ; and if Simeon were 
 born when Hillel was fifty, he must must have been close 
 upon ninety when Jesus began to preach. Two years after 
 the crucifixion, Simeon went to his rest ; but during the 
 years of Christ's ministry on earth, declining vigour ren- 
 dered the chief person among the moderate Pharisees of 
 little or no account in Jerusalem. In the schools, where his 
 son Gamaliel stood in his place, his voice was still strong 
 for good ; but in the council of Elders, in the debates on 
 affairs, we miss Simeon altogether, and the rector exercises 
 none of those active powers which his father Hillel had 
 displayed before him, and his son Gamaliel was to exhibit 
 after him. Years weighed him down, and though he bore 
 the title of Prince, he seems to have left the judgment of 
 offences to younger men. 
 
 To many of these priests and elders, the fact of Jesus 
 being called a Nazarene would be crime enough ; for the 
 great men of Jerusalem, whether Sadducees or Separatists, 
 Sethians or Boethusians, despised the Galileans as either 
 rebels or aliens, either soldiers of Judas or worshippers of 
 Jove. 
 
 Yet one member of the council, Nicodemus by name, a 
 
PURGING THE TEMPLE. 2^7 
 
 rich man, a Pharisee, of kin to Simeon, came to see J esus 
 by night ; asking him if he were in truth that Son of God 
 whom all the Pharisees expected, and, if he were so, what a 
 man should do to be saved ? 
 
 Jesus told him that unless a man were born to a new life, 
 he could never hope to see God. 
 
 A pupil of Hillel, hoping for a physical resurrection, 
 Nicodemus could see no meaning in such words. How 
 could a man be born a second time ? Jesus explained to 
 him that the new life of which he spake was that of the 
 spirit : that which is born of the flesh being flesh, while that 
 which is born of the spirit is spirit. The great Pharisee 
 was at fault ; for in that Oral Law which he conned in the 
 college and quoted in the council, he found nothing what- 
 ever about this life of the spirit. Jesus said to him : 
 
 " Art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these 
 things ?" 
 
 In truth the master knew no more than his pupils, to 
 whom the scriptures had become a dead letter. Nicodemus 
 left Jesus in wonder, not converted from his hermeneutical 
 rules to a larger faith, yet touched, excited, rapt by the 
 words of that midnight meeting. As one of the Sanhedrin, 
 he saw that he might some day have to sit and judge this 
 man ; he had heard enough to feel sure that, whether Jesus 
 of Nazareth were the Christ or not, he was not a Galilean, 
 not a follower of Judas of Gamala — one either to bring morals 
 into danger, or excite people to revolt. 
 
 John was still preaching and baptizing in the wilderness of 
 Judea ; at a place called ^non, the Springs, near Salem, 
 where there is said to have been much water. The wady 
 Salem (in Arabic Seleim) lies about six miles from Zion, on 
 the very spot where we should look for these new labours of 
 John. Close to this Salem, in the wady Farah, we still find 
 springs and pools ; a circumstance rare and notable in that 
 sterile tract of land. Here, then, may have gushed those 
 Springs, near Salem, at which John was preaching after the 
 Passover, and to which Jesus went down from Jerusalem, 
 
248 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 to see his cousin, accompanied by the five or six disciples 
 whom he had now called into his church. Among the 
 people whom he found with John at these Springs, were 
 some Jews from the Temple, spies of the Sanhedrin, on 
 account of whom he had to walk with a wary step. To go 
 near John was to go into peril. As a great crowd came 
 about him, the Pharisees, who had been sent down to 
 watch, perceived that one who might prove to be a still 
 more popular and seductive preacher of the law than John 
 had come. At first they thought it might be well for them 
 to set the old teacher against the new ; so going up to John 
 they told him that the man whom he had baptized at 
 Bethabara, was drawing the people away frrom him. But 
 John, who knew his place in the new kingdom, said : 
 
 " He that hath the bride is the bridegroom ; but the friend 
 of the bridegroom, which standeth and hearethhim, rejoiceth 
 greatly because of the bridegroom's voice." 
 
 No simile could have been more beautiful and true. In 
 the drama of Syrian love and marriage the friend of the 
 bridegroom plays a conspicuous part ; doing kindly, unsel- 
 fish service ; yet earning no other reward than that of feeling 
 how much he has added to the happiness of a man whom 
 he loves. Sometimes this friend of the bridegroom has to 
 select the bride. At all times he has to take the oaths of 
 espousal, and to present the mohar, the bridal gift. For the 
 virgin's year, separating the act of betrothal from that of the 
 bringing home, he is the only messenger between youth and 
 maid. With many a laugh and jest, with many a sign and 
 token, he has to pass from the unknown husband to the 
 unknown wife ; watching over their common rights ; and 
 feeding with his praises their mutual love ; for, during that 
 virgin's year, the husband, though he may possess much of 
 a husband's power, and may even put his wife to death for 
 wrongs against his bed, is never allowed to see her face. 
 His married joy and sorrow come to him only through his 
 chosen friend. Until the day of bringing home, when the 
 veil of the bride is to be lifted up, and with a cry of rapture 
 
PURGING THE 2EMPLE. 249 
 
 the husband is allowed to gaze into her eyes and kiss her on 
 the mouth, the function of the "bridegroom's friend knows no 
 pause. Then the bridegroom's heart is glad, and the friend 
 rejoices when he hears the bridegroom's voice. 
 
 When Jesus saw that the spies sent down to Salem were 
 beginning to watch his doings and count his converts with a 
 jealous eye, he left the Springs to his cousin John, going 
 northward on his way back to Cana, in his own country of 
 Galilee ; a jwrovince to which the arm of the Sanhedrin 
 could scarcely reach. 
 
 He saw the Bridegroom's friend no more on earth. 
 
2SO THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 SAMARIA. 
 
 T^ROM Jerusalem to Nazareth, by way of the hill towns 
 -^ of Shiloh, Sychar, Nain, and Endor, the distance, as a 
 bird would fly, is about sixty-four miles, being nearly the 
 same as that from Oxford to London. By the camel paths, 
 and there are now no other, it is eighty miles. A good 
 rider, having little baggage and less curiosity, may get over 
 the ground in two long days. To do so, however, he must 
 make up his mind to spend twelve hours each day in the 
 saddle, on stony hill-sides, with very little water, and still 
 less shade, under the blazing light of a Syrian sun. An easy 
 journey, with time to rest and read, to see the wells, ruins, 
 and cities on the route, may be made in four days ; though 
 better still in five. It is well to carry your tent. 
 
 The Lord and his disciples went through the land on 
 foot ; resting by the wells, under the shade of fig trees, in 
 the caves of rocks. 
 
 The first part of this journey, a ride of thirty-six miles 
 from the Damascus gate, to be done in about twelve hours, 
 brings you to one of the most lovely and attractive spots in 
 Palestine — the site of Joseph's tomb and Jacob's well, 
 where Jesus, resting from his long walk, begged the woman 
 of Samaria to give him drink. This well is now a mere 
 hollow basin on the slope ; for the early Christians built a 
 church over it, to preserve it from decay, and the roof and 
 walls of this early church have fallen into the shaft and 
 
SAMARIA. 251 
 
 filled it up. Broken columns, masses of cornice, and 
 mounds of portico, lie heaped about ; but the well itself 
 remains perfect as when the servants of Jacob pierced it in 
 the rock : a round shaft, nine feet wide, cut through the 
 solid limestone to a depth of more than a hundred feet ; the 
 side being hewn and smooth. Clear away the ruins of that 
 early church, and you might have the well very nearly in 
 the state in which our Saviour saw it ; with the little strips 
 of corn-fields waving green, the white tomb of Joseph near 
 by, the light patches of olive ground here and there, and a 
 little way off, the city on the hill-side. A low wall, to keep 
 cattle and children from falling in, stood about the well ; 
 and on this low wall of stone Jesus sat down to rest, while 
 his disciples went up into the town of Sychar, to the house 
 of some orthodox baker, to buy Jewish bread. 
 
 Sychar would seem to have been a small open town near 
 Shechem, one of the chief cities of Samaria. This fact is 
 distinctly stated by Eusebius, who says it stood to the west 
 of Shechem, and therefore between the city and the well. 
 The same fact is implied in the language used by St. John. 
 Shechem was an older city than Jerusalem, and the most 
 envious of Jews would have admitted its right to stand next 
 in rank to his own holy place. Its name had not been 
 changed in the time of Stephen, for St. Luke makes that 
 martyr mention the great Samaritan city by the name of 
 Sychem, the Hellenic form of Shechem. St. John could 
 not be talking of this proud and ancient place when he 
 mentions the unknown name of Sychar. If a Jew knew 
 anything at all about his country and his faith, he would 
 certainly know the name of Shechem, the head-quarters 
 of a hostile sect \ just as every Arab is sure to know the 
 name of Tehran, every Anglican that of Rome. Again : 
 the Lord is said to have stayed two days at Sychar. It is in 
 the last degree unlikely that he would have stayed two days 
 in Shechem ; or even that he should have entered within its 
 gates \ seeing that in his whole life he is not known to have 
 slept one night within a city wall. Though he lived only 
 
252 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 four miles from Sephoris, he is not said to have gone inside 
 its gates. He is never mentioned as going into Tiberias. 
 If he went near to Tyre and Sidon, to JuHas and Csesarea 
 Phihppi, he does not appear to have gone into their streets. 
 He must often have passed by Hippos, Pella, and Gadara ; 
 yet he appears to have shunned all closer knowledge of 
 them. When he went up to Jerusalem to the festivals, he 
 left the city at sundown, sleeping for the night on Olivet or 
 in Bethany. He loved the open country, the free hill-side, 
 the lowly hamlet, the consoHng well. If he stayed at Sychar 
 two days, Sychar must have been an open place, like Cana, 
 Bethany, and Capernaum ; not a great city like Shechem 
 with gates and walls. And again : Sychar lay near to the 
 well, which Shechem did not. Shechem, now Nabulus, as 
 the Arabs call that Neapolis which Vespasian either built or 
 repaired on the ancient ground, is nearly two miles from 
 Jacob's Well. Sychar could be seen from the well, Shechem 
 could not. 
 
 A heap of stones and dirt stands on the slope in the very 
 spot where we should look for Sychar; which heap is 
 thought by some to be the dust of a part of Shechem, once 
 a much larger city than Nabulus is now. It is likely that 
 this dust may be the ruin of that very town of Sychar in 
 which Jesus spent two days, founding the Samaritan branch 
 of his holy church. 
 
 These two bold hills, through the parting of which the 
 road from Jerusalem to Nazareth cleaves its way, are Ebal 
 and Gerizim ; Ebal on the left hand, Gerizim on the right. 
 On the right slope, among rushing waters, olive grounds, 
 and palms, stands the Mohammedan town of Nabulus ; 
 now, as in the time of Jesus, the holy city of the Samari- 
 tans, head-quarters of the Samaritan rite ; and now, as it nas 
 been from the days of Joshua, a place of blessing and 
 cursing — of religious hatred and sacerdotal strife. Nabulus 
 is still what Shechem was — a city disputing with Jerusalem 
 the credit of being the most holy, the most turbulent, the 
 most filthy city on the earth. 
 
SAMARIA. 2K 
 
 Dj 
 
 In going from Salem to Cana, a Jew in the days of Pilate 
 would generally have taken the lower road by the Jordan 
 valley, so as to avoid passing through Samaria; partly 
 because the track along that great road was easier and safer 
 for men travelling on foot ; still more, because a Samaritan 
 and a Jew abhon"ed each other like brethren who have 
 fallen from love into hate ; most of all because the Tradi- 
 tions of his Elders told him that to eat from any dish, to 
 drink out of any pitcher, to sit on any rug or stool, to use 
 any staft' or saddle, which a Samaritan had touched, would 
 render him unclean. 
 
 Uncleaji I This word Unclean was then a word of terror 
 to the strongest minds. It is hard to convey in English 
 phrases and to English ears a notion of the appalling force 
 with which it struck a Jew. To be smitten by plague is a 
 horror that we can grasp ; for the plague has rioted in our 
 cities, emptying our streets, and routing from our homes the 
 charities of Hfe ; but plague itself only wastes the body, 
 leaving the soul untouched. To gain some idea of what 
 uncleanness must have been to a Jew, we must add to the 
 miseries caused by infection of plague the penalties implied 
 in an excommunication from the Church. An unclean Jew 
 was thrown beyond the pale of law. He could not go 
 about a town ; he could not enter into another man's 
 house \ he could not eat with his friends ; he could neither 
 kiss his wife nor fondle his child. Still less could he enter 
 into the synagogue, into the Temple court. A civilian, he 
 was driven from society ; a soldier, he was thrust from the 
 camp. So long as a Jew remained unclean — a week, a year, 
 a whole life it might be — he had no right to any place in 
 Israel. He was put aside as a leper and a thing accursed. 
 Losses of every kind attended his unhappy state ; loss of 
 time, of money, of pleasure, of respect; he was forced to 
 dwell alone, imprisoned in his house or tent, compelled to 
 wash his clothes, to break his polluted vessels, to make 
 offerings of purifications to the priests. In short, an unclean 
 Jew was treated as an outcast from society and from God. 
 
254 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 Now, a man might possibly have walked from Salem 
 to Cana, going through the heart of Samaria, without 
 touching any vessel which a native of the soil had used ; 
 but such a journey would have been hard for a man 
 without camels and servants to undertake. A poor man 
 could not carry with him everything he would want on 
 the road ; for bread will grow stale, and meat will 
 become foul. A man trudging on foot must live on 
 the country through which he goes ; though the halter at 
 an inn, the pitcher at a well, the saddle on an ass, would 
 prove to a Jew in Samaria equally unclean. Bread which 
 had been baked, wine which had been pressed, water 
 which had been drawn, by a native, were forbidden 
 things. 
 
 Yet Jesus chose that he and his disciples should march 
 from Salem to Cana by the mountain roads. A part of his 
 work had to be done in Samaria ; for he had to offer the 
 brethren of Samaria salvation, and to wean the founders of 
 his Church from their dread of offending against the Oral 
 Law. 
 
 Arrived at Jacob's Well, Jesus sent his disciples into 
 Sychar to buy bread ; and while they were gone away, 
 being seated on the rim of the well, resting in the heat of 
 noon, for the time was about the sixth hour, he saw a 
 woman of the place come out from Sychar to draw water, 
 and he spoke to her, saying : 
 
 "Give me to drink." 
 
 The woman stood aghast ; not at being asked for water, 
 for a Syrian woman gives drink to any one on the wayside, 
 freely as Rebekah held her pitcher to the lips of Eliezer ; 
 but at such a request being made to her by a Jew ; for she 
 knew that the great doctors in Jerusalem had forbidden 
 Jews to have any dealings with Samaritans ; either to 
 buy food or drink from them, to touch anything which 
 they had polluted, or even to exchange with them a word 
 of greeting. 
 
 It is held to be one of the notes of a true church, that a 
 
SAMARIA. 
 
 255 
 
 false church shall spring up beside it ; as a medal must have 
 a reverse, and a north pole a south. And this is always 
 true in fact. Every creed has its own story ; but the natural 
 features of each story, that is to say, the features which 
 depend on human nature and human law, are everywhere 
 the same. The schisms of the Temple have been repeated 
 in the church and in the mosque ; the Samaritan and the 
 Jew being no other than the Greek and Latin, the Sunnee 
 and Shyah, of the chosen race. But how was a polite 
 Greek, a busy Roman, to comprehend the quarrels of these 
 Hebrew sects? One man worshipped Jehovah on Mount 
 Moriah ; a second worshipped the same Jehovah on Mount 
 Gerizim ; and this difference of locality was the only differ- 
 ence between a Jew of Jerusalem and a Jew of Shechem 
 either visible or intelligible to a Roman prince. We do not 
 easily adopt the nice distinctions of other people. No 
 Goth ever comprehended the party cries which rent 
 the Hippodrome. A Sicilian would be puzzled by our 
 doctrine of prevenient grace. An Arab does not easily 
 perceive the gulf which separates a Latin from a Greek 
 mass. Suraya is not less perplexed by the policy of 
 Frank and Russ in Palestine than was Pilate by the 
 quarrels of Samaritan and Jew. We understand the 
 matter in some degree now, for the story of Samaria is 
 better known to a Christian child than it was to a Roman 
 senator. 
 
 After the first division of Israel into two kingdoms, 
 Shechem became the religious capital of the Ten tribes ; the 
 city being older in their history, more precious in their associa- 
 tion, than Jerusalem. It was here that Abraham had pitched 
 his tent when God led him out of Hauran. It was here that 
 Jacob had bought the field from Hamor, and that his ser- 
 vants had sunk the famous well. It was here that Joseph 
 had lived in his father's tent, and hither his bones had been 
 brought from his regal sepulchre on the Nile. It was here 
 that Levi and Simeon had avenged their sister's shame* On 
 the return from Egypt, this city had been given to the 
 
256 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 Levites, the tribe of priests, who had made it a sanctuary, a 
 refuge, and a holy place. If was here, between the two 
 peaks of Ebal and Gerizim, that Moses had commanded the 
 Law to be proclaimed afresh ; so that Gerizim had become 
 the second Sinai, the final Mount of God. Hither, conse- 
 quently, Joshua, in his old age, had called the tribes 
 together ; and here the hosts of Israel had heard the last 
 words of their Great Captain, when he put to them that 
 question — "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve?" 
 adding for himself: "As for me, and my house, we will 
 serve the Lord." 
 
 Cradled in these gracious associations, Shechem enjoyed 
 the repute of an ancient and holy place five hundred years 
 before Jerusalem became a Hebrew town, and many of the 
 tribes objected to the capital being pitched on a desolate 
 rock, in a distant corner of the state. Thus, Shechem was 
 the city of Joshua and the Judges, Zion that of David and 
 the Kings. Shechem was Moscow, Jerusalem was only 
 St. Petersburg. Old memories and associations clung 
 about it; the grace, the poetry, the spell of an heroic 
 time, which no material grandeur could impart to its 
 rival in the south. As a INIuscovite prince is not owned 
 as Czar until he has been crowned in the Kremlin, so 
 it seemed to Rehoboam that his power in Israel would 
 lack a final grace unless he went down from the new 
 city of Judah to the ancient city of Ephraim, to be there 
 made king. 
 
 That going down to Shechem had been his ruin. Proud 
 of his descent, vain of his power, the young King had 
 threatened and alarmed the haughtiest of the tribes. Ephraim 
 had never been reconciled to the line of David, for that 
 powerful tribe disputed the ascendency with Judah ; and 
 could not brook to see king after king ascending the throne 
 from a rival house. So when Rehoboam threatened the 
 men of Shechem. the people turned away from their king, 
 stoned his officer to death, and raised Jeroboam, the son of 
 Nebat, one of their own tribe, to a separate throne. Benja- 
 
SAxMARIA. 257 
 
 min had gone with Judah, its mighty neighbour, but the 
 other nine tribes had followed the fortunes of Ephraim ; the 
 Kingdom of David being parted into two grand fragments ; 
 never to unite again, until welded for a few brief years 
 in the strength of Herod the Great. 
 
 But long before that event the royal Ephraim had sunk 
 into the despised Samaria. 
 
258 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 Jacob's well. 
 
 T T OLDING in their possession the soil of Ephraim, the 
 •^ -*■ holy city, and the famous well, the people of Samaria 
 seemed to have some grounds for their boast of being the 
 descendants of Joseph, the wisest of the twelve sons of 
 Jacob. The Jews of Jerusalem answered such claims to high 
 rank and pure blood, with an assertion that every living 
 man of the Ten Tribes had been lost when the people were 
 carried oft" captive into Persia and Assyria by Shalmaneser ; 
 that Esar-haddon, seeing the land of Samaria rich and 
 fruitful, had brought into it a colony of Syrians ; that 
 Alexander the Great had poured a flood of Greeks into this 
 province, as well as into the neighbouring Galilee ; that all 
 those strangers from the Tigris and Eurotas had introduced 
 into the land their gods of brass and stone, Baal and 
 Ashtoreth, Zeus and Aphrodite ; so that the people who 
 had come to possess the soil of Ephraim were a mixture of 
 heathen races, aliens in blood, in language, and in creed, to 
 the actual Jews. All these assertions were in one sense 
 true ; for the tribes had certainly been swept away ; their 
 places had been filled by strangers ; but then it is well 
 known, from the history of war in many countries, that no 
 invasion and no captivity ever clears the soil of its culti- 
 vators. Many persons remain, and many come back. A 
 sweeping raid may empty a town ; but the open country 
 defies this doom. A brake, a cave, a mountain, a glen, a 
 
JACOB'S WELL. 259 
 
 forest, known to the native, unknown to his foe, may serve 
 as a refuge in the hour of flight ; and when the rage of 
 victory is spent, and the season for repeopling the soil 
 returns, it is the interest of all new comers into the land 
 that some of the old inhabitants should come back, if only 
 to assist in finding the wells and clearing the waste. So it 
 always happens that a remnant, more or less large, of an 
 ancient race remains ; and that such was the case in 
 Ephraim is clear, as otherwise both the old language and 
 the old creed must have perished from the land. 
 
 The Greek and Syrian colonists had in time been won to 
 the local faith ; an easy thing on their side, for men who 
 believe in the religion of nature yield to a local god as 
 readily as to a change of climate ; but then this change of 
 creed in the new comer implies the continued presence on 
 the soil of a people possessing a local god. 
 
 The descendants of these Syro-Hellenic Jews, taking 
 wives from the Ephraimites still dwelling in the land, formed 
 the upper classes in Samaria, the priests, the nobles, the 
 professional men ; a people of bright, urbane, and plastic 
 genius, fond of art and architecture ; servants of Jehovah, 
 because they thought Him the god of their new territory ; 
 but also mindful that other countries possess other deities, 
 and that their fathers had worshipped Bel and Zeus, in 
 Babylon and Greece. In becoming Jews, these Samaritan 
 colonists had not ceased to be Gentiles ; and with many of 
 them, the only change in their religious condition was this 
 — they had placed a new god in their Pantheon. 
 
 Of course the strict Jews of Judea contemned these Pagan 
 Jews of Samaria as men unworthy to join in the Temple 
 rites ; and the Samaritans, finding that the High Priests, 
 rejecting them as Jews, forbade them to enter the Temple 
 courts, built for themselves a new temple on Gerizim, the 
 Mount of God. From that time forward, the feuds of 
 Shechem and Moriah became hot as those between Rome 
 and London after the bull of Paul the T^iird and the con- 
 soUdation of the English church. 
 
26o THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 In the age of Jesus, a Samaritan laughed at a Separatist 
 Jew as a narrow bigot ; the Jew replying that a Shechemite 
 was an outcast from society, a stranger to the one true God. 
 Each, in his own heart, assumed himself to be the salt of the 
 earth ; the only righteous under heaven. Each boasted of 
 possessing the purer blood, and the older law. On the side 
 of the Samaritan it was urged that he descended, through 
 the proud line of Ephraim, from Joseph and Rachel, and 
 that his seat on Gerizim had been chosen by Moses, as the 
 sacred spot from which a new publication of the Law should 
 be made. On behalf of the Jew it was answered, that while 
 his own descent from Judah was certain, a Samaritan could 
 bring no proof of his descent from Ephraim ; that on the 
 contrary there was reason to believe him a mere alien in 
 the land, offspnng of a rabble of Greek and Syrian parents \ 
 a man who only claimed to be a Jew when he could gain by 
 the fraud, and was eager to be thought a Greek, or even a 
 Sidonian, when he had a purpose to serve by an additional 
 fraud. On the part of this Jew it could be also said, with 
 truth and with effect, that if the Samaritan had built a temple 
 to Jehovah on Mount Gerizim, he had been ready, in the 
 hour of persecution, when the faith of men is tried, to deny 
 his allegiance to God, and to dedicate this temple of Jehovah 
 to either Jupiter or Bel. 
 
 A history of the relations of Rome and London in the 
 darkest times would be no unfair reflex of affairs between 
 Zion and Shechem. Like the anathema launched against 
 England from the steps of St. Peter's, a public curse was 
 thundered against Gerizim from the Temple stairs. In the 
 Hebrew courts of law a Samaritan's oath was not taken. 
 No Samaritan could give evidence against a Jew. It was 
 an offence for a Jew to greet, or even to approach, a mem- 
 ber of this polluting sect. To eat at his board, to sleep 
 under his roof, to drink from the same jar, to handle any- 
 thing which he had defiled by his touch, was to become 
 ceremonially unclean. A Samaritan was beyond the reach 
 of grace ; according to the Separatist doctors, he could not 
 
JACOB'S WELL. 261 
 
 be received into communion with the Jews as a convert 
 to a purer faith. He stood condemned by the voice of 
 the Sanhedrin to remain for ever an outlaw and an 
 outcast. 
 
 Such, in the eyes of an orthodox and Separatist Jew, were 
 the men of Sychar, this Httle town near the Well ; and such 
 was the woman, otherwise light of character and glib of 
 tongue, of whom the Lord, seating himself on the stone, 
 requested a drink of water to cool his thirst. To touch that 
 pitcher in her hand would have rendered a Jew unclean. 
 Well, therefore, might the woman say archly : 
 
 " How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, 
 who am a woman of Samaria ? Jews have no dealings with 
 Samaritans." 
 
 Few printed words have the beauty and the fulness of 
 what ensues. Jesus said to the woman, in the bright vein 
 of all his sayings : 
 
 " If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith 
 unto thee ' Give me drink,' thou wouldest have asked of him, 
 and he would have given thee living water." 
 
 She answered lightly : 
 
 " Rabbi, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is 
 deep. Whence then hast thou that living water? Art 
 thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well ?" 
 
 To this the Lord replied : 
 
 " Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again ; but 
 whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall 
 thirst no more for ever ; but the water which I shall give 
 shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting 
 life." 
 
 Still in her Samaritan mood, the woman spake : 
 
 " Rabbi, give me this water, that I shall thirst no more, 
 nor come hither to draw." 
 
 Jesus said : " Go ; call thy husband, and come hither." 
 It was a test saying, to which the light creature answered : 
 " I have no husband." Jesus added : " Thou hast well 
 said, I have no husband : for thou hast had five husbands. 
 
262 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband : in that 
 thou hast spoken truth." 
 
 Now she stood abashed ; her Hfe was opened to the gaze 
 — ^her sin made known to a stranger and a Jew. 
 
 " Rabbi, I percieve thou art a prophet." 
 
 Some of the dialogue here is manifestly lost. Afterwards 
 she added : " Our fathers worshipped in this mountain " — 
 (in the temple on Gerizim) — " and ye say "—(the Jews say) 
 — "that in Jerusalem is the -place were men ought to 
 worship." 
 
 "Woman," said the Lord, "beheve me, the hour cometh 
 when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, 
 worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what : we 
 know what we worship : for salvation is of the Jews ; but the 
 hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall 
 worship the Father in spirit and in truth. . . God is a 
 spirit ;- and they that worship, must worship in spirit and in 
 truth," 
 
 And then to this poor sinner, this outcast from the Law, 
 He made the first announcement that he was the Christ. 
 When she spoke of her belief that a deliverer was then 
 about to appear in the flesh — a belief which the Samaritans 
 held in common with the Jews — saying : 
 
 " I know that the Messiah cometh," Jesus answered 
 her : 
 
 " I that speak unto thee am He." 
 
 When the disciples, coming back from Sychar with the 
 bread which they had bought, found him talking with the 
 woman at the Well, they were sore and grieved, for they 
 were simple Jews, brought up from childhood to abhor these 
 sons and daughters of schism, and fearful lest by touching 
 the cord, the pitcher, or the woman's dress, he should have 
 made himself unclean. Only their great love for him 
 prevented them from breaking into open wrath ; yet this 
 hesitation of complaint was a sign that they were already 
 learning to see with his eyes, although as yet they could not 
 help wondering at much of what they saw and heard. 
 
JACOB'S WELL. 263 
 
 Laying the dinner of bread and fruit on the stone, they 
 begged that he would eat. 
 
 " I have meat to eat that ye know not of." 
 
 Taking his words in the Hteral sense, they turned to each 
 other and said — " Hath any man brought him ought to eat ?" 
 In other words — Has any one given him unlawful food — > 
 bread baked by a Samaritan ? Knowing what they said 
 among themselves, he replied to their query ^vith a hint that 
 his church was to include the men of Samaria no less than 
 those of Galilee and Judea : 
 
 " My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to 
 finish his work." 
 
 They urged no more. They were beginning to see that 
 whatever he chose to do was right ; so they stayed two days 
 with the men of Sychar, teaching these outcasts and 
 schismatics the way of life ; and then they set out on their 
 journey to Cana, in Galilee, where the family of their Lord 
 still dwelt. 
 
264 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 SEA OF GENNESARETH. 
 
 T) ASSING through the hills of Samaria and over the chain 
 ■^ of Mount Carmel into Galilee, where he might hope to 
 pursue his work in peace, Jesus came through Nazareth to 
 Cana, the little town of gardens and plantations, of herds- 
 men and vine-growers, in which he had changed the water 
 into wine. Here, his fame lay in wait for him ; in the 
 person of a noble Jew, an officer of state, and a member of 
 Herod's court. Having a son lying sick to the point of 
 death, this noble Jew had come up from his house at 
 Capernaum on the lake to Cana, that he might see the 
 Master whose name was now noised abroad, and beg him 
 to go down with him to the Lake Country and restore his 
 son. 
 
 Jesus having pity on the father, said to him : 
 
 " Go thy way ; thy son liveth." 
 
 And from that hour, being one past noon, the young man 
 at Capernaum, twenty-six miles from Cana, began to mend. 
 Going back again down the wady, the great officer met his 
 servants coming up with their joyful news ; and thus it came 
 to pass, that in the early days of his calling, the fame of 
 Jesus, as a man having power over life and death, became 
 noised about in the Lake Country, not only in vineyards 
 and fishermen's sheds, but in the ante-rooms of Herod's 
 palace. 
 
 Some thirty miles from Nazareth, in a deep and narrow 
 
SEA OF GENNESARETIT. 
 
 265 
 
 scoop, lay that inland sea of Gennesareth on the shores of 
 which Jesus was to spend so many of his later days ; a 
 small and lovely lake, the Zug of Palestine, wrapt in the 
 arms of a circle of tiny Alps, and fed by a confluence of 
 
 J 
 
 SEA OF GALILEE. 
 
 Streams and falls. In summer its surface was six hundred 
 feet below the level of Acre bay. The water was fresh and 
 wholesome; sweet to the lips of man and beast; and when 
 
266 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 judged in relation to the latitude and level, it was extremely 
 cool. Placed in a jar and left in the open air, it became 
 cold as those artificial snows with which the people on its 
 banks were in the habit of cooling their food and drink. 
 Jews who had lived in Egypt and Italy spoke of this cool- 
 ness of the lake of Galilee as one of the miracles of nature \ 
 and one that a man must have been born a Syrian fully to 
 appreciate and enjoy. One result of this freshness in the 
 lake was the beautiful and contrasting foliage on its banks ; 
 for the sun being hot and the water cold, many trees and 
 plants which are commonly strangers to each other, such as 
 the Caspian walnut, the Syrian fig, and the Nilotic palm, 
 were found growing in clumps in the gardens of its sunny 
 shores. 
 
 The lake was about thirteen miles long by seven miles 
 broad ; in shape a fig, the lower end being to the south. 
 Fish were abundant and of many kinds. The depth of 
 water varied with the time of year ; being highest after rain 
 in October; but having draught enough, even in the dry 
 months of summer, to float Roman ships of war. 
 
 In the region lying west of this lake, the hills were easy 
 in ascent and almost green in tint; though they rose 
 higher and barer as they rolled up towards Hattin and 
 Tabor, the two main pinnacles of this mountain range. 
 Beyond the lake, on the eastern bank, the ascent was 
 bolder, the verdure less abundant, the rock more shelving 
 and abrupt. Indeed, the inheritance of Manasseh, lying 
 east of the Jordan and the Sea of Galilee, was a wild and 
 difficult land; a mountainous desert, with a few rapid 
 torrents, some bare tracts of upland, and above these deserts 
 a camp-like range of inaccessible peaks. 
 
 Nature had invited man by her own true signs to dwell 
 on the western banks of this lake, where she had smoothed 
 her gentle slopes and hidden her refreshing springs. A 
 town here, a city there, had been built on the farther shore ; 
 such as that hamlet of Gerasa, in which Jesus cast out the 
 two devils ; and such as those Greek cities of Hippos and 
 
SEA OF GENNESARETH. 267 
 
 Gamala, which achieved a mournful celebrity in the Roman 
 wars. But on the Galilean bank, the bright little towns and 
 villages crowded upon each other, as in our own day villas 
 and hamlets sparkle around the shores of Como and 
 Geneva. On every patch of loam, in every rift of rock, 
 on every gentle knoll, sprung a cluster of stone sheds, the 
 homes of reapers and fishermen ; each hamlet having its bit 
 of uneven corn-field, its narrow ledge of vines, and its tiny 
 beach of sand. Some of the neighbouring peaks being 
 volcanic, huge masses of basaltic rock lay tumbled along the 
 shore, especially towards Capernaum. Of course, a broad 
 marsh surrounded the Jordan where it flowed into the lake. 
 The chief tree in this landscape was the palm. 
 
 Every two or three miles along the beach lay one of these 
 sparkling towns; here, Magdala, the abode of that Mary 
 who has lent her name to repenting women of all nations ; 
 there, Capernaum, the home of that noble Jew whose son 
 was saved from- death ; yonder, Chorazin, the scene of un- 
 written histories ; and here, again, Bethsaida, the river-town 
 from which Jona removed his sons to a new home. 
 
 Bethsaida, a fishing place, as the name implies, stood on 
 the Jordan, a little way above the marsh, at the nearest 
 point where the river could be crossed. Some of its houses 
 were in Naphthali, some in Manasseh ; one who wrote for 
 Greek readers would have described them as being partly 
 in Galilee, the province of Antipas, and partly in Gaulonitis, 
 the province of Philip : the two halves of the village being 
 joined by a bridge. The little town had become a city ; a 
 station on a great highway ; for on the Romans occupying 
 Syria in strength, they had brought the road from Ptolemais 
 to Damascus, which they carried through Sephoris to the 
 lake, along the water to Capernaum, and thence along the 
 edge of the Jordan marshes to Bethsaida, where it crossed 
 the stream. Philip had built streets, walls, palaces, gates, 
 about the Roman bridge ; calling his new city Julias, from 
 the name of Caesar's daughter; for like his father, Philip 
 was both a great builder and a great courtier ; and in hope 
 
268 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 of winning friends in Rome he adorned his young city with 
 an imperial name. The country people still called the 
 clump of houses standing west of the river, Bethsaida, and 
 the only change they would make on the other side was to 
 call the new Greek city Bethsaida-Julias. 
 
 Other Greek cities lay along the southern shores of the 
 lake : Hippos, Gamala, Pella ; all these being places of the 
 stranger, not of the Arab and the Jew. 
 
 West of the lake, nearly facing Gerasa, and about four 
 miles south of Magdala, Antipas Herod was building a new 
 city to outshine Julias, built by his brother Philip ; which 
 city he proposed to call Tiberias, and make the usual resi- 
 dence of his court. His plan was laid at the base of a 
 steep hill, around the waters of a hot spring, among the 
 ruins of a nameless town and the graves of a forgotten race. 
 A great builder, like all the princes of his line, Antipas 
 could now indulge his taste for temples, palaces, and pubHc 
 baths, conceived in a Roman spirit and executed on a 
 Roman scale, while flattering that capricious master who 
 might any day send him to die as his brother was dying in 
 a distant land. The new city grew apace. A castle crowned 
 the hill. High walls ran down from the heights into the 
 sea. Streets and temples covered the low ground which lay 
 between these walls. A gorgeous palace rose high above 
 the rest of these public works ; a palace for the prince and 
 court, having a roof of gold, from which circumstance it 
 came to be known as the Golden house. A port was 
 formed ; a pier thrown out ; a water-gate built ; and a fleet 
 of war ships and pleasure boats danced on the sparkHng 
 wave. Towers protected, and gates adorned, a city which 
 Antipas dedicated to his master, inscribed on his coins, and 
 made the capital of his province, the residence of his court. 
 
 To people the empty streets which he had built, he lured 
 men of condition from every part of Galilee, and even from 
 Italy and Greece. He fetched the craftsmen from Sephoris, 
 the artists from Ptolemais ; he declared Tiberias a free city, 
 an asylum for the unclean, a refuge for the poor, a home for 
 
SEA OF GENNESARETH. 269 
 
 the persecuted, of all sects and nations ; he bought slaves 
 from captains who had taken them in war; and he gave 
 freedom to these slaves on the easy condition of their 
 settling in a healthy and prosperous town, where work was 
 abundant and amusement cheap. For some persons he 
 built houses, to others he gave land. He let every man see 
 that the short way into his favour was to aid him in these 
 plans. And every one helped him. His friends, his cap- 
 tains, his great officers of state, built palaces on the little 
 bay. Houses swarmed up the hill-side, and the whole space 
 within the walls, even that part of it which lay among the 
 ancient cemeteries, was soon occupied by dwehings, temples, 
 palaces, and shrines. 
 
 Tiberias had the usual aspects of a Greek city; which 
 may be figured as those of a Syrian Baiae, a Syrian Pompeii. 
 There was a Roman forum, a public square in which the 
 people met. There was a regal palace — the Golden house. 
 There was a stadium, in which the youth of Galilee, con- 
 trary to Jewish customs, braced their limbs with Spartan 
 exercises and proved their skill in Olympic games. There 
 was a theatre for the performance of Roman comedies. 
 There was a palace for the public treasury, another for 
 the public archives. There was a mint which produced 
 a series of noble coins. There was a vast barrack for the 
 troops. The Golden house, the pride and glory of Herod's 
 court, displayed the usual ornaments of a Roman palace : 
 eagles, lions, horses ; busts of the imperial race and statues 
 of the Roman gods. 
 
 This city was waxing great and famous. When the first 
 stones were being laid near the sea, St. John was a little 
 child playing on the beach at Capernaum with his father's 
 nets ; yet so swift was its growth, so wide its fame, that be- 
 fore he composed his gospel, Tiberias had given its name to 
 the waters on which it stood, like Geneva to Lake Leman, 
 and Lucerne to that of the Four Cantons. When St. Mat- 
 thew wrote his gospel, the city was still young, and a Jew 
 of Gahlee might speak of the lake as Gennesareth; forty 
 
270 THE HOL Y LAND 
 
 or fifty years later, a man who was born on its shores and 
 had fished in its waters, spoke of the lake most familiarly 
 by its Roman name. 
 
 This new city, though ruled by a Jewish prince, and 
 seated in the midst of Pharisaic hamlets, was in no sense a 
 Jewish town. It was a Syrian Syracuse; a city of pleasure, 
 of refuge, of intelligence, of toleration, and of force; in 
 which all the strangers of the earth could assemble in 
 peace and safety, bringing with them, as into an open market 
 and a common forum, their speech, their customs, and their 
 idols. In fact, under the Herodian prince, the city of 
 Tiberias was a Roman fortress, held by a Syro-Macedonian 
 army, and governed by an Asiatic court 
 
 For the Tetrarch of Galilee, though he still sat in the 
 synagogue, joined in the shema, and went up to the Temple 
 feasts, was hardly esteemed a Jew. But of all his offences 
 in a Pharisee's eyes, the crowning act of impiety was his 
 employment of Ionian artists in adorning the Golden house. 
 " Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image," said 
 the Law, in one of its indisputable texts ; and many a Jew, 
 who preserved no other virtue of his fathers, still held fast 
 by the Mosaic scorn of marble and brazen gods. This 
 antique scorn of idols a Pharisee poured out upon those 
 lions, centaurs, nymphs, and fawns, in which the sculptors 
 of Antioch and Alexandria found the favourite figures of 
 their art. The Galilean, who called no man lord, held all 
 such images in loathing, and neither the Elder in Jerusalem 
 nor the peasant on the lake could excuse the appearance of 
 these Pagan abominations in the Golden house. 
 
IN THE LAKE COUNTRY. 271 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 IN THE LAKE COUNTRY. 
 
 /^^OING down from Cana into the Lake Country, from 
 ^-^ which many of his disciples came, and in which his 
 fame was now ripening, Jesus went about the small towns 
 and hamlets — Capernaum, Chorazin, Magdala, Bethsaida, 
 Dalmanutha, Gerasa — preaching in the synagogues, visiting 
 the fishing boats and threshing floors, healing the sick and 
 comforting the poor ; gentle in his aspect and in his life ; 
 wise as a sage and simple as a child ; winning people to his 
 views by the chami of his manner and the beauty of his 
 sayings ; but keeping locked in his own heart the great 
 secret that he was Lord and Christ. He could speak in 
 facts, but not in words, while the foundations of his Church 
 were being slowly laid in the souls of men. 
 
 No Pharisee, no Galilean, could as yet have understood 
 him, any more than Nicodemus understood him, when he 
 spoke of a new spirit, of a new birth, of a kingdom higher 
 than the earth. Their hopes were in the flesh. These 
 Separatist Jews believed in an after-life ; but an after-life of 
 the body. They dreamed of a Messianic empire, the seat 
 of which was to be on Zion and the ruler a Jewish prince. 
 Beyond this hope of a physical heaven, with a throne of 
 ivory and a crown of gold for their Deliverer, they had not 
 risen, and of themselves they would never rise. To tell 
 these men, in their eager mood, that he was Lord and Christ, 
 would have had the effect of throwing them into dangerous 
 
THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 ferments, probably into acts of war. Many were armed j all 
 were ready for the fray. At a word, the torch would have 
 been lighted, the sword would have been drawn; and scenes 
 like those which had darkened the rising of Judas of Gamala 
 and the revolt of Simon the slave might have been repeated 
 in every town of Galilee. The Galileans could not be trusted 
 with a truth for which they were unprepared. Not by sword 
 and fire was the heavenly kingdom to be reproduced on 
 earth, but by changes in the spirit of man unrecognized in 
 their Separatist system and repugnant to their national 
 pride. 
 
 The true change was a work requiring time and care. 
 Two or three hearts were first to be won ; then a few others 
 were to be called in to share the work. The faith of these 
 chosen servants was to be fixed and fired, so as not to 
 depend on the Master's presence. When this had been 
 done, the crowd would have become a church, having 
 its own methods of procedure, and its own principles of 
 life. Thousands, millions might then be added ; these 
 were but points of detail and of labour. The great thing 
 was to found the spiritual kingdom in a few earnest hearts. 
 
 Had Jesus, in this early stage of his divine ministry, 
 announced himself as the Son of God, the Pharisees would 
 have been bound either to proclaim him King or stone him 
 in the streets. And not finding him to be the King they 
 wanted, they would assuredly have judged him an impostor 
 and put him to death. 
 
 Sometimes on foot, sometimes by boat, he went round 
 the Lake Country ; visiting Magdala, Capernaum, Chorazin, 
 Bethsaida, and Gerasa ; drawing many people after him, no 
 less by the beauty of his sermons, than by his readiness to 
 do good. He entered into poor men's houses. He spoke 
 kindly to women. He called to him little children. He 
 sat down at table with the despised of men. Into every 
 place he brought glad tidings ; eating and drinking with his 
 people, and spreading around himself an atmosphere of joy. 
 But in these travels round the lake, he refrained, like an 
 
JN THE LAKE COUNTRY. 273 
 
 Arab of the desert, from entering into the great cities and 
 abiding in any place girt with walls. With Hippos, Pella, and 
 Gadara, he must have been acquainted, as he often passed 
 under the shadow of their towers ; but he is never said to 
 have entered within their gates. For many months he 
 lived within sight of Tiberias, and drew many of his hearers 
 from that city; yet the gospels are silent as to his ever 
 having seen the Golden house. 
 
 This avoidance of the new city, the capital and court 
 of Herod, may have sprung from many causes, though 
 a desire to escape from intercourse with the Greeks can 
 hardly have been one of them, seeing that he brought sal- 
 vation alike to Gentile and to Jew. He had much to do, 
 and httle time in which to do it. His labours lay among 
 those tribes from whom he was to choose his ministers 
 and name his successors. Salvation was to come of the 
 Jews, even to the outer nations of the world; and his 
 religion being not a word, but a Life, it was his business 
 to dwell among his brethren in the flesh, in order that he 
 might teach them by his example how to live. 
 
 Again, a man of austere race would find much to deride 
 and more to condemn in the new city and in the Golden 
 house. The temples were built to idols ; the streets were 
 full of harlots ; the markets were crowded with unclean 
 birds and beasts. The harbours bristled with war-ships. 
 The palace shone with gold in impious rivalry with the 
 Temple front. Could he find profit in the fanes of 
 Zeus and Aphrodite ? In the Temple and the syna- 
 gogue he could appeal against the priests of Jehovah to 
 their sacred books ; but the idolatrous Greeks had no 
 antique purity of faith on which the teacher could fall 
 back. 
 
 And again, in the eyes of a Jew, that city of Tiberias, 
 bright as it may have seemed in a Roman's eyes, would be 
 judged impure, not only by the Oral, but by the Mosaic 
 law. In laying out his ground, the Tetrarch had been 
 for':ed to pknt some of his streets among ancient graves. 
 
 T 
 
274 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 To what people these graves had belonged, no man could 
 tell ; but to disturb the rock in which they had been dug 
 by forgotten owners, was an offence of which no Jew could 
 have been guilty ; not because, like a Frank, he would have 
 thought the ground holy, but because, like an Oriental, he 
 would have considered it polluted and accursed. Of all 
 the evil things in this evil world, none was so repulsive 
 to a Jew as Death. No symbol of a broken shaft, of an 
 extinguished torch ; no imagery of a fading flower, of a 
 sleeping child ; made the thought of death beautiful and 
 tender in a Syrian's mind. To a Hebrew the symbol of 
 Death was that of a figure either laying a snare, or presenting 
 a cup of poison to the lips. Abraham longed to get rid 
 of Sarah's corpse — "let me bury my dead out of my sight." 
 In the East a grave is never a sacred thing, and the dead 
 are never deposited in holy ground. Among the Jews 
 a dead body was to be cast out from the city gates, far from 
 the Temple, far from the synagogue ; out into the dismal 
 ravines, among the haunts of hyenas and savage curs. No 
 tree, no flower, was planted over a Jewish grave ; and a 
 hole in a rock is all that was given to the greatest king. 
 The foulest term in a language, rich in powers of abuse, 
 was that of death, and the darkest spirit was appeased 
 by calling his enemy a sepulchre and a whited wall. 
 
 To dwell then among the dead, in a place where dead 
 bodies had been laid, was a thing of which no Jew could 
 be guilty unless the possession of devils had driven him 
 mad. 
 
 Jesus kept aloof from this new city; but he wandered 
 about the Lake Country, prescribing and teaching, until 
 the Feast of Purim drew him once more to the Temple 
 hill. 
 
 This feast of Purim was not a Mosaic, but a Babylonish 
 feast. Founded in Persia during the Exile, to commemorate 
 the death of Haman and the rise of Esther, it belonged by 
 origin and character to that series of Pharisaic rites which 
 the .Maccabees adopted and estabhshed as the distinctive 
 
IN THE LAKE COUNTRY. 275 
 
 signs of the Jewish faith. Eighty-five elders are said to 
 have voted against the adoption of this Babylonish feast 
 when it was first proposed by Mordecai ; but the people 
 soon learned to like it so much that in time it became their 
 favourite feast ; a common proverb among the Separatists 
 declaring that the Temple might fail but that Purim would 
 last for ever. 
 
 It was a feast of mirth ; often rioting dov/n into an orgy. 
 On the first day, the people thronged to the synagogue ; 
 women and men, girls and boys, the blind and the lame ; 
 where they heard the story of Esther; the elders cursing 
 the Persian and the Amalekite ; the boys clapping hands, 
 and the whole congregation shouting, "Cursed be Haman ! 
 Blessed be Mordecai !" This service being ended, the 
 people went home to eat and drink, to sport and riot, still 
 crying in their cups, " Cursed be Haman ! Blessed be Mor- 
 decai !" Purim was a Jewish satumaha, during which there 
 was music in the doorw'^ays and dancing in the courts. 
 Men put on women's clothes. A Jew was told to drink 
 wine until he got drunk and fell asleep on the floor. The 
 rule as to what was meant by being drunk was short and 
 clear; to comply with the custom, it was said that the 
 reveller must be so far gone in stupor as not to know 
 whether he was cursing Haman or cursing Mordecai. A 
 favourite story, told in the Talmud, illustrates this rule. 
 Two pious elders, Rabba and Zira, agree to keep the feast 
 of Purim together, and both being drunk and rolling on the 
 floor, Rabba kills Zira. In the morning when Rabba awakes 
 and finds that he has murdered his friend, he prays to 
 the Lord, and the Lord, listening to his voice, because 
 the deed was done in Purim, restores Zira to life. Next 
 year when the feast comes round, Rabba proposes that 
 they should drink together once more ; but Zira declines 
 his proposal on the ground that miracles do not happen 
 every year. 
 
 This Persian festival, so hostile to the old spirit of 
 Hebrew law and the habits of Hebrew life, had one good 
 
276 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 feature. The poor were remembered in the midst of mirth ; 
 every one who had means being commanded to give ahns ; 
 and the feast of Purim, hke that of Christmas among 
 Franks, was a season devoted to charitable thought and 
 charitable work. 
 
 At such a time, the hearts of men might be found open 
 to the Religion of Love. 
 
A JEWISH SABBATH, 277 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 A JEWISH SABBATH. 
 
 /"^OMING to Jerusalem for this feast of Purim, and 
 ^-^ walking near the great pool of Bethesda, in the sheep- 
 market, a spot which he had to pass daily on his way from 
 Olivet to the Temple hill, Jesus saw on the banks of this 
 pool a crowd of sick persons, some halt, some aged, and 
 some blind ; for, like many of the wells in Gaul and Britain, 
 the spring of Bethesda possessed healing virtues ; and the 
 poor people of the country, apt to personify nature, had a 
 legendary belief that an angel visited the great Pool and 
 agitated the water, and that when the water had been 
 stirred by this angel, the first man who stepped into it 
 would be cured, just as many Franks in the middle ages 
 imagined that the wells could only cure them through the 
 blessing of a saint. 
 
 It was the Sabbath day. 
 
 In the Temple hard by, these wretches could hear the 
 groaning of bulls under the mace, the bleating of lambs 
 under the sacrificial knife, the shouting of dealers as they 
 sold doves and shekels. Bakers were hurrying through 
 with bread, the Captain of the Temple was on duty with his 
 guards. Priests were marching in procession ; and crowds 
 of worshippers standing about the holy place. Tongues of 
 flame leaped faintly from the altars, on which the priests 
 were sprinkling blood. 
 
 This Pool of Bethesda lay outside the Gentile court ; on 
 
278 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 the north side of the Temple, near to the wall; but the 
 wretches who lay around it on their quilts and rags, the 
 blind, the leprous, and the aged poor, drew no compassion 
 from the busy priests. One man, weakest of the weak, had 
 been helpless no less than thirty-eight years. Over this 
 man Jesus paused and said : 
 
 " Wilt thou be made whole ?" 
 
 " Rabbi, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to 
 put me into the pool ; but while I am coming, another 
 steppeth do\^m before me." 
 
 The Compassionate answered him : 
 
 " Rise. Take up thy bed and walk !" 
 
 At once the life leaped quickly into the poor man's limbs. 
 Rising from the ground, he folded up his quilt, taking it on 
 his arm to go away ; but some of the Pharisees, seeing him 
 get up and roll his bed into a coil, ran towards him, crying : 
 ' It is the Sabbath day ; it is not lawful for thee to carry 
 thy bed." It was certainly an offence against the Oral 
 Law. 
 
 Among the many marks which stamped the Jews as a 
 peculiar people. Sabbath observance was perhaps the one 
 mark most distinctive and conspicuous. A Greek had his 
 religious feast, a Syrian his gathering in the temple, an 
 Egyptian his sacrifices and his prayers. Many orders of 
 men besides Jews had the right of circumcision; to wit, the 
 priests of Memphis, the Edomite sheikhs, the princes of 
 Tyre. But no other people in the world had a seventh day 
 of peculiar sanctity, a God's day, on which no man would 
 labour for the things that perish. The Greek knew no 
 Sabbath. The Philistine never ceased from his plough, the 
 Sidonian from his ships. In Tiberias, in Ptolemais, one 
 day was like another day. A division of time into weeks 
 was unknown in Athens, and became known in Rome only 
 when the legions, learning it from the people of Alexandria, 
 carried it westward from the Nile. The name, and the 
 thing, were borrowed from the Jews, of whom it had long 
 been a singular and striking sign. Heathen poets, like 
 
A JEWISH SABBATH. 279 
 
 Ovid and Juvenal, distinguished a Jew by his Sabbath even 
 more than by his physiognomy and his garb. 
 
 But hke every other virtue of his race, the Jew had 
 debased his Sabbath virtue into vice. The Sabbath had 
 been given to man as a blessing ; the Pharisees made of it 
 a curse. Proud of this gift of God to his fathers, he fenced 
 it about with edicts, toyed with it, made an idol of it, set it 
 above every other rite, until the mere ritual observance 
 came to occupy in his heart the place of God. 
 
 In carrying out his rule of obsei-vance, a Jew was for- 
 bidden to do many trifling and some neces-sary things. 
 From the moment of hearing the ram's horn, a sacred 
 trumpet called the shofa, blo\vn from the Temple wall, 
 announcing that the Sabbath had commenced, he was not 
 allowed to light a fire, to make a bed, to boil a pot ; he 
 could not pull his ass from a ditch, nor raise an arm in 
 defence of his life. When thousands of men had been lost 
 in war, the last of these clauses had been abolished by the 
 Maccabees ; after which change a Jew was allowed to defend 
 his life on the Sabbath day. But no other clause in this 
 stem code had been softened. A Jew could not quit his 
 camp, his village, or his city on the day of rest. He might 
 not begin a journey ; if going along a road, he must rest 
 from sundown till the same event of the coming day. He 
 might not carry a pencil, a kerchief, a shekel in his belt ; if 
 he required a handkerchief for use, he must tie it round his 
 leg. If he oft'ended against one of these rules, he was held 
 to deserve the doom awarded to the vilest sinners. Some 
 rabbins held that a man ought not to change his position ; 
 but that whether he was standing or sitting when the shofa 
 sounded, he should stand or sit, immovable as a stone, until 
 the Sabbath had passed away. 
 
 It was only in the synagogue and the Temple, chiefly in 
 the Temple, that this stringent rule could be set at nought. 
 A law which put an end to gifts and sacrifices in the 
 Temple would not have suited the chief priests and high 
 priests, and these smiling Sadducees clung to the sacerdotal 
 
28o THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 rule that there must be no Sabbath in holy things. A 
 cripple could not cany his rug a mile, a hungry man could 
 not pluck a grain of wheat ; but the Temple fires might be 
 lit, the shew-bread might be baked, the altars might be 
 trimmed and guarded, the shekels might be paid in to the 
 receivers, the doves and heifers might be slain, and the 
 victims might be burnt with fire. In the Temple courts, 
 the Seventh day was the busiest day of the week, for on the 
 Sabbath every Jew who made an offering to God was 
 expected to present two shekels instead of one shekel, two 
 doves instead of one dove, and two rams instead of one 
 ram. 
 
 So, when the Jews, who came crowding about the poor 
 cripple now made whole, shouted to him that he must not 
 lift his quilt and go home, because it was the Sabbath, he 
 answered that He who had cured him had also told him to 
 take up his bed and walk. These facts were strange. A 
 man had cured this aged cripple by a word, and that very 
 same man had told him to break the law ! The Jews 
 questioned him more sharply, as to what sort of man this 
 was who had done this thing ; but he could not tell them, 
 his physician having gone away. 
 
 Later in the day, Jesus met him in the Temple court, 
 and said to him : 
 
 " Behold, thou art made whole : sin no more ; lest a 
 worse thing befall thee." 
 
 The cripple now heard from those about him that the 
 man was called Jesus of Nazareth, and he forthwith told the 
 Pharisees where they might find him. These Jews would 
 have killed Jesus if they had dared, because he had broken 
 their Sabbath day ; and, to escape their fury, he returned 
 into the Lake Country of Galilee. 
 
 He broke their Oral Law, that he might bring his 
 followers to a sense of its degrading spirit. When he came 
 back into the Lake Country, he walked out on a Seventh 
 day into the plain of Gennesareth, and some of his disciples, 
 being hungry, plucked the full ears of com, rolled them 
 
A JE WISH SABBA TH. 281 
 
 between their palms, and ate the grains of seed. Some 
 Pharisees, who followed him about to watch his doings and 
 accuse him in the synagogue, said : 
 
 "Why do you that which is unlawful on the Sabbath 
 day?" 
 
 Jesus answered them from their sacred books — that 
 David being hungry, went into the Temple, and ate of the 
 shew-bread, which only the priests were allowed to touch ; 
 also that the priests made fires, slew rams and doves, and 
 even baked bread for the Temple, guiltless of any sin. 
 And when he had said this, he delivered to them a new 
 truth : 
 
 "The Sabbath is made for man, not man for the 
 Sabbath." 
 
 Another day, also the seventh, on going into the 
 synagogue of Capernaum, he noticed a man with a palsied 
 hand; and some of the Pharisees, closing round him, put 
 the question whether it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath 
 day? Jesus knowing how far the Oral Law could be 
 warped, replied : 
 
 "What man is there among you that shall have one 
 sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will not 
 lay hold of it and pull it out ? How much better, then, is a 
 man than a sheep ?" 
 
 He bade the palsied man stretch forth his arm, and he 
 gave to his Church a new and true law of Sabbath 
 observance, new to the ignorant multitude, though it was 
 perhaps not new to the pupils of Hillel and Gamaliel, 
 subduing the external form to the diviner spirit : 
 
 " It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day." 
 
2S2 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 ANTIPAS HEROD. 
 
 T N the midst of these labours in the Lake Country, Jesus 
 -*- received a call from Tiberias to appear in the court of 
 Antipas Herod, in the audience-room of the Golden house. 
 
 A true son of his father, Antipas never ceased to believe 
 that he would one day ascend the throne of Herod the 
 Great; hence the homage which he paid to Caesar, the 
 palace which he built in Jerusalem, the favour which he 
 showered on the Greeks. Yet, while striving to make 
 friends for his claims on every side, he allowed his passions 
 to hurry him into offences against law and right. 
 
 During his father's lifetime he had been married by 
 Herod the Great, not to a niece, after the rule of his house, 
 but to a strange woman, a daughter of Aretas, king of Petra 
 and Emir of the desert tribes — that Arab prince w^ith whom 
 Herod had been long at war. Aretas was a proud and 
 independent man ; for the wastes of sand which surround 
 Petra defied the legions of light troops w^hich had been sent 
 against him, and the city carved in the rock was never 
 subdued. In the Wady Musa, a halting-place for camels 
 and hajjees, Aretas held his Arab court. From this fortress 
 he had sent out his clouds of horse to overrun Perea, and in 
 some seasons to devastate Samaria and Galilee. Tired of a 
 war from which he gained neither glory nor profit, Herod 
 had made peace, proposed a family alliance, and received a 
 
ANTIPAS HEROD. 283 
 
 young Arabian princess in Jerusalem, to be the wife and 
 queen of his most favoured son. 
 
 For many years the Arab lady lived with her soft and 
 sensual lord; a true woman, a loyal wife, a courageous 
 friend, to one who was little worthy of such love ; until her 
 bad husband, in one of his many journeys to Rome, lodging 
 on his way under his brother's roof, stung her pure heart 
 by falling in love with that brother's wife. 
 
 The Princess Herodias, the light, the splendour, and the 
 shame of Herod's line, was the daughter of Aristobulus, a 
 son of Herod and Mariamne, his queen of the Maccabean 
 blood. While yet a child, she had been given in marriage 
 without love, a marriage of family and state, to her uncle 
 Philip, a man whose birth she considered ignoble, and 
 whose age was more than double her own. For this uncle 
 Philip was a son of that Mariamne whose father, Simon son 
 of Boethus, Herod had called to Jerusalem from Alexandria, 
 and made his new High Priest. A bitter feud existed 
 between the offspring of the Maccabean Mariamne and the 
 Boethusian Mariamne ; members of the old family and of 
 the new ; and Herod's children of the Boethusian line were 
 hated and despised by his children of the Maccabean line. 
 Herod may have hoped to heal these feuds in his family by 
 marrying his son by the second Mariamne to his grand- 
 daughter by the first j but the result was like that of mating 
 a sheep-dog with a pard. The light young girl despised her 
 husband Philip, as a man beneath her in ability, in ambi- 
 tion, and in blood. They lived together while the old King 
 reigned and governed, and a girl, called Salome, was the 
 only offspring of the unhappy prince. 
 
 When Herod's will was read, Herodias received a second 
 shock — her husband being cut off from the succession with- 
 out receiving a crown, a province, even a city. Philip's 
 mother had been accused of a desire to see justice done 
 to the eldest son of Herod, the true heir to the crown ; and 
 the tyrant, angry with her for this desire, struck her son's 
 name from the will, which gave provinces and cities to 
 
284 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 his brothers ; an act which not only robbed this prince of 
 all share in his father's house, but cost him all that was left 
 him of his wife's fidelity and love. Herod ias could not 
 make up her mind to shine in a private sphere. Born in a 
 palace, in a palace she would live and reign. So, turning 
 her eyes from the penniless uncle whom she had sworn to 
 love, she threw her dark and tempting beauty, her high 
 blood, her agile spirit, into the way of that semi-royal uncle 
 whom she could not dream of taking to her arms without 
 public scandal and private sin. But what to her would be 
 public scandal and private sin ? The beautiful Maccabean 
 princess smiled at such words. What had she to do with 
 these Pharisees and their Oral Law? Was she bound by 
 their law, or by any law, to forego her birthright of rank and 
 state ? Her husband Philip was poor, his brother Antipas was 
 rich. One dwelt in a private station ; the other reigned in 
 the Golden house. The first was nobody in the world ; the 
 other was a prince, on his way to be a king. She wished 
 to be a queen ; to stand at the head of a court ; to move 
 about the world with pomp. Hence her resolution was 
 taken, that as Antipas was the most powerful prince of her 
 race, she would become his queen and wife. 
 
 In any case, such a thing as she conceived in her mind 
 would have been hard to bring about. Philip was alive. 
 Even if he were swept away from her feet, and she were 
 free to marry again, Antipas Herod, being her husband's 
 brother, was one of the very few men whom she could never 
 wed ; for nature, and a law founded in nature, had put 
 between her and her desire the obstacle of blood. But 
 Philip was alive ; and custom prohibited a woman from 
 suing for a divorce. A man might put away his wife : a 
 woman putting away her husband was a scandal utterly 
 unknown. Should she work up her courage to this height 
 of daring, what could be done with the Arab wife of Antipas 
 Herod ? A man might have more than one queen ; but 
 neither the daughter of Aretas nor the daughter of Aristo- 
 bulus was a woman to bear a rival on her throne. One of 
 
ANTIPAS HEROD. 2S5 
 
 these women must give way that the other might reign 
 alone, and the Jewish princess resolved that the Arabian 
 lady should be degraded and divorced. 
 
 Antipas could refuse her nothing. She was his fate. He 
 knew that in carrying out her scheme, he would have to 
 put a cruel affront on his faithful wife. He felt that in 
 wronging his wife he would rouse the old desert lion, whose 
 claws had been more than once felt in Sebaste and Sephoris. 
 He was aware that even if he could dishonour his wife and 
 defy Aretas without being ruined, he could not marry a 
 woman who had been his brother's wife while that brother 
 was still alive. The law forbade it. Public feelins: forbade 
 it. All Galilee, all Samaria, all Judea, would resent so 
 heinous a breach of morals. He knew that his brother 
 Archelaus had fallen from his throne through the very crime 
 which Herodias was tempting him to commit. Yet, peering 
 into her dark eyes, he threw himself, body and soul, into 
 perdition. 
 
 While he was absent in Rome, the guilty lovers agreed 
 that she should remove from beneath her husband's roof, so 
 that on his return they could meet in Tiberias, in the 
 Golden house, and carry out all their plans. 
 
 A scheme so wild and strange, so sure to alarm and to 
 offend many persons, could not be kept a secret long ; for 
 women will prattle and pages take bribes ; and when the 
 Arabian princess heard of this plot, of her husband's weak- 
 ness, and of her rival's shame, the blood of her fathers kindled 
 in her veins. But while her pulses beat with fury at the 
 thought of being put away, she took prudent steps to guard 
 herself from deceit, and, if the worst should come, to escape 
 from her miserable home. She sent news of her wrongs to 
 Petra; conveyed her jewels and treasures to Macherus; and 
 caused measures to be taken by the Arab sheikhs to assist 
 her flight. Like Petra, the stony capital of the desert, 
 Macherus was a strong hill-town in the midst of arid wastes; 
 a rocky plateau, on which Herod the Great had built a 
 huge pile, half-palace, half-castle, to overawe the Arab 
 
286 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 tribes. The town was high and lonely, and of enormous 
 strength; having abundant springs and wells, a httle verdure, 
 including the upas tree, and very high walls ; in fact, it was 
 a frontier fort, which had given Herod a strong grip over 
 all the neighbouring tents. This town had fallen to Antipas, 
 as one of the chief places of Perea, and being one of the 
 palaces in which he sometimes held his court, no suspicion 
 could arise from the Arabian princess sending messages and 
 packages to Machems ; at least on the part of men who 
 knew nothing of her wrongs. 
 
 On her husband's return from Rome, and the renewal of 
 his guilty love, she felt that the time for her to fly had 
 come ; for these Herodian princes had never been nice in 
 their dealings with inconvenient wives ; and she feared lest 
 those who found her in their way might think it safer to put 
 hemlock into her drink than a letter of divorce into her 
 hands. She concealed her fears, and deceived their 
 vigilance so well, that when she rode away from the 
 Golden house, smiling and unsuspected, every one thought 
 she was going away, a happy wife, on a trip of pleasure to 
 her husband's Perean seat. The guilty pair seemed glad to 
 see her go; her departure leaving them alone with their 
 darling purpose and their secret sin. From town to town, 
 from castle to castle, through Galilee into Perea, she was 
 carried by her husband's officers in state. Was she not 
 their master's wife ? On the frontier of the desert, high up 
 among the Moab mountains, she met the Arab sheikhs, her 
 own and her father's friends ; and once among these sons of 
 the desert, she threw otf her mask, denounced the adulteress, 
 and put herself and her cause on the justice of God. 
 
HEROD IAS. 287 
 
 CHAPTER XLIIL 
 
 HERODIAS. 
 
 A RETAS instantly made war against Perea to avenge 
 
 ^ this insult to his child. 
 
 In the face of this war on the side of Petra and the hill- 
 tribes, in the face of stern remonstrance from the Jewish 
 priests, and of loud clamour from the people, Antipas took 
 Herodias to wife, and set up her court in the Golden house. 
 
 The war becoming sharp on the frontier, he called his 
 lords and captains together and marched towards Macherus. 
 On his way towards the Dead Sea, he may have heard for 
 the first time of John the Baptist ; and finding that John 
 had won the ears of many people, he sent for him to 
 Macherus ; hoping to dazzle the poor teacher by his magni- 
 ficence, and gain his advocacy among the Jews. But John 
 was not a man for courts and kings. Instead of soothing 
 the Tetrarch, of siding with Herodias, the plain and stormy 
 ascetic, lifting up his voice against them, even in the midst 
 of their captains and courtiers, denounced their union as 
 unlawful and incestuous ; using such vigorous language of 
 rebuke as Nathan poured out upon David, and Elijah upon 
 Ahab ; in a voice of rebuke and of menace which drove the 
 guilty woman almost mad to hear. She wanted a prophet 
 to bless, and John only opened his mouth to curse. 
 
 Herodias would have taken his life on the spot ; but her 
 less audacious partner, having the Arabs in his front, the 
 Jews in his rear, each angry with the union that John de- 
 
288 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 nounced, was afraid to strike. But how could he leave this 
 man at large ? Such words as John had spoken in the 
 Tetrarch's presence, might provoke a rising among the Jews. 
 To stay the mischief, he kept John at Macherus ; in what 
 St. Luke calls a prison ; in a part of the palace which he 
 was not permitted to leave ; being kept in a sort of free 
 custody, until the war in Perea should be past. He was so 
 far left at hberty in his prison as to be able to communicate 
 with his disciples, to send messages into Gahlee, and appa- 
 rently to exhort and preach. 
 
 While John was still living at Macherus, he sent two of 
 his followers to Jesus, instructed to hear his words, to see 
 his actions, and to judge from what they heard and saw 
 whether He was the Christ who was to supersede all minor 
 prophets. The men walked up from the desert country into 
 Galilee. When they found Jesus, they asked him, as the 
 Jews had asked him, whether he was the Christ? Jesus 
 bade them look on. Calling to his side the blind and the 
 sick, the lame and the leprous from the crowd, he spake to 
 them and touched them, and they became whole. 
 
 " Go your way," said Jesus to the messengers from Ma- 
 cherus, " and tell John what things ye have seen and heard ; 
 how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, 
 the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the Gospel is 
 preached." These things were to be the signs of Christ, 
 and the disciples of John were answered by facts. The 
 words were spoken in the day of John's trouble, in the midst 
 of a great multitude, some of whom were Pharisees and 
 masters of the law. Jesus added these further words : 
 " Among those that are born of women there is not a greater 
 prophet than John the Baptist ; but he that is least in the 
 kingdom of heaven is greater than he." 
 
 John had not long to live. On the birthday of Antipas 
 Herod, a feast was given at Macherus to the lords of his 
 court and the officers of his camp. Herodias and her 
 daughter Salome, a girl who inherited her mother's beauty 
 and shared her evil passions, graced the military revel by 
 
HERODIAS. 2S9 
 
 their presence. After supper was done, when Antipas and 
 his guests were fired with wine, the youthful Salome swam 
 into the room, attired in a loose rich robe of gauze, and 
 danced before the riotous company one of those Oriental 
 movements which influence the blood of youth and disturb 
 the minds of aged and ascetic men. It was an act of con- 
 descension and of shame. Salome was a princess, stooping 
 to the art of an almeh ; but having done this indecent thing 
 she had gained a right to her reward ; and by the custom of 
 Oriental courts she could demand the wages of her shame. 
 The excited Antipas swore in the hearing of his guests, that 
 the beautiful girl who had stirred their pulses, should have 
 her wish, in whatever form she might like to name it. In 
 such a moment, an Oriental prince would expect her to 
 demand a precious jewel, a royal palace, the love of some 
 favoured youth ; such prayers and such gifts being things of 
 his age and country. A dancer of low degree might be paid 
 for her immodest arts by the gift of a great purse, a flock 
 of goats, a fine house, a dozen slaves. Salome knew her 
 part ; for the mother who had sent her in to dance before 
 all those revellers, had told her to ask for the head of 
 John the Baptist placed in a charger; that is to say, in 
 one of those dishes in which the fruits and viands of 
 the table had been served. The fair dancer named her 
 price. 
 
 Of himself, the Tetrarch would have shrunk from shedding 
 blood ; and he may have feared lest it might not be safe to 
 shed the blood of a man so popular as John. But his word 
 Yv'as pledged ; the captains who had heard him swear sat 
 round about him ; and in all that riotous company, courtiers 
 and soldiers, sycophants and slaves, the Baptist was without 
 a friend. So it went hard with him, as it always does with 
 the friendless in an Oriental court. Panting, beautiful, and 
 exposed before all those men, Salome stood, demanding the 
 preacher's head in a charger ; nothing more, nothing else ; 
 and the tipsy Tetrarch having at length given his orders, an 
 ofticer went out from the feast, and slew the prophet in his 
 
 i; 
 
290 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 cell. Herodias was avenged on the man v/ho had dared to 
 tell her the unwelcome truth. 
 
 Among the Jews, the consternation caused by this murder 
 was deep and wide ; for the Baptist's followers considered 
 him a great prophet ; a new Elias, if he were not Elias him- 
 self come back from the dead. Even in the camp of 
 Antipas there were many who resented their master's crime, 
 as an act which would bring down upon them and upon 
 their children the curse of blood. 
 
 Had Antipas Herod been a ruler of the Jews only, he 
 would scarcely have been able to stand his ground against 
 this military discontent, and this popular aversion ; but the 
 laws of marriage not being the same among his Greek and 
 Syrian subjects as among the Jews, many of his people, and 
 especially his officers and courtiers, accustomed to the hcense 
 of Egypt — marriage of brother with sister — would see no- 
 thing unnatural, perhaps nothing offensive, in his union with 
 a brother's wife. But this Greek indifference to his crime, 
 though contributing to his safety, could not lighten the 
 weight upon his mind. In some sort Herod was a Jew ; 
 having the fears and superstitions of a Jew. He believed in 
 the avenger of blood ; he trembled at the awful name of 
 Elias. After the deed was done at Macherus, he more than 
 half believed, with many of his people, that John had been 
 Elias ; and that in a mad moment he had slain the most 
 terrible of all the prophets. Then he recollected that if 
 Elias had once come back from the dead, he might come 
 again ; and hearing, soon after the Baptist's murder, that a 
 new prophet had arisen in Galilee, one who, by a word of 
 his mouth, was curing the lame and the blind, who was 
 doing these wonders at the gates of his own capital, almost in 
 the doorway of the Golden house, a chill of terror struck to 
 his heart. Could this man be any other than John, come 
 back to haunt his footsteps, and to punish his crimen ? 
 
 On his return, therefore, from Perea to Tiberias, the 
 Tetrarch sent one of his officers to find out Jesus and invite 
 him to the Golden house. 
 
HEROD IAS. 
 
 2QI 
 
 The Lord had no mind to enter the Greek capital, and to 
 confront the weak prince and his wicked wife. Nothing 
 could be easier for him than to avoid this call ; he had only 
 to step into Peter's boat, cross the lake into Gaulonitis, and 
 take up his abode for a Httle while on the other side. So 
 he went over to the Gamala shore, into the territories of 
 Philip, the second Herodian prince of that name, where he 
 would be safe from the curiosity of Antipas, the malice of 
 Herodias. 
 
 Only a few days after his flight, Jesus came back over the 
 lake to Capernaum ; and from this time he went more openly 
 about Galilee, as the hour to announce himself drew nigh : 
 healing the sick, comforting the needy, cahing to his side 
 the lowly, eating bread with publicans and sinners, every- 
 where softening the hearts of men towards each other, and 
 preparing the way for his great declaration that Jews and 
 Greeks were alike the sons of God. 
 
 A providential act allowed him to hint these tidings to 
 his own people before the day arrived which he had chosen 
 for a public and solemn revelation of the truth. There 
 lived at that time in Capernaum, a Roman officer, whom 
 St. Luke calls a centurion, who was obviously a man of high 
 rank, of vast riches, and of liberal mind. He seems to have 
 commanded the Roman troops at this frontier town. Willing 
 to please the people, and holding, like every one trained in 
 the Greek philosophy, that it was wise to propitiate the local 
 gods, he had built a synagogue on the hill-top, and had 
 given it as a splendid present to the Jews. This good man 
 having a servant whom he loved, and whom he saw sickening 
 to the point of death, the elders of the to\vn came to Jesus 
 in his name, and besought him that He would heal the sick 
 man for the centurion's sake ; saying, that this Roman 
 officer was worthy of all good, being a man who loved the 
 Jews and who had built them a synagogue. At the desire 
 of these Jewish elders, but contrary to the Separatist policy, 
 Jesus went with them towards the stranger's house. In the 
 streets of Capernaum they met the friends of the centurion 
 
292 
 
 1HE HOLY X AND. 
 
 coming out to me€t them, with a request from that officei 
 (who was aware how much a Jew objected to enter a Roman 
 house) that the Lord should not come into the sick room, 
 but should speak the word and his servant would be healed. 
 Turning to his disciples, Jesus said : 
 
 " I have not found so great faith : no, not in Israel And 
 I say unto you that many shall come from the east and west, 
 and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the 
 kingdom of heaven." 
 
 The centurion's servant was healed the self-same hour : 
 this being the first miracle which the Lord performed on 
 any man not of the sacred race. 
 
 One day when surrounded by a multitude of people, 
 Jesus was startled by the appearance of Mary and his 
 brothers, who, on hearing that their cousin John had been 
 put to death, had come down the valleys to Capernaum in 
 search of him. They feared the wrath of the adulteress ; 
 and they wished to get him away from that dangerous 
 vicinity of the Golden house. Jesus, knowing that the 
 hour was now nigh, when, in words no less than in deeds, 
 he must announce himself and complete his work, said to 
 those who stood near him, and who told him that his 
 mother and his brethren were among the crowd, striving to 
 push through it : 
 
 " Who is my mother ? Who are my brethren ?" 
 
 And then stretching out his hand over those who clung 
 about him, the Lord added : 
 
 " Behold my mother and my brethren. For whosoever 
 shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, the same is 
 my brother, and sister, and mother." 
 
 Yet he went up with his mother into the hill country of 
 Galilee, and again dwelt with her in the old house at 
 Nazareth ; that he might now, in a more solemn manner, 
 commence those trials which were to bring him a martyr's 
 crown, by an express announcement to the Jews of his 
 Messiahship, made in the very synagogue in which he had 
 prayed when a little child. 
 
THE SYNAGOGUE. 293 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 THE SYNAGOGUE. 
 
 Al[ THEN he was gone into his own country, says St. 
 ^ ^ Matthew, Jesus taught them in their synagogues. He 
 loved to teach and pray in the synagogue ; a popular 
 institution ; which the great priests disliked, and in which 
 they had no official part. 
 
 The synagogue — house of meeting — was not a very old 
 thing in Jewry, though older than the Maccabees ; being a 
 popular growth, as the Sanhedrin was a patrician growth. 
 When every child could read Hebrew, when every man and 
 woman could repeat the shema, and when every harper and 
 singer could rehearse at evensong the psalms of David, there 
 had been little call for any other than household worship. 
 Every tent was a chapel, every father a priest. Moses had 
 thought it enough for the sacred books to be publicly read once 
 in seven years. Every man was supposed to know the Law 
 by heart, and the object of reading the law in public was not 
 so much to teach it, as to guard against corruptions of the text. 
 But when the scroll was lost, and the tongue in which it was 
 composed had been half forgotten, fears might arise lest 
 the sacred records should disappear. Then, the instincts of 
 shepherds and villagers saved them by humble and 
 unexpected means. Ezra had founded a weekly meeting of 
 neighbours, to sing psalms, play the pipe and tabret, and 
 listen to good words. These little meetings became 
 popular ; and in due time, a house, big enough to hold ten 
 
294 
 
 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 persons, in some cases more than ten, was built in every 
 town. This house was called a synagogue, a meeting- 
 house ; in Latin ecclesia, in English church ; a Greek name 
 which fixes within certain limits the date at which it was 
 introduced. 
 
 No synagogue of the time of Christ is now standing in 
 Nazareth, or even in Galilee, to picture the place in which 
 Jesus taught. Sun and rain, theft and malice, have been 
 
 SYNAGOGUE AT KEFR BIRIM, GALILEE. 
 
 hard upon these frail tabernacles ; the soft stone of which 
 they were built, and the need and greed of the Arab 
 peasants, having either ground them back into dust or 
 stolen them away for the erection of hut or fence. Yet a 
 man like Gilbert Scott, from such ruins as abound within 
 twenty miles of Nazareth, would rebuild a synagogue of 
 Galilee, true to its original in every stone. At Capernaum, 
 
TFIE SYNAGOGUE. 295 
 
 at Kedesh, at Beth Arbel, at Meiron, at Kefr Birim, at other 
 spots, all lying between Nazareth and the lake, you find 
 ruins of synagogues, in some of which it is certain that Jesus 
 must have prayed and taught. 
 
 These fragments, more or less perfect, more or less near 
 to his time in date, would afford to an architect who reads 
 the Bible every sort of hint from which to draw his plans. 
 The remains at Meiron and Beth Arbel are of the period 
 of the Herods ; giving proof of their past splendour in 
 broken column and colonnade ; many of the fallen shafts 
 being adorned with Corinthian capitals. Those at Kedesh 
 and Kefr Birim are perhaps of the third century; having 
 the lintels and doorways highly wrought, and the wall over 
 the main entrance decorated with fruits and flowers. The 
 synagogue built at Capernaum by the Roman centurion was 
 of noble style, if it may be judged by the pillars and friezes 
 which lie partly buried in the mould, now covered with 
 brambles and prickly pears. These buildings for village 
 worship were brightened in detail by the prevalence of 
 Grecian taste ; but the plan was everywhere the same ; the 
 outline being that of the Tabernacle in the desert, of the 
 Temple on the Sacred Mount ; the ornaments only, the 
 friezes, flutings, capitals, colonnades, being added to the 
 simple block by those who built synagogues on the more 
 costly models of Antioch and Rome. Take the foundations 
 which still peep out from the soil at either Kefr Birim or 
 Capernaum. Cast away the Greek additions ; work out 
 the hints afforded in the Bible and Talmud; add some 
 knowledge of the ritual now used in Safed and Zion ; and it 
 would be no hard labour to rebuild the meeting-house at 
 Nazareth and to restore the worship in which Jesus took a 
 part. 
 
 A synagogue, whether small or large, had the form of tlie 
 temple and the tent ; but the idea of a synagogue, like that 
 of a church, is not a pile of stone, having this or that shape 
 and height, but a gathering of the people to read the Law. 
 The House of Meeting was built on the highest ground of 
 
296 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 Nazareth ; with its door on the north side, away from 
 Jerusalem, hke the principal gates of an English church ; so 
 that a worshipper, when entering the holy place, and when 
 throwing himself on the ground in prayer, might have his 
 face towards the Temple hill. 
 
 In early days a balcony hung above the door of a 
 synagogue, as a balcony still hangs over the door of some 
 Syrian houses ; but when the first traditions of the Exile had 
 passed away, when Greek art had become familiar to the 
 Jews, and foreign masons, deft and supple in their craft, had 
 come to be employed in erecting sacred structures, as they 
 were on nearly all private and public buildings, the simple 
 balcony gave place to a handsome portico. Such a change, 
 however, is not likely to have occurred in Nazareth, an ob- 
 scure hamlet, peopled by peasants and shepherds, and lying 
 away from the Roman road. 
 
 A house of unhewn stones, taken up from the hill-side ; 
 squat and square, of the ancient Hebrew style ; having a 
 level roof, but neither spire nor tower, neither dome nor 
 minaret, to enchant the eye, like some of the houses and 
 mosques of the modern town : a pile to be noticed in the 
 group of buildings only for its situation and its size — such 
 was that simple synagogue of the Jews in which Jesus taught. 
 The front, though othenvise plain, would have a wreath of 
 fruits, either tooled or painted, in imitation of the clustering 
 vine above the Temple door. 
 
 Inside, a Syrian synagogue is like one of our parish 
 schools ; with seats for the men, rough sofas of wood, half- 
 covered with rushes and straw ; a higher seat stands in the 
 centre, like that of a mosque, for the elders of the town ; a 
 desk for the reader of the day ; at the south end a closet, 
 concealed by a hanging veil, in which the torah, a written 
 copy of the Pentateuch, is kept in the sacred ark. A silver 
 lamp, kept always burning, a candlestick with eight arms, a 
 pulpit, a reading desk, are the chief articles of furniture in 
 the room. The floor is rough, often unpaved, and the 
 raised bench in the middle, from which the elders lead the 
 
THE SYNAGOGUE. 297 
 
 service, is painted in a crude st3de of art, with lakes and 
 gardens, boats and flowers. The walls are bare, with no 
 gold, no colour upon them, though they seem to be occa- 
 sionally washed with lime. Nothing in a Syrian synagogue 
 appeals to the sense of beauty, mystery, and awe, like the 
 majestic art employed in the synagogues of Amsterdam 
 and Livorno ; art which the Jews of those cities may 
 have learnt from the Moors and carried with them out 
 of Spain. 
 
 In olden time, women were allowed to enter the syna- 
 gogue with the men, as they still go into the mosque ; 
 though they were even then parted from father and son by 
 a wooden screen. They are now shut out. A few 
 females may be admitted, as in Zion, to an adjoining 
 room, from which they can peer into the holy place 
 through a grill ; others may climb into a gallery near the 
 roof, which they gain from the outside ; and others, 
 again, are content to crowd about the building, and to peep 
 at what is being done through windows opening on the 
 street. No female foot is now suffered to tread the syna- 
 gogue floor. 
 
 Before entering a synagogue, as before entering a mosque, 
 a man is expected to dip his hands into water ; and where 
 there is no stream or fountain near, it is usual to provide a 
 trough. To cleanse the body is everywhere in the East the 
 first part of an act of worship. A scraper stands at the 
 synagogue door, lest the filth from the street should be 
 brought in to defile the place ; this scraper being a fixed 
 part of the arrangements, like the bench raised from the 
 floor and the lamp swinging from the roof. 
 
 Ten persons being necessary to form a meeting, every 
 town or city having a synagogue, appointed ten men, called 
 Batlanim (idlers — men of leisure), who were bound to 
 appe-ar in their places at the hour of prayer; and were 
 otherwise made useful in collecting alms for the poor. 
 Hififher in office than these Ten was the Chazzan : a sort of 
 deacon, who took charge of the house and of the scroll, v/ho 
 
29S THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 opened the synagogue door, who kept peace -within the 
 court, and did the rough work of pohce ; expeUing the 
 unruly, scourging the wicked, executing justice on the 
 condemned. 
 
 Next came the Meturgeman ; an interpreter of the 
 Law, whose duty it was to stand near the Reader for the 
 day, and translate the sacred verses, one by one, from the 
 Hebrew into the vulgar tongue. Above him, again, were 
 the Elders ; in large towns a college of Elders, with a gene- 
 ral charge over the flock ; at the head of whom was a Chief 
 Elder, a man chosen for his age, his piety, his beneficence, 
 perhaps for his money ; who presided over the college, and 
 was the chief reader of the day. 
 
 When the people came in, they first bowed to the ark ; 
 the elders took their places on the raised platform ; the rich 
 went up to high seats near the ark ; the poor sat on wooden 
 sofas matted with straw ; the little boys, many of them all 
 but naked, rolled and tumbled about the floor. A bright, 
 fierce, eager look — half-scowl, half-rapture — like that of 
 famishing lions — burned and lowered in the faces of men 
 and women. A prayer was said, and one of the psalms of 
 David sung. The chazzan walked up to the veil, which he 
 drew aside with reverence, lifted the ark from its niche 
 behind the veil, took out the torah, a roll on which the Five 
 Books were written, carried this roll round the benches, 
 every one striving either to kiss or touch it with his palm ; 
 until he reached the platform, and delivered it to the 
 Sheliach. 
 
 This old man, taking the scroll into his hand, rose from 
 his seat and began his task; every one of his hearers 
 following the text with his eye, his arms, and his very soul, 
 as the elder, in a fierce drone, read, and the interpreter 
 rendered the sacred words ; every syllable, every pause 
 being marked. This lesson of the day was called the 
 parascha. At its close, the elder expounded the text in a 
 sort of sermon called the midrash, when the torah was 
 carried back through the crowd, the women sobbing and 
 
THE SYNAGOGUE. 299 
 
 stretching out their hands towards it ; the men kissing, cry- 
 ing, waihng, touching it as before, until the ark was closed 
 and the curtain drawn. 
 
 The torah being replaced in the ark by the chazzan. 
 the prayers began ; first the shema from Deuteronomy : 
 
 " Hear, O Israel ; the Lord our God is one Lord. And 
 thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, with 
 all thy soul, and with all thy strength." 
 
 There being no priest, no doctor, no official expounder of 
 the law present in these acts of village worship, every 
 hearer had, in those old times, a right to express his opinion 
 of the sacred text and of what it meant. 
 
 The views of an elder, chosen because he had made 
 money and built a big house, might be either futile, false, or 
 wrong. A midrash delivered by such a man might contain 
 bad histor}% false quotation, weak logic ; in which case any 
 one of his hearers could start to his feet, demand the roll 
 from the chazzan, open it again at the lesson, and preach 
 against the sheliach ; putting him to the question, forcing 
 him to explain, confronting him with chapter and verse. 
 On certain days of the year this right of free inquiry and 
 exposition was always used ; the debate growing warm, the 
 commotion strong ; and the prize of the contest going to 
 the man of most fluent tongue and most easy mastery of his 
 text. 
 
 This service of the synagogue, a practical assertion that 
 the Jews were still a nation of priests, could not begin until 
 the batlanim, ten men free and of full age, were in their 
 seats; these men representing the people and having a 
 function in the synagogue, which the prince and high priest 
 had not. This village meeting employed no priest, allowed 
 no slaughter of doves and rams. It was always a rival, and 
 threatened to become a successor of that Temple service by 
 which the sacerdotal bodies lived and ruled. In time it 
 was so. 
 
 This humble rite of prayer and reading, not the magnifi- 
 cent sacrifice in blood and flame, has made itself the basis 
 
;oo THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 of every religious system of East and West, being adopted 
 alike in the Arabic mosque, in the Jewish synagogue, and 
 •in the Christian church. The temples of kings and 
 high priests have passed away, their glory fading into a 
 dream ; while the chapels of the goatherd and the fisher- 
 man remain, the types of celestial beauty, in every corner 
 of the earth. 
 
EXPULSION FROM NAZARETH. ',oi 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 EXPULSION FROM NAZARETH. 
 
 " A ND he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought 
 
 -^~^ up ; and, as his custom was, he went into the 
 synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And 
 there was deUvered unto him the Book of the prophet 
 Isaiah, and when he had opened the book he found the 
 place where it is written : 
 
 " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me ; because he hath 
 anoiiited me to preach the gospel to the poor ; he hath sent 
 me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the 
 captives, and recovering of sight to the blind,- and to set at 
 liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year 
 of the Lord." 
 
 Jesus closed the roll, handed it to the chazzan, and sat 
 down on his bench ; having spoken the most memorable 
 words that have ever been uttered by the tongue of man. 
 We read that the eyes of all of them that were in the 
 synagogue were fastened on him. They might well be so. 
 
 A young Nazarene — thirty-one years old, known to 
 every one present as a child, as a youth, as a man ; a 
 carpenter, the son of a carpenter ; one whose father had sat 
 in that place, not in one of the high chairs near the veil^ but 
 among the humbler folk ; whose mother was even then 
 sitting among the women behind the screen — standing up 
 and demanding the roll, had turned to the proof prophecy 
 of their Messiah, and reading those awful words aloud, had 
 
:o2 THE HOL V LA. YD. 
 
 closed the parchment, announcing that he, Jesus the 
 carpenter, son of Joseph and Mary, whom they ah knew as 
 neighbours, was the Anointed One. 
 
 No Jew had ever yet heard such a saying ; for the boldest 
 of the many false Messiahs of that age had shrunk from 
 openly announcing his claims in words. The Galileans who 
 believed in Judas of Gamala, the Herod ians who accepted 
 Herod the Great, the Hillelites who clung to their Baby- 
 lonian master, had never heard either Judas, Herod, or 
 Hillel, proclaim himself the Anointed One. This was the 
 first time that Jesus had taken upon his head the glory of 
 that name. 
 
 In that congregation of his townsmen, from the sheliach 
 and the batlan, down to the poorest Jew who crouched at the 
 gate, there was perhaps not one who was not dreaming by 
 night, watching by day, for a Deliverer to appear; they 
 were all either Pharisees, Galileans, or Herodians ; but the 
 Deliverer for whom they prayed was to be a mighty prince, 
 a greater than Joshua and David, one who would come to 
 them in clouds and fire, with chariots and horsemen, with 
 banners and triumph, with such state and glory as that in 
 which the Moslem Arabs, their descendants, believe that 
 Jesus will appear at his second coming ; and this celestial 
 warrior was, in their belief, to put the Roman legions to the 
 sword, scorch up the Greek cities, and destroy the temples 
 of Diana, Ashtoreth, and Bel. Jesus had none of the 
 marks by which they fancied they should know their Lord. 
 He was not a prince ; he was not a soldier ; he had 
 neither riches nor state ; he had no learning ; his calling 
 was obscure ; his followers were the wretched ones of the 
 earth. For twenty years, while toiling in his useful craft, he 
 had been at every man's beck and call ; to make and to 
 mend ; ready with his axe and line to repair the sheliach's 
 lintel and the chazzan's roof 
 
 They had heard of his doings in Cana, in Capernaum, in 
 the towns of the plain ; for the wine had been made, the 
 sick had been healed, the blind had received sight, only a 
 
EXPULSION FROM NAZARETH. 303 
 
 little way from their doors. But a Jew would be far less 
 struck by these miracles than a man who had never yet 
 heard of such things being done. His sacred books were 
 full of signs and wonders. Every prophet in Israel was 
 expected to work them ; false prophets no less than true 
 ones; the question with the Jews being, not whether 
 miracles were wrought, but how they were wrought. Was it 
 by the power of God, or by that of Satan ? The Nazarenes 
 were eager and scornful; slow of beHef; impenitent of 
 heart. 
 
 Closing the roll, Jesus turned to the people, and said : 
 " This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." 
 
 Reader, chazzan, batlan, meturgeman, all the members of 
 this Nazarene congregation, gazed round the room, saying 
 one to another : 
 
 " Is not this Joseph's son T 
 
 They bade him perform a miracle in their sight, as though 
 he had been one of those Syrian jugglers who attend fairs 
 and feasts, and do tricks for money. Jesus refused. He 
 had never yet put forth his power to excite curiosity, to 
 compel belief; only to alleviate pain, or to reward acts of 
 faith. But this refusal to please them by doing in their 
 synagogue that which he was said to have done in the street 
 only vexed their pride. Why should he decline to perform 
 wonders before them ? Were they less worthy than a rabble 
 of the wayside ? They knew that he had cast doubts on the 
 fact of Jews being the sole heirs, the one chosen race, the ex- 
 clusive and peculiar people of God. They heard that he was 
 in the habit of entering into strange houses, and of leaving 
 blessings instead of curses when he went away; a course 
 opposed to the lessons of their Oral Law, 
 
 For this great sin against Israel, his townsmen cried in a 
 loud voice against him. Jesus appealed to their sacred 
 books, in evidence that men of other nations than the Jews 
 had been called and saved : 
 
 " I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the 
 days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and 
 
304 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 six months, when great famine was throughout the land, but 
 unto none of them was EUas sent save unto Sarepta, a city 
 of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many- 
 lepers were in Israel in the days of Elisha the prophet ; 
 but none of them were cleansed save Naaman the Syrian." 
 
 What could the sheliach, the batlan, the people, say? 
 The words which he read were true. Their sacred v/ritings 
 told them that God had given life to the dead son of the 
 Sidon ian widow ; that God had cleansed the leprosy from 
 the Syrian soldier, by causing him to plunge into the Jordan 
 seven times. Could they refute Ehas ? The young preacher 
 gave them chapter and verse ; and that, again, was an 
 offence. They could not answer him out of the law and 
 the prophets. Let the sheliach denounce, let the chazzan 
 threaten, let the batlanim yell and curse, as only a crowd of 
 Jews can yell and curse, the appeal to their written history 
 and prophecy stood unimpeachably clear and strong. 
 
 But they could rise upon him ; they could howl him 
 down \ they could push him from the house ; they could 
 cast him out from the congregation. Yea, cast him out : 
 the lost man, the bad Jew, who taught the false gospel that 
 God could have other children besides his own : put him 
 out : not from the gate only, but from the eaith, from the 
 sight of living men ! 
 
 Like Islam, Jewry is a church ; a church including within 
 itself the most terrible functions of the state. When Galileo 
 was condemned by the Pope in Rome, he was still an 
 Italian ; but when Spinoza was cast out from the synagogue 
 in Amsterdam he ceased to be an Israelite, and abandoned 
 his Hebrew name. A heretic cannot be a Jew ; cannot live 
 in Jewry. When there is no longer a place for a man in the 
 synagogue, there is no longer a home for him in the city in 
 which that synagogue stands. With that compact and 
 terrible body of men, religion and society are one. An out- 
 cast from one is an outlaw from the other. Thus, the Jews 
 of Nazareth, finding Jesus at fault on two of their capital 
 tenets, selectness of the Holy Race, and monopoly of Divine 
 
EXPULSION FROM NAZARETH. 
 
 305 
 
 favour, rose upon him as a false Messiah, and thmst 
 him out from the synagogue as a man worthy of instant 
 death. 
 
 The office of thrusting him forth belonged of right to 
 the chazzan ; but the sheHach and the elders rose upon him, 
 seized his i:)erson, dragged him to the height above the 
 village, and would have put him to death by hurling him 
 from the rocks. 
 
 Then occurred the first and last miracle which the Lord 
 deigned to perform at Nazareth. As the loud and tumult- 
 uous people surged around him, yelling and cursing, hurrying 
 him towards the brink of the precipice, he became invisible 
 to their eyes, walking away untouched through their midst, 
 so that when they looked for him he was gone. 
 
 Yes; gone away : gone away from them for ever ! 
 
 X 
 
;o6 THE HOL\ LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 CAPERNAUM. 
 
 r^ 01 NG down from the hill country of Galilee, from the 
 ^-^ home of his youth, into the lake district, Jesus carried 
 with him his mother and his brethren, who could no longer 
 dwell in peace at Nazareth. In the fishing towns on the 
 lake and the great road, he would be freer to preach and 
 teach than in his own place, for in that low country the 
 Pharisee and the Galilean had little power, half the people 
 being Greek or Syrian, and the legions of Rome being 
 present to keep the peace. 
 
 If the tetrarch in Tiberias was less zealous for the Oral 
 Law than either a high priest on Moriah or a sheliach in 
 Nazareth, the emperor in Rome was less zealous than even 
 a tetrarch in Tiberias. Under the Romans a man w^as free 
 to speak the truth. All ages, all events, all men, had from 
 the first been tending towards this point ; a state of things 
 in which a doctrine necessary to mankind, yet abominable 
 to a Jew, could be preached in Palestine, made acceptable 
 to some of its people, and sent through these willing agents 
 to the far away ends of the earth. Only under the Roman 
 eagles could such a thing have been done ; only under 
 Csesar's reign could Jesus have been left to preach a 
 common salvation for Greek and Jew. 
 
 Capernaum, into which he now came to dwell with his 
 mother, and in which he made himself a home, was a busy, 
 bright little town ; a station on the great road ; a garrison 
 
CAPERNA UM. 307 
 
 for Roman troops ; a port for collecting dues by land and 
 lake ; a place of tanners, dyers, soap-boilers ; a market 
 for oilmen, shepherds, cheesemongers, and fmit-growers ; 
 a halting ground for the buyers and sellers of every kind, the 
 corn-chandlers, the fishermen, the wool-staplers, the vint- 
 ners, and the gardeners. Being the first town on the lake of 
 Tiberias as you ride in from Damascus, as Arona is the first 
 town on Lago Maggiore as you come from Turin, it was the 
 port at which any one coming that way would embark for 
 cities lying south and east on the shore. Standing on a 
 hill of limestone, rough and rich with the flow of basaltic 
 rocks from higher volcanic hills ; having the hot plain and 
 cool lake of Gennesareth at its feet, with the palm, the 
 orange, and the pomegranate blooming everywhere about, 
 Capernaum became, like Como or Palanza nearer home, a 
 retreat for the rich as well as a field of labour for the poor. 
 Most of the Jewish inhabitants, net-makers, fishermen, 
 farmers, were believers in a physical Messiah ; followers of 
 Herod, of Judas, of Simon, of John ; Jews of an earnest and 
 yet a most worldly type. The strangers who dwelt among 
 those Jews, like every one trained in the Hellenic schools, 
 were liberal and tolerant in affairs of faith. Had not the 
 Roman governor built a synagogue for the Jews at his own 
 expense ? 
 
 Capernaum, properly spelt Caphar na Hum, was one of 
 the towns most favoured by the Lord. It was the first 
 place to which he came after his baptism by John. There 
 he dwelt for a little while with his early disciples, Peter and 
 Andrew, James and John. There lived the good nobleman 
 whose son he cured. There, too, he healed the demoniac 
 in the synagogue ; relieved the mother-in-law of Peter ; 
 healed the man sick of the palsy ; and restored the withered 
 hand. There he made whole the Centurion's servant, 
 and raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead. From the 
 blue waters of this lake he obtained the tribute-money; and 
 on its sunny shores, among the brambles and vines, he spoke 
 his parables of the Tares, of the Sower, of the Treasure, of 
 
3o8 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 the Merchant, of the Net. In the White Synagogue, built 
 by the Roman soldier, he pronounced his discourses on 
 Faith, on Fasting, on Humility of Spirit, on Brotherly Love. 
 Near to Capernaum he fed the Five Thousand, walked on 
 the sea, and preached his Sermon on the Mount. He loved 
 the busy, basaltic town, and after his expulsion from Naza- 
 reth he made it the scene of his ministry. In the words of 
 St. Matthew, a native of the place, it became his own city. 
 
 Where then was this favoured spot ? In his later days, 
 the Lord denounced it as an ungrateful place, unworthy of 
 his love ; yet the hearts of men will for evermore stir with 
 a tender yearning towards the sands on which his feet then 
 trod, and the traveller will seek for some safer knowledge of 
 the site than we yet possess. 
 
 Strange to say, the great Churches of East and West, 
 while bent on fixing the sites of events in the sacred story — 
 the scene of the annunciation, of the Virgin's travail, of the 
 baptism, of the last supper, of the agony in the garden, of 
 the betraying kiss, of the crucifixion, of the burial, of the 
 ascension into heaven — kept no clear record of the scene 
 of so many miracles and sermons as Capernaum. The 
 Churches are dumb. Critics have been busy with the site ; 
 but busy to no end except that of making and unmaki?ig 
 books. One party writes in favour of Khan Minyeh, a ruin 
 on the western bank of the lake, lying midway from Tiberias 
 to Bethsaida-Julias. A second party is in favour of Tell 
 Hum; a mound of rubbish, also on the western bank, 
 rising in the northern corner of the plain of Gennesareth, 
 about two miles nearer than Khan Minyeh to the spot on 
 which the Roman road once bridged the holy stream. 
 
 The weight of evidence appears to me all in favour of 
 Tell Hum. Unhappily, while the name of Capernaum is 
 nowhere found in the older Biblical writers, the Evangelists 
 knew the place too well to think of giving any such bearings 
 as those by which a distant reader now recognizes the true 
 sites of Shiloh, Ebal, and Jacob's well. But Josephus, a 
 stranger, writing for strangers, supplied the want. Twice 
 
CAPERNA UM. 309 
 
 he uses the word Capernaum ; once in his history, once in 
 the account of his own Hfe. The first time, he speaks of 
 a fountain of Capernaum ; and every one admits that this 
 fountain, if it could be found, would be an index to the site 
 of the town, as free from cavil as those springs of Elisha by 
 which we fix the site of Jericho. The task is to find this 
 fountain. In the plain of Jericho the fountains of Elisha 
 flow alone ; but the western bank of the Sea of Galilee 
 abounds in copious springs. Three of these springs : Ain 
 el Madawarah, Round Fountain ; Ain et Tiny, Fountain of 
 the Fig tree ; and Ain Tabiga, Fountain of Tabiga : share 
 the prize between them. Josephus marks his fountain of 
 Capernaum by three facts : it is copious ; it contains lake 
 fish ; it waters the plain. Now, Madawarah is copious ; it 
 helps to water the plain; but it does not, and could not, from 
 its distance, contain fish of the lake. Ain et Tiny, from its 
 level, could never have been turned into the corn-fields of 
 the plain. On the other hand, Tabiga is a copious spring ; 
 it abounds in lake-fish, and it is surrounded by the tanks and 
 conduits which in olden times carried its waters into the 
 low-lying land. If these hints in Josephus stood alone, the 
 aspect of the present springs and ruins would lead you to fix 
 the fountain of Capernaum at Tabiga and the town at Tell 
 Hum ; the spring having the same relation to Capernaum 
 that the Virgin's fountain had to Nazareth, and that of 
 Siloam to Jerusalem. But these hints do not stand alone. 
 In the account of his own life, Josephus speaks of being 
 wounded in the marshes of the Jordan, near the point where 
 the river flows into the lake, and of being carried to a 
 village which he calls in Greek Kepharnoum ; which place 
 could have been no other than the Syrian Kepharnahum. 
 This village exactly answers to the position of Tell Hum, 
 and to no other ruin on the lake. The site of Tell Hum 
 was the nearest inhabited spot to the Jordan marsh. 
 
 Now let us turn to the Gospel histories, for the Httle light 
 which they afford. Capernaum was a large town, large 
 enough to be called a city. It lay along the shore of the 
 
;io THE HOLY LA yn. 
 
 lake on its western bank. It stood near to a creek in which 
 boats might ride. Bethsaida lay to the north, Magdala to 
 the south of it. The great road from Damascus to Tiberias 
 ran through it. In its highest street stood a s}Tiagogue 
 built by a Roman officer, as a gift to the Jews ; an edifice 
 Avhich must have been built in the style of art introduced 
 by Herod the Great, with a Grecian portico, having marble 
 columns, cornices, and walls. These points are enough, 
 when taken together, to constitute proof; and on a close 
 scrutiny of the present ruins, it will be found that these 
 conditions meet in Tell Hum, and in no other place than 
 Tell Hum. 
 
 The wreck of Tell Hum is that of a big town ; for the 
 stones of black and unhewTi basalt lie tumbled along the 
 slope for more than half a mile, without counting the ruins 
 which may have been left from the mills and houses of 
 Tabiga, the suburb of the Fountain. They would make 
 a city as large as Jaffa. Tell Hum stands on the western 
 bank, near the lake, about a mile from the Jordan. Close 
 by it there is a fine creek, in which fishermen might haul 
 their frail craft in a storm, and in which a boat could so lie 
 that a man on board her might address a multitude standing 
 on either bank. Creeks are rare on this abrupt coast ; and 
 at Khan Minyeh there is only a deep shore line. 
 
 Again, Capernaum stood between the towns of Bethsaida 
 and Magdala, on the path of the Roman road. Unlike the 
 surface rock of Nazareth, which is soft and friable, easy to 
 cut and quick to decay, that of the region round the upper 
 end of the Sea of Gennesareth is a black basalt, as hard 
 to tool, as slow to decay as marble itself. In making their 
 roads, the Romans chopped through this solid rock, and 
 a piece of their noble work is still visible near Tell Hum. 
 No man can doubt that the great road from Damascus to 
 Tiberias passed through Tell Hum. 
 
 And, again ; no other town on this part of the lake shows 
 any trace of having had a Greek synagogue. At Tell Hum, 
 tossed and buried among the thorns and brambles, lie the 
 
C A PERK A UM. 
 
 ill 
 
 ruins of a synagogue, fine as the wrecks of either Kefr 
 Birim, Meiron, or Beth Arbel ; a large pile, ninety feet long, 
 in plan and material such as a Roman officer, bent on 
 making a magnificent present to the Jews, would build. 
 The walls were of fine blush marble ; very white, of strong 
 
 RUINS OF THE WHITE SYNAGOGUE AT CAPERNAUM. 
 
 texture, admitting a very high polish ; a material which 
 becomes almost luminous under a Syrian light. It was 
 adorned with a Greek portico; a colonnade, a noble 
 cornice, and finely-wrought shafts, with capitals of good 
 
3 1 2 THE HOL Y LA ND. 
 
 Corinthian art. These mins remind you by their size and 
 beauty of many a mound about Ephesus and Syracuse. In 
 the days when Jesus dwelt in Capernaum, the white marble 
 synagogue would be all the more brilliant from the fact of 
 its being surrounded by houses and magazines of black 
 volcanic rock. 
 
 In the last place, there is the sharp identity of name. 
 Kefr na hum is the old form of Capernaum. Nahum is 
 apparently a proper name. Kefr or Caphar means village, 
 and is used very much like the Arab Tell, a village on 
 a mound. An Arab calls every heap of stones and dust 
 a Tell ; *"and in his eye it suffices for a Kefr to be aban- 
 doned and destroyed in order to become a Tell ; that is to 
 say, a mound, a heap. Thus, Capernaum and Tell Hum 
 are but two fonns of the same name, like Sarum and Salis- 
 bury, like Eboricum and York. 
 
 Two facts of another kind may be added. Arculf, the 
 earliest Christian traveller, found the ruins of Capernaum at 
 Tell Hum ; and all natives of the country, whether Jews or 
 Arabs, believe that Capernaum and Tell Hum are one place, 
 in name and in site. 
 
 If this chain of facts be strong enough to bear the 
 inference which runs along it, and Tell Hum can be 
 accepted as the true site of Capernaum, the Lord's " own 
 city," then this mound of marble, basalt, pottery, dust and 
 sand, is one of the most sacred spots on the earth's surface. 
 
THE BREAD OF LIFE. 313 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 THE BREAD OF LIFE. 
 
 /^NE Sabbath day, in the midst of his labour, Jesus 
 ^-^ entered into the white synagogue of Capernaum to pray 
 and teach. 
 
 St. John, who Hved hard by on the beach, among the 
 boats and nets, and small fishermen's huts, has pictured the 
 striking scene. 
 
 The marble pile lay bathed in the morning light ; the 
 blue lake shone below, the blue sky shone above ; the rosy 
 front of the Greek portico gleaming all the brighter from 
 contrast with the dark surface of surrounding houses. On 
 the steps stood an anxious and wondering group ; men 
 whose tongues were all busy, whose thoughts were all 
 swollen, with the story of a strange event ; for on the eve of 
 that Sabbath day, in the sight of thousands of persons, both 
 Jews and Greeks, the new Teacher who had come amongst 
 them, the son of Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth, was said 
 to have performed a stupendous miracle ; one without fellow 
 since the day when the Lord had said unto Moses : ' At even 
 ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with 
 bread, and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God;' and 
 in the evening there had come quails, and in the morning 
 manna had been found lying on the ground ; for this Jesus 
 of Nazareth was alleged to have fed a vast multitude of 
 people on five barley loaves and two small fish from the 
 
314 
 
 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 lake. Could these things be true ? And if so, how had they 
 been done ? 
 
 Jews who had shared in the feast over night told others 
 who had not been present, how Jesus left Capernaum 
 in a boat with John, Philip, Andrew, Simon, and his other 
 disciples, to go away into a desert place beyond the lake ; 
 how the people, both men and women, flocked to him from 
 Bethsaida, Gerasa, and the hamlets lying along the shore ; 
 how boats came over from Tiberias, the Greek capital, 
 bringing crowds of men and women eager to see him heal ' 
 the sick and to hear his parables ; how a great company of 
 Jews, going up to Jerusalem for the Passover, by the usual 
 caravan road, avoiding Samaria, came about him, until the 
 multitude could be counted by thousands ; how the Teacher, 
 sitting down on the hill-side, in a place where there was 
 much grass on the ground, explained to them the dark 
 sayings of their prophets ; how, in listening to his words, the 
 moments slipped away, until meal time cam^e round and the 
 people were hungry and athirst ; how he then paused in his 
 discourse, and turning to Philip of Bethsaida said : " Whence 
 shall we buy bread that these may eat ?" and Philip, not 
 seeing that the Master was but trying him, replied — "Two 
 hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, 
 that every one may have a little ;" how Andrew, the son of 
 jona, then observed to his Master, " Here is a lad which 
 hath five barley loaves and two small fish; but what are 
 they among so many ?" how Jesus commanded the people 
 to sit down on the green turf in rows, while he brake the 
 bread and blessed it, giving it into the hands of his ser- 
 vants to carry round, so that every man, to the number 
 of five thousand, besides women and children, ate and was 
 filled; how those who went round the seats after this 
 strange feast was ended picked up twelve baskets full of meat 
 and crumbs ; how the people, being amazed by these signs 
 and wonders, cried aloud that surely this man was the 
 Messiah, that was to come, and would have seized him by 
 force and proclaimed him King ; but that he, knowing their 
 
THE BREAD OF LIFE. 315 
 
 minds, suddenly withdrew himself from their sight, and went 
 up into the mountain, like Moses into Sinai, alone. 
 
 Nor were these marvels all they had to tell. 
 
 As night came down over that desert place, the company 
 had been compelled to disperse into the towns and villages 
 on the lake ; for the next day being the Sabbath, on which 
 day it was unlawful, according to the doctors, for a Jew to 
 do any kind of work, to cook his dinner, to light a fire, to 
 gather sticks, to step into a boat, to walk a mile (the 
 Sabbath day's journey of the Oral Law being only six 
 furlongs), any man who remained on the beacli until sunset 
 would have to stay in that desert place for twenty-four hours 
 without shelter, food, and drink. No Jew, therefore, could 
 think of staying until the sun went down ; even though in 
 going away to his boat he might have to leave his Lord 
 behind. Most of the crowd had not far to go ; Gerasa 
 being only four or five miles to the south ; Bethsaida-Julias 
 three or four miles to the north ; Capernaum, on the 
 opposite bank, about six miles west ; and Tiberias, the 
 capital, ten miles west by south. Many of those who had 
 come from the Greek city took boat when the feast was over. 
 Others waited on the strand expecting to see Jesus come 
 back. Among the last to leave were Simon and the 
 brethren ; but when the sun began to droop over the hills of 
 Galilee, even the poor fishermen, seeing that the wind was 
 rising on the lake, that they had six or seven miles to 
 row, and that the Sabbath, on which no man could 
 labour, was coming on, snatched up their oars and put 
 out to sea, intending to make their own little creek 
 before night and storm overtook them. Then, but not 
 till then, the last of those who had loitered near the 
 beach, that they might see Him once more, pushed away ; 
 quite sure that Jesus had been left behind them in that 
 desert place. 
 
 But now, on the Sabbath morning, it was known to every 
 man in Capernaum, that as darkness came down, a squall of 
 wind from the hills lashed the lake into foam and lifted the 
 
3 16 THE HOL V LA ND. 
 
 waves into billows, against the might of which Simon and his 
 fellows in their frail bark pulled in vain ; their utmost strength 
 of arm being weak as that of children in the buffetings of 
 such a storm ; until, peering out into the dim night, they saw 
 the Master walking towards them on the water like a spirit ; 
 that the fishermen were sore afraid of this vision, until the 
 Lord spoke to them, saying, "It is I : fear not ;" that they 
 knew his voice and took him into their boat ; that so soon 
 as he was come on board, the sea became still, and their 
 little craft lay quiet on the beach of Capernaum in front of 
 their own house. 
 
 Such was the tale debated by eager men under the Greek 
 portico of the synagogue. The crowd was great ; for boats 
 had been darting in all day from the neighbouring towns. 
 Many persons were curious about one who could give them 
 bread without toil \ who could increase the barley loaves at 
 his own will, just as God had done with the manna in olden 
 times, so that he who gathered little had no lack. If Jesus 
 could feed them by a word of his mouth, must he not be 
 the Christ that was to come ? 
 
 Jesus sat in the synagogue in his usual place. 
 
 The Jews poured in, each man and woman making lowly 
 reverence towards the ark ; the rich folks going up to the 
 high seats near the veil, the elders mounting the stairs of the 
 platform, the batlanim seating themselves on the benches, 
 the women going apart behind the screen. Service 
 began with the prayer of sweet incense ; after which the 
 congregation, the batlanim leading, sang those psalms of 
 David : " O give thanks unto the Lord ;" " Bless the Lord, 
 O my soul ;" " The heavens declare the glory of God ;" 
 " Praise ye the Lord ;" and other chants which are still dear 
 and familiar to the Christian heart. When these psalms had 
 been sung, the chazzan, going up to the ark, drew aside the 
 veil, and took out the sacred roll, which he carried round the 
 aisles to the reader of the day, who raised it in his hand so 
 that all who were present could see the holy text. Then the 
 whole congregation rose and cried : 
 
THE B'READ OF LIFE. 317 
 
 And this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel : 
 
 The law which Moses commanded- us : 
 
 The inheritance of the congi-egation of Jacob : 
 
 The way of God is perfect : 
 
 The way of the Lord is tried : 
 
 He is a buckler to all who trust in him. 
 
 Opening the scroll, the Reader then read out the chapter 
 for the day; the people following him with their eyes 
 and with their lips, nearly every one having the chief parts 
 of the law by heart. When the lesson for the day was 
 finished, the chazzan took the scroll from the reader, and 
 carried it back to its place behind the veil, the people cry- 
 ing after it with a loud voice : 
 
 Let them praise the name of the Lord ; 
 
 For his name alone is exalted ; 
 
 His glory is above the earth and the heavens ! 
 
 Then, when the roll was restored to the ark, they sang 
 other psalms of praise and supplication ; after which the 
 chief elder delivered the midrash, an exposition of the text 
 which had been read. The time being now come to question 
 and be questioned, all eyes turned on the Teacher who had 
 fed the five thousand men with a handful of barley loaves, 
 who had disappeared from the midst of those who wished 
 to proclaim him King, and who had walked over the sea 
 and soothed the storm. No one troubled the chief elder 
 that day. No one bade the chazzan bring him the book. 
 All minds were busy with the astounding miracles which 
 they had seen, or of which they had heard. 
 
 Their questionings were sharp and loud. 
 
 " Rabbi, when earnest thou hither ?" 
 
 " Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye ask me, not because 
 ye saw the miracles, but because ye ate of the loaves and 
 were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but 
 for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life ; which 
 "ihe Son of man shall give unto you ; for him hath God the 
 Father sealed." 
 
 Then they asked him : 
 
3 1 8 THE HOL V LA ND. 
 
 '■' What must we do that we may work the works of God?" 
 — that is to say, works which are pleasing in the sight of God. 
 
 To which he answered, with a second pubhc declaration 
 that he was Christ, the Son of God : 
 
 "This is the work of God," that is to say, the works 
 most pleasing in the sight of God, "that ye believe on him 
 whom He hath sent." 
 
 " What sign showest thou then, that we may see and be- 
 lieve thee ? What dost thou work ?" 
 
 Full of the great act, which many witnesses declared that 
 they had seen in the desert beyond the lake, they wished to 
 have it repeated before their eyes. Now, in the opinion of 
 every Jew, one of the chief miracles in their history as a 
 nation was the finding of manna, a gift from heaven, for 
 forty years ; and this fresh act of feeding a great multitude 
 on five small loaves and two fishes appeared to them like a 
 challenge and declaration that the new Teacher was equal 
 in authority to Moses. So they said to him : 
 
 " Our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness ; as it is 
 written : He gave them bread from heaven to eat." 
 
 Jesus took up their thought : 
 
 " Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not the 
 bread from heaven : but my Father giveth you the true 
 bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which 
 Cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world." 
 
 " Rabbi, evermore give us this bread." 
 
 Jesus answered them : 
 
 " I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall 
 not hunger, and he that believeth in me shall never thirst." 
 
 Some part of the debate is here lost ; we have only the 
 concluding words of the Lord's discourse : 
 
 " But I said unto you, that ye have seen me and believe 
 not. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me ; and 
 him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I 
 am come down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but 
 the will of Him that sent me ; that of all which he hath 
 given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at 
 
THE DREAD OF LIFE. 
 
 ;i9 
 
 the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that every 
 one which looketh on the Son and believeth in him, may 
 have everlasting life, and that I should raise him up at the 
 last day. 
 
 The elders, the batlanim, the chazzan, gazed into each 
 others' faces and began to murmur against him, just as the 
 men of Nazareth had murmured against him. 
 
 •' Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and 
 mother we know ? How is it then, that he saith, I am 
 come down from heaven ?" 
 
 Jesus spoke to them again. 
 
 " Murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to 
 me except the Father which sent me draw him ; and I will 
 raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, 
 And they shall all be taught of God. Every man that hath 
 heard of the Father, and hath learned, cometh unto me. 
 Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is 
 from God ; he hath seen the Father. Verily, verily, I say 
 unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I 
 am the bread of life. Your fathers ate manna in the wilder- 
 ness and they died. This is the bread which cometh down 
 from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. I 
 am the living bread which came down from heaven ; if any 
 man eat of this bread he shall- live for ever ; yea, and the 
 bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the 
 life of the world." 
 
 Strange doctrines for the Jews to weigh ! Then leapt hot 
 words among them, and some of those who had meant to 
 believe in him and to follow him drew back. If he were 
 the Christ, the Son of David, the King of Israel, why was 
 he not marching on Jerusalem, why not driving out the 
 Romans, why not assuming a kingly crown ? 
 
 " How can this man give us his flesh to eat ?" 
 
 The Lord spoke again ; still more to their discontent and 
 chagrin, seeing that they wanted an earthly Christ : 
 
 " Except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink 
 his blood, ye have no life in you." 
 
320 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 This was too much for many, even for some v/ho had 
 been brought to the door of beUef. Eat his flesh, drink his 
 blood ! " This saying is hard," the nearest disciples whis- 
 pered to each other. It was not what they wished to hear 
 from him ; for all these Jews, even those whom he called 
 his own, were expecting to eat and drink with him, to share 
 his power, to sit on his right hand, to be his captains and 
 councillors in a visible kingdom of God, having its seat on 
 Mount Zion, and its worship on the Temple hill. "I am 
 the living bread," they quoted to each other ; " this saying 
 is hard, who can stay and listen to it?" And many of them 
 rose up and left the synagogue. Even among the Twelve 
 there were some who felt doubt and discontent growing up 
 in their hearts. 
 
 "Doth this offend you?" said the Lord to his own. 
 " What then, if ye should behold the Son of man ascending 
 up where he was before ? It is the Spirit that giveth life ; 
 the flesh profiteth nothing ; the words that I have spoken 
 unto you are spirit and are life. But there are some of you 
 that believe not :" referring, says St. John, to that Judas 
 Iscariot who was to betray him in the end to death. 
 
 The service of the Synagogue ended, the elders came 
 down from the platform, the chazzan put away the sacred 
 vessels, the congregation came out into the sun, angry in 
 word and mocking in spirit. They wanted facts; he had 
 given them truth. They hungered for miraculous bread, for 
 a new shower of manna ; he had offered them, symbolically, 
 his flesh and blood. They had set their hearts on finding a 
 captain who would march against the Romans, who would 
 cause Judas of Gamala to be forgotten, who would put the 
 glories of Herod the Great to shame. They had asked him 
 for earth, and he had answered them with heaven. 
 
PHARISAIC RITES. 
 
 321 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 PHARISAIC RITES. 
 
 \/ET only some of the Pharisees, not all, went about to 
 ^ kill Jesus ; for in the most active and hopeful sect in 
 Galilee, a sect which was coming to include the great body 
 of professing Jews, many persons still imagined that in his 
 own good time Jesus would declare himself their king. 
 
 The Separatists reasoned from a dream to a dream. 
 Were they not the Messiah's people ? Had he any other 
 friends? Did the Sadducee want a Deliverer? Did the 
 Essene cry to heaven for a Prince ? The first was happy in 
 his purple and his palace ; the second in his goatskin and 
 his cave. Judging from what they felt, the Pharisees con- 
 cluded that when Jesus should think the time had come to 
 connect himself with any party in the State, it must be with 
 their own. Heaven divided him from the Sadducee, earth 
 from the Essene. In opposition to the Sadducees, Jesus 
 taught the providence of God, the efficacy of prayer, the 
 rewards of a world to come ; in opposition to the Essenes, 
 he preached the holiness of marriage, the charities of mirth, 
 the duty of bearing and overcoming the present life. All 
 these were Pharisaic doctrines, taught in the schools of 
 Hillel and Shammai. It was true that as yet he had given 
 no sign, that he had spoken no word, committed no offence, 
 ao-ainst Rome. On this account, some of the Galileans 
 waxed wroth against him ; but these were only the younger 
 and more impatient spirits. On the side of patience, it 
 
 Y 
 
!22 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 could be urged that he had been born and reared according 
 to Pharisaic rule, under the accepted ritual of the Oral 
 Law ; dwelling in their houses, praying in their synagogues, 
 offeri;ig his dove and his sacred shekel, keeping the feast 
 of Purim, and eating his share of the Paschal lamb. Jesus 
 had been circumcised by the priest, and presented in the 
 Temple ; his ransom had been paid ; and he had been 
 properly received as a son of the law. When he began to 
 teach and preach, he laboured among the Jews, and among 
 the Jews only. His friends were Jews, his disciples Jews ; 
 and like a good Pharisee, like a man set apart, he abstained 
 from entering into the Greek cities, and declined an invita- 
 tion to the Golden house. Once, he declared that his 
 message of grace was less for the Gentile nations than for 
 the Jews — those lost sheep of Israel which had gone astray. 
 
 There was room for doubt ; though the fears and hopes 
 which wait on doubt were not quite equal in their force. 
 
 Jesus gave deep offence to these Pharisees by showing 
 that their ritual observance of the Sabbath was not true 
 piety ; he gave still more offence by asserting that a good 
 man might eat bread with unsprinkled hands. Purifying 
 hands before meat was a cardinal test of the true Separatist 
 Jew. 
 
 Any one who has lived in a tent, eating pottage of lentils 
 and flesh with Arabs, knows how much good sense there is 
 in the custom, prevalent from Cairo to Damascus, from 
 Stamboul to Bagdad, which compels every man to wash 
 hands before sitting down to eat. Arabs are not served on 
 separate plates, and every man's fingers go dipping into the 
 common dish. They have no knives, forks, napkins, 
 spoons, and glasses ; none of those dainty evasions by 
 means of which a Frank can defy the inequalities of cleanli- 
 ness between guest and guest. A neighbour at our feasts 
 may have been spare of soap, without forcing us to swallow 
 any portion of his dirt. Not so an Arab. Every time he 
 dips his fingers into the dish, he contributes his share ot 
 impurities to a common stock. For the Orientals of the 
 
PHARISAIC RITES. 323 
 
 lower class have only one dish out of which the family, the 
 company, must eat. A rug is spread upon the ground, 
 either outside the tent or in the lewan of the house ; in the 
 centre of this rug the pottage is placed in a single trencher ; 
 a stew of fowls and olives, of veal and cucumbers ; the flesh 
 being minced with lentils, gourds, and tomatoes. I'he 
 diners squat round in a circle, each man on a corner of the 
 carpet ; when the chief of the feast, taking a bit of black 
 bread between his thumb and finger, souses it into the 
 pottage, leaving a few crumbs, perhaps, behind, but catching 
 up a piece of the flesh, and bringing the bread back into 
 his mouth soaking and savoury with herbs and oil. The 
 next man does the same, and so round the ring. A Syrian's 
 fingers are his knives and forks ; and during a single meal 
 they may plunge a hundred times into the common mess. 
 If they are clean, it is well for him who has to come next 
 and next : if they are either grimy with dust or gritty with 
 sand, the friends with whom he eats will each receive some 
 of the unkindly benefit of his filth. 
 
 Hence, the custom of washing hands before meat is an 
 act of comfort and politeness, of which the Hebrews in 
 ancient days had a sense as quick as Turkish gentlemen in 
 our OA\Ti. They all rinsed hands before dipping into the 
 dish ; Boaz, Solomon, Hillel, like their Oriental brethren, 
 Pharaoh, Hiram, and Haroun ; cleansing themselves in the 
 same manner and for the same cause. No law was needed, 
 and no law was given, on this social usage. A Syrian 
 passed his fingers through the water when he ate, as he 
 scoured his pans when he cooked his mess, and spread his 
 rug when he fell asleep. There was no more piety in 
 plashing his hands than in paring his nails. Yet under the 
 Maccabees, the Separatist Jews began to make of a habit 
 which was common to all Arab tribes a law to themselves ; 
 asserting for it a Mosaic origin, and teaching in their 
 schools of learning that any breach of this law was a sin 
 against God. 
 
 It was one of a thousand cases in which they replaced 
 
J24 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 Moses by Tradition ; but this ceremony of washing hands 
 being generally performed in public, it was a point on which 
 the Pharisees were strict. 
 
 Being raised into an act of worship, the neglect of which 
 rendered a Jew unclean, it became necessary to define the 
 rite — to point out the true method of washing hands, so 
 that a Jew might sit down to eat without fear of sin. A 
 code of rules was framed for his use, which fills a good 
 man}- pages of the Mishna. Some of the rules which a 
 Pharisee was bound to know, were general : — to wit, that 
 washing his hands was understood to mean washing his 
 hands in water ; that his hands were understood to be his 
 hands up to the wrist ; that water was understood to be 
 water contained in a vessel, not running in a stream or 
 lying in a well; that washing was to be understood as 
 cleansing his hands with water three times. Each rule had 
 its exceptions and explanations, which a pupil of the law 
 must bear in mind. Then came the particular rules, four in 
 number, which he must carefully observe. First, the water 
 in which he was about to wash hands must be of the proper 
 kind ; second, it must be suflicient in quantity ; third, it 
 must be held in a proper vessel ; fourth, it must be poured 
 out upon his hands with a certain force. Each of these 
 rules had its expansions and limitations. A volume would 
 not hold the Jewish debates on the single question — What 
 is the proper kind of water ? Some of the defining marks 
 were clear ; others were not. It could not be sea water. 
 It could not be mill water. Tt could not be water which 
 had done any kind of work. But then arose the query — 
 What is work ? Is breeding fish work ? Is boiling eggs 
 work ? The water, it was agreed, must be fresh. But what 
 is freshness ? A brackish spring was not fresh ; but was 
 the liquid held to be fresh, ceremonially, in which vinegar 
 had been mixed, or a lemon had been squeezed, to keep it 
 fresh naturally ? So with the second rule, as to quantity. 
 Less than a quartern for two hands would not serve ; for 
 one drop short of the true measure would have left a Jew in 
 
PHARISAIC RITES. 
 
 325 
 
 k sin, black as that resulting from his having told a lie, or 
 stolen his neighbour's ass. The "third and fourth rules were 
 also edged round with snares into which he might haply fall. 
 The water must be poured out in a way that required art 
 to do it well, and the degree of force with which it streamed 
 from the spout was a capital point. A jerk of the vessel 
 might destroy the whole efficacy of the rite. 
 
 Had the pupil come to an end of these ritual laws at 
 last ? Far from it ; he was only in the first and easiest 
 stage of his journey. He might wash his hands with strict 
 attention to all these rules, and yet remain unclean in body 
 and in soul ; every virtue in the act being destroyed by the 
 law of vitiation. 
 
 Certain things were held to vitiate washing. What things ? 
 The elders differed in opinion as to detail j but the guiding 
 rule was that everything which would have vitiated baptism, 
 also vitiated washing. This rule, however, only changed 
 the ground of debate ; since no one could enumerate all 
 the flaws which might destroy the virtue of baptism. Some 
 points were admitted by all the schools ; for example, that 
 the right would be vitiated by these impurities of body — a 
 film outside the eye ; dry blood on a wound ; plaister on 
 the skin ; the incrustation inside a scab ; dirt under the 
 nails ; mud on the flesh ; and potters clay in the pores. 
 
 This mode of washing hands, so essential, yet so difficult, 
 was observed by a Jew according to rules not less complete 
 than those which governed the rite itself. He began on 
 rising from his rug. Until his hands were ceremonially 
 cleansed, an evil spirit was said to rest upon them, so that 
 if he chanced to rub his eyes on waking he was told that he 
 would lose his sight. This evil spirit being present on his 
 hands, he could not touch his mouth, his nose, or his ears, lest 
 the devil should shp from his fingers into his head. Some 
 kinds of food required the hands to be cleansed after 
 eating; as particular sorts of bread, all preserved meats, and 
 everything in which there was salt. The same with respect 
 to certain days in the year; for a Jew had to pour water on 
 
326 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 his hands three times after the recital of particular prayers 
 and benedictions ; all of which regulations must be borne in 
 mind, on penalty of being struck blind. For a Jew to fail 
 in this rite of purifying hands, was not a sin only, but a 
 crime, punishable by the law. In depth of guilt, such a 
 failure of duty was considered equal to fornication; the case 
 of Eleazar ben Chatzar being a favourite illustration of the 
 sin. Eleazar refused to wash hands according to the 
 ritual; for which offence he was cast out from the Jewish 
 church ; and, on dying in his impenitence, a piece of rock 
 was laid upon his coffin, at once to mark his grave for 
 dishonour, and to signify that his body was stoned by the 
 holy law. 
 
 Against all these Pharisaic rules, injunctions, and ex- 
 ceptions, Jesus set his face. He said they were not of 
 God. They were not found in the sacred books. They 
 were not only superfluous, but mischievous, in so far as 
 they deceived men into thinking the letter of equal virtue 
 with the spirit. 
 
 Jesus told the people that these rules for washing hands 
 were but idle legends ; the act which they regulated being a 
 social custom, not a religious rite. To show them by 
 example how little it concerned their welfare what kind of 
 water they used, in what sort of vessel it was held, and in 
 what quantity it was poured out, he allowed his disciples, 
 when eating bread in pubHc, to omit the rite altogether. 
 
 The Pharisees, following and watching him, came and 
 said: "Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of 
 the Elders, for they wash not their hands when they eat 
 bread ?" 
 
 Jesus answered them that their tradition was not in the 
 law, but was in opposition to the law, in substance and in 
 spirit. And turning to the multitude, he added : 
 
 " Now hear and understand : not that which goeth into 
 the mouth defileth a man ; but that which cometh out of 
 the mouth, this defileth a man." 
 
 The Pharisees were much offended. One day he went 
 
PHARISAIC RITES, ^ 327 
 
 home with one of them to dine, and on entering the house, 
 sat down and broke bread without waiting for the ewer to 
 be emptied over his hands. The host began to chide, on 
 which he said : 
 
 " Ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the 
 platter, but your inward part is full of ravening and wicked- 
 ness. Give alms of such things as ye have, and behold all 
 things are clean unto you." 
 
328 THE HOL V LA AW. 
 
 CHAPTER XLTX. 
 
 LIGHT OF THE GENTILES. 
 
 A FTER that day of tumult in the white synagogue, when 
 ''^^ so many of the Capernaum Jews parted from Jesus, 
 and Uke their brethren of Nazareth began to seek his hfe, 
 his labour moved more rapidly than before into its final 
 stage : that of an open call to men of all tongues and races 
 to the kingdom of God. 
 
 But if many fell off that day, some few remained stanch. 
 Drawn to their Lord by love, and not by reason, the chosen 
 twelve were fast learning to see with his eyes, to speak with 
 his voice, to breathe in his spirit. These men, now ready 
 to be tried in the fire, to be proved unto death, had seen 
 their most cherished illusions fade into air ; yet they had 
 not turned back from the Lord, and were now the pillars of 
 his Church. Others, less strong in character and in faith, 
 had been shaken by the aspect of affairs j and even among 
 those who stood nearest him, and appeared most true to 
 him, some were stung to despair on hearing that they must 
 preach salvation alike to Jew and Greek. 
 
 This thing was harder to them than eating bread with un- 
 washed hands, than doing good on the Sabbath day. 
 
 Jesus was ceasing to be a good Jew in the only sense 
 which they gave that name : a man conscious and proud 
 of being a member of a chosen race, the salt of the earth, 
 the one people for whom the sun shone, the harvests ripened, 
 and the whole world had been made. Even those who 
 
LIGHT OF THE GENTILES. 329 
 
 loved him in the flesh, often grieved over him in spirit ; for 
 to them the Son of David appeared to be wanting in Hebrew 
 pride. They blushed to find him talking with a Samaritan 
 woman at Jacob's well. They grieved to see him lodge with 
 the men of Sychar. They marvelled to hear him say that 
 nations from the East and from the West should find rest 
 with the patriarchs. All these things were dark to their 
 narrow and clouded minds. 
 
 But if Peter and John, who stood by his side and shared 
 in his counsels, could not see into the mysteries of his grace, 
 how were the lost and untaught Galileans, red with the strife, 
 drunk with the hope of Judas and his sons, to understand 
 this gospel of peace and love ? They could not. Such a 
 doctrine as that of peace on earth and good-will to all men, 
 was new to their ears, offensive to their pride. So when 
 Jesus left Capernaum as he had left Nazareth, fearing for 
 his life, to be henceforth a wanderer, no crowds of men ran 
 after him, catching at his robe, and praying him to come 
 back and dwell in their midst. The last time he had gone 
 away from Capernaum the whole town followed him into 
 the road, and the apostles prayed him to return, saying — 
 " All men seek thee." Now, no men sought him ; except 
 those Pharisees who would have scourged him with whips and 
 bruised him with stones. Cast out from the synagogue and 
 the city, he turned his face from the blue lake, going up into 
 the hill country of Galilee, and beyond it into the Plain of 
 Tyre, until the sharp quest of the sheliach should have died 
 away. 
 
 To train his disciples for their public work, he made a 
 long and difiicult march on foot, mainly through the Greek 
 and Phoenician territories; setting out from Capernaum in 
 May, when the sun is fierce, the herbage is burnt up, and 
 the rivers have run dry ; continuing his course through the 
 summer heats ; extending his travel from the plain of Sidon 
 to the mountains of Gilead. 
 
 Our notes of these movements are brief and scant ; yet 
 enough is recorded by St. Matthew and St. Mark to show 
 
330 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 that they comprised three journeys, occupying about six 
 months. 
 
 In his first journey, Jesus passed down from the hills of 
 Galilee, by way of the wadies flowing westwards to the sea, 
 into the Plain of Tyre, where he sought shelter from his own 
 people among the worshippers of Ashtoreth and Baal. In 
 the first stage of his flight, he neither preached the gospel 
 nor healed the sick ; but his fame having gone before him 
 into those parts, a Gentile woman, a Syro-Phoenician, having 
 a daughter a lunatic, ran after him in the road, crying with 
 a loud voice for him to come into her house and heal her 
 child. 
 
 To do so, would be to make himself known, to bring the 
 Jews upon his track. The disciples, fearing to be discovered 
 by their enemies, urged him to send her away. Turning 
 to the poor woman, Jesus said gently : 
 
 " I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of Israel." 
 
 But she continued her prayer, crying, " Lord help me !" 
 until he turned to her again, saying : 
 
 " Great is thy faith, O woman ! be it unto thee as thou 
 wilt." 
 
 This was the first instance of his divine power being used 
 spontaneously to heal a Gentile ; for in that case of curing 
 the centurion's servant, the healing act was done, not in op- 
 position to Jewish instincts and desires, but on the prayer 
 of elders from the synagogue. Now, a Gentile woman was 
 called into the Church, and the Jew's pride, as one of an 
 exclusive race, was dashed for ever to the earth. 
 
 In his second journey, Jesus passed into the Decapolis — 
 region of the Ten Cities — a Greek League, of which Hippo, 
 Gadara, Pella, and Scythopolis were then the chief places. 
 This district of the Ten Cities lay about the southern shores 
 of the Lake of Galilee, and on both banks of the lower 
 Jordan, though the Greek cities were mainly built on its 
 eastern side. Peopled by Greeks, or by men of Greek 
 descent, this country offered Jesus a safe retreat, in which he 
 might pursue his work in peace. In one place the people 
 
LIGHT OF THE GENTILES. 331 
 
 brought to him a man who was dumb and had an impedi- 
 ment in his speech, which Jesus cured, telhng them not to 
 speak of it ; for he did not wish to excite and offend the 
 Jews. But they talked of him all the more for this injunc- 
 tion ; a great crowd following him from the Greek cities, 
 until the number rose into thousands ; when, being on the 
 lake, in a desert place, he felt compassion for this multi- 
 tude, and having made them sit down, he fed these 
 Gentiles on a few loaves and fish, as in the early spring, 
 within a dozen miles of that spot, he had fed the five 
 thousand Jews. 
 
 Then he took boat and crossed the lake to Magdala, a 
 village on the Galilean bank ; but he found no rest there : 
 for the Pharisees and Herodians, hearing that he had come 
 over, pressed upon him with their perfidious questions, 
 caUing upon him to give them a sign of his Messiahship 
 from heaven. Jesus, says St. Mark, sighed deeply in his 
 spirit, as he answered them : 
 
 " Why doth this generation seek a sign ? Verily I say 
 unto you, no sign shall be given unto this generation." 
 
 Sad in soul, he stepped into the boat ; so hastily that his 
 disciples had no time to buy bread; and put off from Magdala, 
 the land of these Galileans, Herodians, and Separatists, for 
 the Greek shore, where he might again find refuge from his 
 countrymen in the stranger's land. When his disciples began 
 to murmur at the lack of bread, and at the prospect of 
 having to bake and eat unleavened loaves, he turned their 
 thoughts to the higher question of the spiritual danger from 
 which they were escaping : 
 
 " Take heed ; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and 
 of the leaven of Herod." 
 
 In his third journey he travelled from the Ten Cities up 
 the left bank of Jordan to its source ; pausing for a moment 
 at Bethsaida-Julias, where he led the blind man out of the 
 house and cured him ; climbing the hills into Paneas, now 
 become the Greek city of Caesarea Philippi ; reaching the 
 limits of his march in one of the peaks of Hermon, the 
 
THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 mountain of the Transfiguration, where a special glory was 
 to mark the foundation of his Church. 
 
 That leaven of the Pharisees, of the Herodians, had so 
 far entered into the souls of men, that the stanchest of his 
 disciples could not yet conceive how the kingdom of God 
 could be other than a kingdom of the earth. They were 
 growing up slowly towards the light : but growth is a work 
 of time, of favouring soil, and of furthering sun and rain. 
 When Jesus told them that his kingdom was not of the 
 world, that he was never to assume an earthly crown, they 
 could hardly believe that he spoke the truth. But as they 
 wended along the base of Mount Hermon, he put them face 
 to face with the highest fact : 
 
 " Whom do men say that I am ?" 
 
 They answered him that men said he was John the 
 Baptist come to life ; this error of the Galilean court being 
 also an error of the Galilean synagogue and market-place ; but 
 they added, " Some say EHas, and others one of the prophets." 
 
 " But whom say ye that I am ?" 
 
 Peter answered, " Thou art the Christ." 
 
 As Christ then he told them that his time was nigh ; that 
 he must now go up to Jerusalem ; that in place of being 
 made a king of men, he would be rejected of the Sanhedrin 
 and the people, as he had been rejected by the synagogues 
 of Nazareth and Capernaum ; that he would be put to a 
 shameful death, and on the third day would rise again from 
 the dead. Peter, still strong in his GaHlean tenets, still 
 dreaming of an earthly sceptre, turned on Jesus, saying : 
 *'This shall not happen unto thee." 
 
 Swiftly from Jesus came the rebuke of this carnal spirit : 
 
 " Get thee behind me, Satan. Thou art an offence unto 
 me. For thou savourest not the things that be of God ; 
 but those that be of men." 
 
 Six days later, he took Peter, James, and John into the 
 mountain, where he became transfigured before their eyes, 
 his face shining like the sun and his garments becoming 
 white as light. 
 
BETHANY. 
 
 333 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 BETHANY. 
 
 npOWARDS the end of the fall, while the olives were 
 ^ being shaken from the trees and the grapes were being 
 trodden in the wine-press, Jesus and his little band of 
 disciples came back from the mountain of the Transfiguration 
 to the lake country ; not to abide there any more ; but to 
 rest for a few days ; to say adieu to old friends, and push 
 on to the city in which the Son of Man was ordained to 
 render up his life. 
 
 The harvest being got in, and the Feast of Tabernacles 
 nigh, large companies of Jews were gathering about the 
 lake, preparing to attend this feast j making their journey to 
 Jerusalem in caravans for safety against the Arabs ; and by 
 way of the Jordan valley, so as to avoid touching Samaria 
 and rendering themselves unclean. It was the way that 
 Jesus had gone in his father's time. Now, he meant to 
 attend this feast, but he kept his counsel as to how and 
 when he should go up. To walk by this lower road, 
 among these Jewish companies, would be to expose, in a 
 mere broil, in a desert place, among unknown men, a life 
 which it was part of his divine career that he should yield 
 in the Holy City, after public process, under accusation of 
 the high priest, and by sentence of the Roman governor, in 
 the presence of a mighty concourse of Jews and Greeks. 
 His death must be as evident to the world as his resurrection 
 from the dead must be clear to his Church. So he allowed 
 
334 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 his disciples to go up to Jerusalem by the caravan road ; 
 and after they were gone away from Capernaum, he went 
 up alone through the hill country of Samaria, by way of 
 Shechem, Shiloh, and Bethel, the three sacred cities which 
 preceded Zion as the selected Mounts of God. 
 
 Entering Jerusalem by the great suburb and the north 
 gate, he would see, on his left hand, Bezetha, with its ridge 
 of houses and synagogues, and the new palace built by 
 Antipas Herod ; on his right hand, Gareb, with its gardens 
 and villas, its place of public execution, and its occasional 
 caves and tombs. Passing down the great street of the 
 Cheesemonger's valley, and turning about midway in that 
 street to his left, he would go from the city by the sheep 
 gate (now called St. Stephen's), crossing the dry Cedron 
 bed, and circling the west shoulder of Olivet, come through 
 plantations of figs and olives to a small hamlet, two miles 
 from Jerusalem, called Bethany (Beth-anyah, House of the 
 Poor), where the caravan from Galilee stopped and where 
 he had always lodged. 
 
 Sixty generations of men have come and gone since that 
 day, yet Bethany is still the abode of poverty : a heap of 
 stone sheds, mixed with some ruins, and peopled by a 
 rabble of Arab peasants, too lazy to work, too abject to 
 thieve. Only two miles from Jerusalem, only one mile 
 from Galileans' hill, it is yet out of the world ; standing on 
 a ledge of live rock ; looking down into the Cedron gorge, 
 across to the opposite ridge of Abu Dis, then into the 
 intricate m.aze of limestone hills which go dropping from 
 shelf to shelf into the plain of the Dead Sea. A track from 
 Jerusalem to Jericho winds through it, over slippery sheets 
 of stone, on which horse or camel finds it difficult to keep 
 his feet. A carob here, a fig tree there, make the absence 
 of verdure more keenly felt. 
 
 The situation of Bethany, if lonely and exposed, is also 
 commanding and picturesque. At the head of two v/adies, 
 covering the chief tracks through the wilderness, it is a 
 needful outpost for Jerusalem, and must have been used as 
 
BETHANY. 335 
 
 a watch-tower from the earhest times. Some old founda- 
 tions, of Jewish style and bevel, would seem to show that 
 Bethany was one of those places on the desert edge in 
 which the kings of Judah had built watch-towers to protect 
 the wells. Around this tower poor people would creep and 
 huddle j throwing up their booths and houses beneath its 
 walls; and nothing is more likely in Palestine than that 
 such a village should be called by the name of Bethany — 
 House of the Poor. 
 
 These cowering Arabs still call it El Azariyeh, from the 
 name of Lazarus ; said in their country traditions to have 
 been the village sheikh ; very much as they call Mohammed 
 Arekat the sheikh of Abu Dis. From what is told by 
 St. John, it may be inferred that Lazarus was rich, well 
 known, and of good repute : to wit from his dwelling in a 
 large house, from his habit of receiving guests, from the 
 costly unguents used by his sister, from his owning a rock- 
 hewn sepulchre, from the concourse of Jews who came over 
 to mourn for him when he died. He may have been all 
 that these Arabs say ; the sheikh of a poor village of lepers 
 and paupers; in which case the excavated chamber now 
 shown may have been his tomb. 
 
 The biggest ruin in Bethany is said to be that of the house 
 in which Lazarus lived and Jesus lodged. The whole 
 hamlet is a mound of dust and ashes ; not one good house 
 remaining with a roof above it. The little gardens, the 
 little courts, are gone ; nor does the eye of an observer rest 
 on a single Saracenic dome. In many old walls the lewan 
 is visible ; but in every case the arch has been filled with 
 rubble ; for a lewan is only built in a good house, and its 
 presence implies a court-yard, if not a bit of garden, with its 
 fig-tree or its vine. The former dwellers in this Village of 
 the Poor could hardly have been so abject as they seem to 
 be now. 
 
 Still, some notion of the house of Lazarus, in which 
 Martha and Mary lived, in which Jesus lodged during his 
 visits to Jerusalem, may be got from these crumbling stones. 
 
536 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 In Syria there is little change in either men or houses. As 
 Abraham pitched his tent in Bethel, an Arab sheikh would 
 .^now set up his camp ; and much as David built his palace 
 on Mount Zion, a Turkish pasha would now arrange his 
 house. Whether he be prince or slave, Moslem or Jew, 
 a Syrian eats and drinks, buys and sells, builds and plants, 
 by an all but immutable law ; a fact which renders the daily 
 life of Palestine a continual illustration of the sacred text. 
 In every street you see the hairy children of Esau squatting 
 on the ground, and greedily devouring a mess like that for 
 which the hunter sold his birthright. Along every road 
 plod the sons of Rechab, men who drink no wine, plant no 
 tree, enter within no door. At every khan you find the 
 young men seated round the pan of parched com, dipping 
 their morsel into the dish. Job's plough is still used, and 
 the seed is still trodden into the ground by asses and kine. 
 Olives are shaken from the boughs as directed by Isaiah, 
 and the grafting of trees is unchanged from the days of Paul. 
 And so with the fashion in which a Syrian builds his shed, 
 his synagogue, and his mosque. Not being an artist by 
 nature, he has never been led astray from his primitive 
 type. 
 
 A Syrian house is a stone tent, just as the temple was a 
 marble tent. In changing the material of which it was 
 made, a Hebrew camp did not change its name ; but 
 whether erected of canvas or of rock, it was always a beth, 
 in Arabic a beit, expressing a tent, a house, an encampment, 
 3 town. 
 
 In form an oblong ; in height some twelve or fifteen feet ; 
 a blank wall, broken by small square holes ; a low roof, flat, 
 with neither cornice nor chimney — such is the rude exterior 
 of a Syrian house. Where there are two stories, the higher 
 rooms may have windows covered with lattice-work, admit- 
 ting the flow of air, but shutting out neighbouring eyes. 
 No chamber can be seen from the street. In good houses 
 there may be a kind of tower, called an upper room, on 
 part of the roof; a cool and pleasant place, built like the 
 
BETHANY. 
 
 337 
 
 miradores and ventanas of the Moors, When a house has 
 more than two tiers, as in the high parts of Jaffa, and in the 
 crowded quarters of Zion, it will probably be found that one 
 lodge has been raised on the top of another : the custom of 
 this country, stronger than any code of laws, permitting a 
 poor man who has no home of his own to erect a cage on 
 
 SYRIAN HOUSES. 
 
 his neighbour's roof, to burrow a den under his neighbour's 
 floor, if he can only find a way into this lodging without 
 passing through another man's gate. 
 
 In the houses of old cities, such as Hebron, Zion, and 
 Nabulus, the flat roof, laid with a plaster of lime and sand, 
 sometimes has a parapet of open tiles and clay ; a light, 
 strong fretwork, three feet high, and going round the edge ; 
 a screen which prevents children from falling off and women 
 being seen. " When thou buildest a new house," said the 
 
338 THE HOE Y EAND. 
 
 law, " then shalt thou make a battlement for thy roof, that 
 thou bring not blood upon thy head if any man fall from 
 thence." On the flat roof, within this guard of tiles, the 
 Syrian females, shorn of their veils, their slippers, and their 
 cloaks, spread maize to dry, feed doves and pigeons, and in 
 the evening bathe and spin. It was on such a roof, so 
 screened, that Bathsheba bared her bosom, on seeing which 
 David fell into sin and crime. 
 
 In front of the house is the lewan ; a great arch and 
 recess, answering to the doorway of an Arab tent. The 
 lewan is often level with the ground, though a man who has 
 to rear children as well as goats, will raise his floor a few 
 steps above the open court in which his animals feed and 
 lodge. This floor is covered, like the roof, with a thin 
 layer of mud and lime. 
 
 On each side of the recess, a doorway opens on a room, 
 in a big house, two or three rooms may extend from each 
 wing : but this extension is rare : and every house that is 
 more than a hole in the earth or a sty upon it, has a lewan 
 in the centre, and an apartment on each flank. A piece 
 of ground, enclosed by a hedge of rough stones, advances 
 from the wings and bows out in front; forming a httle 
 court or garden, in which there is commonly planted either 
 a fig-tree or a vine. For three parts of the year, the lewan 
 and the court are the real house of poor people ; the two 
 rooms being rarely used. A Syrian household, father, son, 
 and grandson, gather in the lewan, where, sheltered from 
 the sun, yet open to the breeze, they cook and dine, smoke 
 and sleep. Here the young damsels work and wash, while 
 the poultry chuck and crow, and the infants crawl and fight. 
 Except in the short rainy season, and during the few cold 
 nights, people spread their mats and quilts, which our Bible 
 calls their beds, either on the plaster floor or under the 
 branching vine, and the whole family lie down together, 
 father and mother, son and daughter, with their wives and 
 husbands, and their brood of little folks. Knowing no 
 shame, the darkness covers them with its robe. When 
 
BETHANY. 339 
 
 the night grows chill, and the fear of dysentery comes down 
 upon them, they creep into one of their tiny rooms, closing 
 the doorway with a hanging mat, just as their fathers closed 
 the Tabernacle entrance with a veil. 
 
 Into those rooms a stranger rarely, if ever, enters. An ' 
 outer stair leads up to the flat roof; and in the lewan itself 
 a visitor hangs his lantern. The rooms are plain and 
 empty ; having none of the pretty trifles which adorn an 
 English home. Books, pictures, vases, chairs, pianos, 
 clocks, are never to be seen in a Syrian's house. The 
 walls are bare ; the floors are mud. A couch is laid along 
 the wall ; being a lounge by day, a bed by night. A lamp 
 of red clay, a wooden stand, a cradle, a chibouque, a corn- 
 mill, a cruse of water, make up the list of furniture. Most 
 of the work is done away from home; either in the fields, 
 in the bazaars, or in the sooks. A goldsmith has his forge, 
 a cobbler his stall, a tailor his goose, in the bazaar ; while 
 a carpenter puts his bench and a barber his basin in the 
 public way, A man's house is neither his workshop nor 
 his place of reception, as it is so often with a Frank. Fear 
 lest his women should be seen prevents a Syrian from 
 bringing home his friends, except on the three or four grand 
 solemnities of his life. Can he not see his brother in the 
 mosque ; his neighbour in the market ? There is not much 
 news to relate. When a new pasha comes to Damascus, 
 when a Maronite sheikh bums a Druse village, when a 
 Salhaan bandit murders and robs a Frank, can he not. hear 
 of it in the city gate ? 
 
 It was in such a house ; squat and bare, with an open 
 roof, a plaster floor, a little court or garden ; looking over 
 the Wady Cedron, the Dead Sea, and the Moab mountains, 
 that Martha and Mary lived, and that Jesus, on his visits 
 to the Holy City, lodged. 
 
 Going every morning into Jerusalem to teach and preach, 
 he walked back to Bethany in the afternoon, that he might 
 sup and sleep among the poor. It is nowhere hinted that 
 he stayed in Jerusalem a single night. 
 
340 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 THE SANHEDRIN. 
 
 1^7[ rHEN Jesus began to speak more openly of being 
 ^ * sent down from heaven to save the world from 
 death, the Temple courts in which he prayed and taught 
 were filled with tumultuous crowds ; men who had come 
 from all parts of Jewry to keep the feast, and were eager 
 to see whether this Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ whom 
 they had sought. Some believed in his words ; still more 
 believed in his acts ; for in his last few weeks on earth, his 
 miracles increased in number and in power. 
 
 The two great parties which divided Jewry treated these 
 tumults in a different way. 
 
 If the Sadducees gave them any thought, it was only in 
 so far as they disturbed the public peace. Having much 
 to risk, and nothing to gain by change, the aristocratic 
 party were anxious to keep things safe, so as to prevent any 
 action on the side of Rome. Avoiding the mistake of 
 Gratus, Pilate had left the priests alone \ so that Annas re- 
 mained sagan, his son-in-law high priest ; and Annas being 
 content, his partizans were calm. Having no expectations 
 of a Messiah's kingdom, the rich and ancient families of 
 Judea preferred a government of priests and nobles, sup- 
 ported by Roman legions, to the license of a new Judas of 
 Gamala, and the exactions of a new Simon the slave. They 
 cared nothing for the delusions of a mob ; but in the cause 
 of public order, even these unbeheving Sadducees might act. 
 
THE SANHEDRIM. 341 
 
 The Pharisees took other ground. As a body, they 
 might have changed their demeanour towards Jesus even 
 now, had he been wilHng to accept their poHcy ; that is to 
 say, had he consented to declare himself a prince of their 
 royal house, an upholder of the Separatist policy, an ad- 
 mirer of the Oral Law, a restorer of their independent rule ; 
 in one word, a King of the/^ze/j. But Jesus urged on them 
 more than ever the necessity for adopting a new law, a new 
 commandment, a new form of prayer, a new religious life. 
 He profaned their Sabbath, he abolished their ceremonies, 
 he decried their righteousness. When they found that he 
 would make no terms with them, they went up to the 
 Temple and laid a charge against him before the San- 
 hedrin, of preaching false doctrine and leading the people 
 astray. 
 
 This Sanhedrin, the Great Council of Jewry, met in the 
 Lishcath ha-Gazith (Paved-hall), the largest of many cells 
 or chambers built on the Temple-hill, and used as offices 
 for the guard and watch j just as the domed houses under 
 the high terrace of the rock are still used by the dervishes 
 who watch and guard the holy Mosque. The Lishcath 
 ha-Gazith seems to have stood on the great wall ; part of it 
 being in the Israelites' court, part in the Gentile court, so 
 as to admit of the entrance of Jew and Greek ; probably on 
 the western side, facing towards Zion, near the most public 
 entrance into the Temple courts. 
 
 The great council before whom the Pharisees laid this 
 charge of false teaching against Jesus, consisted of seventy, 
 seventy-one, perhaps seventy-two members, chosen by vote 
 from among the wise, aged, and wealthy Jews, not of Jeru- 
 salem only, but of every city in which they dwelt, even from 
 Egypt, Babylon, and Greece. Until the times of Herod the 
 Great, the powers of this body had been royal and more 
 than royal ; for the Sanhedrin professed to hold the keys 
 of heaven no less than the sceptres of the earth. It was a 
 court of appeal in all cases, civil and ceremonial, and its 
 sentences were good for ever, unless they should be modified 
 
342 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 by itself. No man was too great, no offence was too small, 
 to come within its grasp. The members of this dread 
 tribunal could elect and dethrone kings ; name provincial 
 councils ; decide all questions of peace and war. They 
 judged the offence of a guilty tribe, of a false prophet, of a 
 bad high priest. They declared when an elder had become 
 a rebel, when a Jewish city had been seduced j announcing 
 the crime and awarding the punishment. No army could 
 march to battle without their license ; no addition to either 
 court or city could be made in opposition to their voice. 
 They, and they only, had power over life and death. 
 
 This body of men elected their own members and pro- 
 mulgated their own decrees. They made laws, and pre- 
 scribed the spirit in which those laws should be received. 
 They required from all Jews the most servile obedience. 
 Any elder who dared to raise his voice against them was 
 held to be worthy of death, and the schools and colleges 
 taught the young men of Israel that if the Sanhedrin said 
 black was white, that the left hand was the right hand, they 
 were bound to believe the lie on pain of sin against God. 
 
 But the Sanhedrin's strength had been reduced : first by 
 Herod the Great, afterwards by the Roman governors of 
 Judea. Herod, on capturing Jerusalem, had seized the 
 whole body of the Sanhedrin, thrown them into prison, 
 and, with two illustrious exceptions, put them all to death. 
 Around Hillel and Shammai, the men whom Herod had 
 spared, a new council had been formed ; but the prestige 
 of the Sanhedrin could never be restored. Pilate abridged 
 their rights, taking from them more particularly the faculties 
 of life and death ; yet even after they had lost the right 
 to torture prisoners and stone offenders, they still exercised 
 a vast authority in Jerusalem and in every other Jewish 
 city. 
 
 Pilate himself could not dispute their jurisdiction over 
 Jews, in whatever land they dwelt, as to all that concerned 
 their faith, ritual, and education. They had the right to fix 
 all festivals, to judge all doctrines, to expel sinners from the 
 
THE SANHEDRIN. 343 
 
 Church, to regulate colleges and schools, to punish offenders 
 against the law, so long as, in the exercise of their rights, 
 they refrained from encroaching on the civil power. Their 
 edicts went far and wide, and just as a Papal decree may 
 smite a sinner in either Prague, Dublin, or New York, 
 a word launched from the Lishcath ha-Gazith would chastise 
 offenders in either Memphis, Babylon, or Rhodes. They 
 could still condemn a man to death ; though they could 
 only proceed to execution after their sentence had been 
 confirmed by a Roman judge. 
 
 When this judge was a soldier like Pilate, a criminal 
 whose sins were of a kind to baffle the shortcomings of 
 Roman wit, would commonly be safe ; for the lives of his 
 subjects belonged to C^sar, and only at the will of Caesar 
 could they be taken away. Yet the case might easily occur 
 in which, if the priests and people appeared to be united, 
 the governor might yield to their prayers for the sake of 
 peace. To preserve their faith intact was the business of 
 Jewish doctors, not of Roman soldiers ; and seeing that the 
 priests could be either useful allies or desperate enemies, 
 to offend them, except on adequate grounds, was not the 
 policy of Rome. 
 
 The Sanhedrin comprised three classes : priests, Levites, 
 and ordinary Jews. The priestly element was strong. 
 Caiaphas, being the official high priest, had a right to pre- 
 side over their debates ; if he were not present in person, 
 the chair was filled by Simeon, Rector of the Great College. 
 Whoever filled the chair was considered as sitting in the 
 seat of Moses. The vice-president was styled Father of the 
 House of Judgment. Two secretaries sat on his right and 
 left ; one for acquittals, one for condemnations ; while the 
 remainder of the seventy magistrates seated themselves 
 before him on the paved fl!oor in the form of a great half 
 moon. 
 
 On the charge of false teaching being laid against Jesus 
 of Nazareth before the Sanhedrin, officers of that court went 
 out to arrest him j but these priestly guards came back into 
 
344 THE HOL V LAND, 
 
 the hall, saying that they dared not laylrands on him, for in 
 listening to his words they had felt that no mere man ever 
 spake as this Jesus spoke. All this time he was preaching 
 in the Temple court, close to the Paved-hall; and the accus- 
 ing Pharisees, vexed by this turn of the affair, demanded 
 whether these officers had also been led astray by the Naza- 
 rene ? They sneered at the rabble, as ignorant of the law, 
 and asked to be told whether any great Pharisee, any mem- 
 ber of the Sanhedrin, believed in this man? 
 
 There, they fancied they were safe. If the Great Council 
 should prove to be of one mind, the officers would be sent 
 out again, and made to arrest the Teacher ; but when the 
 court was called on to speak, they found that the Elders 
 were not all of one mind. Nicodemus, a priest, a kinsman 
 of Hillel, rose and put the question : 
 
 " Does our law judge any man before it hears him and 
 knows what he does?' 
 
 The turn which Nicodemus gave to the debate appears to 
 have been this : the Pharisees had made a charge, but they 
 had offered no evidence in support of it. Could the court 
 proceed without proof? To arrest a man was to accuse himj 
 and what evidence of crime would the Sanhedrin be in a 
 position to lay before a Roman judge? 
 
 Surprised at a defence of Jesus by a kinsman of Hillel, 
 the accusers cried out upon Nicodemus : " Art thou also of 
 Galilee ? Search and look ; for out of Galilee cometh no 
 prophet." How little they knew of their own sacred books! 
 The greatest of prophets since the time of Moses, Elijah the 
 Tishbite, had come out of Galilee. 
 
 Until evidence was laid before it, the Council could take 
 no further steps; and Jesus went on preaching and teaching; 
 vexing the Pharisaic mind by openly sitting down to meat 
 with sinners and by doing good deeds on the Sabbath. He 
 taught his followers a new prayer, in which they were to ask 
 forgiveness of God only so far as they forgave their fellow- 
 men. He stood in the Temple court and told the people 
 a story of a Good Samaritan. A good Samaritan ! On the 
 
THE SANHEDRIM. 345 
 
 Sabbath next after that scene in which Nicodemus saved 
 him from arrest by the Sanhedrin, he exasperated his ac- 
 cusers by curing the bUnd man. 
 
 But Jesus held his course. Every day he came in from 
 Bethany through the ohve plantations to pray and teach. 
 Standing in Solomon's Porch, and looking towards Olivet, 
 he told the people he was the Son of God, sent down by the 
 Father to save the world. A shout went up from the Phari- 
 sees against him ; the man blasphemed, they said ; and as 
 their rulers of the Great Council gave them no help, they 
 caught up stones and would have bruised him to death, but 
 that he withdrew from their sight as he had done in Nazareth, 
 going straight through the crowd and out of the Temple 
 court unseen. 
 
546 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER LII. 
 
 BOTH SIDES OF JORDAN. 
 
 "PASSING from Solomon's Porch into the Cedron valley, 
 Jesus went through the white graveyards, and by way 
 of Olivet, to his lodgings in Bethany ; where, the house of 
 Lazarus being well known to the Jews, and only two miles 
 distant from Moriah, it was no longer safe for him to dwell. 
 A daily tumult would have surged about the door ; some 
 men shouting to make him King, while others were plotting 
 to take his life ; and his hour being still to come, he took 
 leave of Martha and Mary, dropping down the Wady el 
 Haud towards the Jordan. 
 
 To go down this road, as Jesus went down, on foot and 
 with a company of men, made a journey of two days. A 
 mile below Bethany, in a wild glen, they came upon a little 
 spring of pure water, then called En-Shemesh, and now 
 known to travellers and pilgrims as the Apostles' Fountain. 
 Between that spring on the hill-side and Jericho in the 
 great plain, there was only one spot in which a man could 
 find shade and drink : the half-way house, the khan at which 
 caravans rested and travellers slept for the night. 
 
 In going to and fro, between Galilee and Judea, Jesus 
 must have often lodged in the arches of this khan. The 
 wild glen, the desert country dividing two rich cities, offered 
 every temptation to daring thieves, and nothing was more 
 usual than for the people lodging at this inn for the night 
 to see unhappy men who had been robbed, disabled, and 
 
BOTH SIDES OF JORDAN. 347 
 
 left in the sun to die. Such a sight may have suggested the 
 parable of the Good Samaritan,- spoken in the Temple court: 
 for the Lord's habit was to illustrate moral truths by circum- 
 stances which were as familiar to his hearers as light and air. 
 
 Where stood this way-side khan ? The site should not 
 be far to seek. A Syrian khan is a thing not easily lost : 
 and in this case of the Good Samaritan's inn, nature and art 
 combine to indicate tbe spot, within certain limits. It stood 
 about midway in the descent from Bethany to Jericho, in a 
 position commanding a view of the road, above and below. 
 As for ten months in the year no rain flows down the wady, 
 the khan must have been built near a copious spring. Here 
 then, are three bold marks to control the search : a midway 
 position, a high ridge, a deep well. Again, the inn must 
 have been a big edifice, capable of housing large caravans : 
 and from what we can still see of the style in which Jewish 
 khans were built, it ought to have left, when perishing of 
 neglect, some traces of its grandeur in the desert dust. Are 
 any such traces to be found ? 
 
 Yes. On the very spot where search would be made for 
 them, if no such ruins were suspected of existing, stands a 
 pile of stones, archways, lengths of wall, which the wander- 
 ing Arabs call the Khan Houdjar, and still make use of as 
 their own resting-place for the night. These ruins are those 
 of a noble inn; the lewan, the fountain, and the court, being 
 plainly traceable in the ruins. The walls are solid, the well 
 is deep. That a half-way house from Jerusalem to Jericho 
 stood on this ridge, looking over the limestone wastes above 
 it and below, can hardly admit of doubt. Where, then, if 
 not here, shall we seek the Good Samaritan's inn — the site 
 of that khan in which Jesus lodged ? Where, if not here, 
 shall we find a central position, with a commanding mound, 
 a ruined inn, and an abounding well ? 
 
 Early on the second day of his journey, Jesus would 
 reach the City of Palms, and crossing the Ford into Perea, 
 would find himself in the dominions of Antipas Herod, com- 
 paratively free and safe. 
 
548 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 In its lower course, the sacred stream divided the Roman 
 province of Judea from the semi-independent province of 
 Perea, as in its upper course it parted GaHlee from Tracho- 
 nitis. The eastern bank lying in another country to the 
 western, a man living near the Ford had the privilege of 
 being able to select his own time for accepting any process 
 of arrest ; unless, indeed, Herod, who was still conducting 
 operations on the desert frontier against Aretas, should think 
 proper to give him up to Pilate ; an event unlikely to occur, 
 even if Pilate could be persuaded to ask it, since it was well 
 known in Jewry that the procurator was on very bad terms 
 with the prince. Pilate had been the cause of a great crime, 
 which Antipas considered, and justly considered, an infringe 
 ment of his sovereign rights. This offence, known in history 
 as the Massacre of the Galileans, is connected both in its 
 origin and in its results with the foundation of our Church. 
 
 Of the Jewish sects which troubled Pilate's repose, that of 
 Judas of Gamala appeared to his mind the most criminal, 
 since the Galileans, persuaded that Caesar's reign in Syria 
 must be short, were always getting ready for a brush with 
 the Roman troops. Lapse of time, instead of cooHng their 
 passions, only fanned the fire into flame. Every year, as 
 they went up from Galilee to Jerusalem at the time of Purim 
 and Passover, they imagined that their day had come. How 
 long, O Lord, how long ? was the Galilean's daily prayer, 
 as he received the water of ablution on his palm. In every 
 street fight, in every Temple riot, he was the first to attack, 
 the last to retreat. Day by day he became less careful to 
 avoid offending those soldiers who garrisoned Antonia and 
 guarded the city gates. When Pilate hung up some brazen 
 shields as trophies, his were the prompt hands to pluck them 
 down. Very bad blood was excited between the legionaries 
 and these provincials, needing no more than a pretext to 
 explode into murderous strife The day of collision had 
 come when Pilate, eager to distinguish his reign in Judea by 
 erecting public tanks for the comfort of rich and poor, began 
 to build one of those noble aqueducts which in every part of 
 
BOTH SIDES OF JORDAN. 349 
 
 the empire imitated, if they could not pretend to rival, the 
 conduits pouring rivers of water into Rome. This aqueduct 
 was to have been twenty-five miles in length; being a longer 
 and perhaps a finer work than the Aqua Julia. 
 
 Wanting funds to execute this mighty scheme, Pilate em- 
 ployed the Corban — the money laid up in the Temple as 
 given to God ; Caiaphas either consenting to this public 
 employment of public money, or agreeing to make no stir 
 in the affair. 
 
 But the mob of Separatists, excited to madness by Pilate's 
 appropriation of these sacred funds, gathered in thousands 
 and in tens of thousands, before the palace gate, demanding 
 that the waterworks should be stopped, the corban restored ; 
 clamouring with voice and gesture ; cursing alike the 
 aqueduct and the man who made it. The Roman general, 
 not to be governed by a mob, sent a company of legion- 
 aries into the streets and the Temple courts, having cloaks 
 over their armour, and orders to set upon these rioters and 
 beat them down with staves. But the passions of his men 
 being roused by previous insult and present opposition^ the 
 soldiers drew their short swords, and charging upon these 
 Galilean rioters, threw them to the ground, trampled on them, 
 drove them to the altars and into the shops for protection, 
 so that many fell under their gashes and still more under the 
 feet of their escaping countrymen. The Temple court was 
 strewn with dead, whose blood was said to have mingled 
 that day with the blood of the sacrificial goats and lambs. 
 
 Peace was restored to Jerusalem by this murder of un- 
 armed men. Though the innocent had been butchered 
 with the guilty, no stir was made by the priests, no com- 
 plaint by the Sanhedrin; for these Galileans, strangers in 
 Jerusalem, rioters, provincials, had few friends and many 
 foes, and fear of Caesar weighed neavily upon all men's 
 minds. Even to the Lord's disciples, this slaughter of their 
 countrymen was a cause of secret joy. Peter and John 
 could not grieve over the fate of enemies whom they ap- 
 pear to have considered as being overwhelmed by a 
 
350 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 judgment from heaven. When, safe in Perea, they spoke of 
 this massacre in the Temple court, Jesus turned to them 
 and said : 
 
 " Suppose ye that these GaHleans were sinners above all 
 the Galileans, because they suffered such things ? I tell ye, 
 nay : but except ye repent, ye shall likewise perish." 
 
 Antipas Herod, while operating against Aretas and the 
 desert tribes, received the news of this slaughter of his 
 people. Pilate excused the crime by saying that his soldiers 
 in their fury had used their swords instead of using their 
 staves ; an explanation which in no degree mollified the 
 Tetrarch's wrath ; other events of his life having quickened 
 into morbid activity his fear of still further encroachments 
 on the part of Rome. 
 
 Under the safeguard of these suspicions and animosities 
 between the two rulers, Jesus could remain near the Ford ; 
 preaching to the crowds who followed him from Jericho and 
 the hamlets of Perea ; and waiting for the time of the great 
 Feast, when he proposed to go up with the Galilean caravan 
 to Jerusalem and accept his appointed crown of thorns. 
 
 When Jesus had been living five weeks in Perea, news 
 came down from Martha and Mary that their brother 
 Lazarus lay sick and likely to die ; on hearing which He 
 told his disciples that he must go up into the hill-country 
 for a little while. " But the Jews will stone thee," they 
 objected. Then he told them that Lazarus was dead ; and 
 that he should be raised again to life, to the intent that they 
 might all believe in the Son of God. Some were afraid, 
 remembering how the Galileans had been slain, and how 
 Jesus had been threatened with stones, until Thomas the 
 Twin spake boldly to his fellows, saying, " Let us also go, 
 that we may die with him." 
 
 After resting two days in Perea, they clomb the wady 
 towards Jerusalem, staying the third night at the great desert 
 khan, the Good Samaritan's inn, and coming nigh to 
 Bethany on the fourth day after Lazarus died. Then was 
 performed the most imposing of many miracles ; performed 
 
BOTH SIDES OF JORDAN. 351 
 
 in open day, in a public place, on the body of a great 
 person, in the presence of many Jews. At a word Lazarus 
 came forth from the sepulchral vault. 
 
 Many of those who had come from Jerusalem to mourn 
 with Martha and Mary, stayed with him and believed in 
 Jesus ; others ran over Olivet to the Temple courts, spread- 
 ing the news of his having come back, and of his having 
 raised the dead man whom they all knew to life. 
 
 The high priests, hitherto so calm, appear to have grown 
 uneasy about the pubHc peace. A meeting of the Sanhedrin 
 being called to consider these reports, Caiaphas went over 
 from his palace on Zion to the Lishcath ha-Gazith to pre- 
 side. As official high priest he had a right to the chief seat ; 
 but in what he laid before the elders he must be taken as 
 speaking, not only for himself, but for Annas, for the Saddu- 
 cees, and for all those politicians who leaned on Rome. 
 Details are not given, but his line of argument is suggested 
 by St. John. People were expecting a Messiah ; one who 
 could command the secrets of nature, who could free them 
 from the stranger's yoke ; and a man who was reported to 
 have raised the dead to life would be sure to draw away the 
 multitude, to excite disturbance, and bring on their city and 
 nation the wrath of Rome. Caiaphas said nothing about 
 false teaching ; for what would a philosophic Sadducee care 
 whether a mob of dyers and porters believed in a resurrec- 
 tion, in rewards and punishments, or not? But Caiaphas 
 had faith in the power of Caesar, and a riot in Jerusalem 
 meant to him a visit from Pilate, an addition to the garrison, 
 perhaps a change of high priests. He hinted that though 
 they had lost much by tumults, they might lose yet more. 
 Was it was not better that one man should die, than that a 
 whole people should be swept away ? 
 
 Then the Sanhedrin agreed to consider Jesus a dangerous 
 man, a disturber of the public peace. Orders to arrest him 
 were given, and every one who knew of his coming and 
 going was warned to send news of it to Caiaphas. 
 
 To avoid this proclamation until his time should come, 
 
352 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 Jesus left Bethany and the living witness of his power; 
 going first to Ephraim, a place on the edge of the Wilderness 
 of Judea, eight or nine miles from Jerusalem, on the north, 
 near Salem and those Springs at which he had parted 
 from John the Baptist ; making thence a secret and obscure 
 journey, through a part of Samaria, perhaps of Galilee ; pass- 
 ing thence to the lower Jordan and the Ford from which he 
 had first set out. 
 
 Spies from the Sanhedrin met him in Perea, where they 
 had so little power to hurt him that they condescended to 
 guile and fraud. They spread a report that Antipas Herod, 
 troubled by the Arab war, was eager to seize and put him to 
 death ; but he answered them by a saying that he should 
 not perish out of Jerusalem. Then they came to him with 
 the question : as to whether a man could put away his wife 
 for every cause? This point of law was mooted in the 
 schools of Hillel and Shammai : more important still, it was 
 the chief practical question then being debated in Herod's 
 court. Citizens argued it in gates, and soldiers wrangled 
 over it in camps. John the Baptist had lost his head for it. 
 Aretas had declared war upon it. But Jesus, seeing the 
 snare they laid for him, answered them not as a partizan of 
 either Herod or Aretas, but as a teacher of moral truth — 
 that man and wife are one flesh, joined together by God, 
 never again to be separated except by sin against the 
 marriage-bond — by that crime of adultery which corrupts 
 and severs the sacred tie, like death itself, without the inter- 
 vention of human laws. 
 
 A time was now coming when Jesus would meet such 
 snares, not with this lofty and patient wisdom, but with the 
 resignation of one who is about to die. 
 
 Early in April, while the corn was still waving and the 
 palms were in flower, the caravan arrived at the Ford from 
 Galilee, on its way up to Jerusalem for the Passover : with 
 it, apparently, the Virgin-mother, the holy women, and many 
 of those disciples in whose presence it was right that he 
 should s-uffer death ; so that many witnesses who knew him 
 
BOTH SIDES OF JORDAN. 353 
 
 in the flesh could testify his return to Hfe. With them he 
 crossed the Jordan for the last time ; marching over the 
 burning plain and under the branching dates to Jericho at 
 the mountain base. This Jericho of to-day — a hedge of 
 briers, a dozen round huts, two copious springs, a beck of 
 water, a square stone pound, a patch of swamp, a ruined 
 aqueduct, a mound of earth in which may lie column and 
 statue, a handful of men, neither Jews nor Arabs, but a 
 peculiar people, small in size, moon-faced, blue in tint, 
 tatooed, and women who are soft and winsome, like the 
 Egyptian almeh in style and figure — is not the Jericho into 
 which Jesus marched with the Galilee caravan. 
 
 Jericho was a City of Palaces, smothered in balsams and 
 scented shrubs. Cleopatra loved it. Herod the Great 
 lived in it and died in it. Its towers, its gates, and theatres 
 might have won the prize from Caesarea and Ptolemais. 
 Gardens of oranges, dates, and pomegranates extended from 
 its ramparts on every side ; a circus stood beyond the wall ; 
 a college flourished within ; a town adding the charms of a 
 Nilotic climate to the artistic beauties only to be derived 
 from Greece. This shining city was no fit home, not even 
 for a night, of poor Galilean boatmen, carpenters, and 
 potters ; men who drove their own asses, baked their own 
 bread, drew their own water, and either carried their own 
 tents or slept on the bare ground. So the caravan of 
 pilgrims marched through the city, in by one gate, out by 
 another; the women seated on asses, the men and lads 
 trudging beside them, bearing sprigs of myrtle and fronds of 
 palm ; the whole company singing hosanna as they wound 
 their way past the portico of Herod and the temple of Zeus. 
 In the western suburb of this royal city they encamped. 
 
 Jesus passed through the streets with this caravan : not 
 staying in the Greek city ; but on its skirt, in the house of 
 Zacchaeus, whom he called from the sycamore tree. 
 
 Zacchaeus was a member of a class, Jewish by birth, 
 Roman by adoption, whom their countrymen called sinners; 
 that is to say, not men who were leading an immoral life, 
 
 2 A 
 
354 
 
 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 but who openly discarded the precepts of their Oral Law. 
 Like St. Matthew, he was a taxing-man, a servant of the 
 State, having dealings with the Gentiles, which rendered 
 him ceremonially unclean. Jesus called him from the tree ; 
 spoke softly to him ; went home with him to be his guest ; 
 circumstances over which some of the multitude mourned 
 and murmured, saying, he had gone to lodge in a house 
 that was defiled. As yet, they could not see how much of 
 their Oral Law, with its fancies and traditions, had been 
 swept away. Even among the Twelve, strange doubts 
 appeared to remain; for when Jesus told them his hour was 
 nigh, they imagined that he was at length going up to 
 Jerusalem to assume his earthly crown, and they began 
 quarrelling among themselves as to which of them should 
 sit on his right hand, which on his left. Again, he had to 
 rebuke their pride ; again he had to tell them that in his 
 kingdom the highest office was that of being the servant 
 of all. 
 
 Next day, being Thursday, the caravan moved up the 
 wild and steep ascent of the wilderness ; first climbing up 
 the Wady Kelt, along a Roman road ; then rounding the 
 shoulders of stony hills, here and there speckled with grass 
 and shrubs ; toiling up, higher and higher, through desolate 
 glens, in which the bandit and the panther lurked, until 
 sundown brought them to the desert khan — the Good 
 Samaritan's inn. Early next day on foot, the caravan 
 would reach Bethany about the hour of noon ; and there, 
 in the house of Martha and Mary, among the outcast and 
 the poor of Israel, Jesus took up his abode for the Holy 
 Week, 
 
GA THERING FOR THE FEAST. 355 
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 GATHERING FOR THE FEAST. 
 
 /^^OMING into Bethany, the nearest point of the great 
 ^-^ road to Galileans' hill, the caravan would break up, the 
 company dispersing to the south and north ; some seeking 
 for houses in which they could lodge ; others fixing upon 
 the ground where they meant to encamp. Those marched 
 round Olivet to the south, following the great road, crossing 
 the Cedron by a bridge, and entering the Holy City by the 
 Sheep gate, near Antonia ; these mounted by the short path 
 to the top of Olivet, glancing at the flowers and herbage, 
 and plucking twigs and branches as they climbed. Some 
 families, having brought their tents with them from Galilee, 
 could at once proceed to stake the ground; but the multitude 
 were content with the booths called Succoth, built in the 
 same rude style as those in which their father Israel dwelt. 
 
 Four stakes being cut and driven into the soil, long reeds 
 were drawn, one by one, round and through them; these 
 reeds, being in turn crossed and closed with leaves, made a 
 small green bower, open on one side only ; yielding the 
 women a rude sort of privacy, and covering the young ones 
 with a frail defence from both noontide heat and midnight 
 dew. The people had much to do, and very little time in 
 which it could be done. At sundown, when the shofa 
 sounded, Sabbath would begin ; then every hand must 
 cease its labour, even though the tents were unpitched, the 
 booths unbuilt, the children exposed, the skies darkening 
 
356 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 into storm. Consequently, the poles must be cut, the leaves 
 and branches gathered, the tents fixed, the water fetched 
 from the wells, the bread baked, the cattle penned, the beds 
 unpacked and spread, the supper of herbs and oUves 
 cooked, before the shofa sounded from the Temple stair. 
 But every one helped. While the men drove stakes into 
 the ground and propped them with stones, the women wove 
 them together with twigs and leaves, the girls ran off to the 
 springs for water, the lads put up the camels and led out 
 the sheep to graze. In two or three hours a new city had 
 sprung up on the Galileans' hill ; a city of booths and tents ; 
 more noisy, perhaps more populous, than even the turbulent 
 city within the walls. 
 
 This Galileans' hill made only one field in a great land- 
 scape of booths and tents. All Jewry had sent up her 
 children to the feast ; and each province arrayed its mem- 
 bers on a particular site. The men of Sharon swarmed 
 over Mount Gibeon, the men of Hebron occupied the Plain 
 of Rephaim. From Pilate's roof on Mount Zion, the lines 
 and groups of this vast encampment could be followed by 
 an observer's eye down the valley of Gihon, peeping from 
 among the fruit-trees about Siloam, dotting the long plain of 
 Rephaim, trespassing even on the Mount of Offence, and 
 darkening the grand masses of hill from Olivet towards 
 Mizpeh. All Jewry seemed to be encamped about the 
 Temple mount. 
 
 From sundown all was quiet on the hill-sides and in the 
 valley; only the priests and doctors, the Temple guards, 
 the money-changers, the pigeon-dealers, the bakers of shew- 
 bread, the altar-servants, being astir and at their work. 
 There was no Sabbath in sacred things. But everywhere, 
 save in the Temple courts, traffic was stayed, movement 
 arrested, life itself all but extinct. 
 
 On this Sabbath-day, the last that Jesus was to spend on 
 earth, He took his disciples to dine at the house of Simon 
 the Leper : a thing most sternly forbidden by that cere- 
 monial law which he had come to fulfil and supersede. 
 
GATHERING FOR THE FEAST. 357 
 
 A leper was then considered as a man abandoned by 
 God. The Greek poets, the- Persian magi, the Egyptian 
 priests, all taught this doctrine of the Jewish rabbins ; that 
 the leper was accursed, and his affliction a sign of the 
 celestial wrath. In some few cases (if modern experience 
 of the malady in Jerusalem may be trusted) the disease 
 may have been nature's own penalty for secret sin ; but in 
 many cases, especially among the poor, it was a misfortune 
 rather than a punishment. For in a dry climate, under a 
 burning sun, among a people living in the open wastes, 
 eating their food in the streets, sleeping in dusty caves and 
 in the shade of trees — a people who have little water, and 
 who rarely bathe — it is all but impossible for a poor man to 
 keep the pores of his skin free and open ; yet when the grit 
 which blows into his face, and the dirt which gathers on his 
 body have choked up those pores, a train of disorders — 
 itch, abscess, scurvy, freckles, fungus, raw flesh, elephant- 
 iasis, cancer, vitiligo, ulceration — may come on. All these 
 affections of the skin may be leprous. In the days of 
 Exodus, when leprosy was thought to be contagious and 
 incurable, the law was made excessively severe against the 
 unhappy wretches so afflicted with disease, and nothing had 
 been done by the schools of Hillel and Shammai to soften 
 the severity of that ancient code. 
 
 The leper was not regarded as a living man. He was 
 dead to the law, dead to civil life, dead to the Temple 
 service. He could not enter into a synagogue, into a 
 friend's house, into a pubflc place. He was compelled to 
 go about bare-headed ; to dress in a condemned garb ; and 
 to wail as he went along the warning cry — Unclean ! Un- 
 clean ! As a dead body could not be kept in Jerusalem for 
 a single night, so a leper, being dead to the Law, was thrust 
 out from the city gates — out into Hinnom and Jehoshaphat, 
 into the vaUey of Gehenna and the valley of Death. This 
 miserable being sought a refuge among the peasants' huts, 
 and in the caves of the wilderness. One at least of these 
 outcasts found a home in Bethany, Village of the Poor. 
 
558 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 It was to this sufferer's house that Jesus went with his 
 disciples on the Sabbath day. It was at this outcast's table 
 that Christ was anointed for the sepulchre. 
 
 Martha served at the table ; and while they sat at meat, 
 Mary opened a box of ointment, made of liquid nard, and 
 poured it on the head of Jesus, over which it ran down his 
 body even to his feet. Judas Iscariot grumbled at this 
 waste, even though the gift was Mary's, saying the box 
 might have been sold for three hundred denarii, and the 
 money given to the poor. Judas, son of Siiuon, the last 
 and lowest of the Twelve, was a Jew of Judea, not of 
 Galilee ; a man close and secret, fond of money and of 
 power ; inclined to Essenic views and habits ; a narrow 
 bigot in heart and brain. His office among the brethren 
 was not to teach and preach, but to carry the bag, to pay 
 the bills for food and lodging, to dispense alms to the 
 needy. The fund was perhaps getting low in his purse ; 
 for they had been living much in the desert ; making many 
 quick journeys from place to place, followed by swarms of 
 the poor and ailing, whom they were often obliged to feed. 
 That box of unguent would have sold for three hundred 
 denarii ; a large addition to his chest. A denarius was a 
 silver coin; the size and value of a Tuscan lira; eight-pence 
 of our English money. It was a labourer's wages, and 
 something above a soldier's pay. Three hundred denarii 
 made ten pounds ; a very large sum in the miser's eyes. 
 
 When Jesus rebuked him for his blindness in not seeing 
 that Mary was anointing her Master's body for the tomb, 
 Judas rose from the table in a rage, went out from the 
 Eeper's house, and going over the hill to Jerusalem, sought 
 that High Priest who had commanded every one to 
 denounce Jesus, and on finding him, ofiered to betray his 
 Lord to the Sanhedrin for thirty shekels ; being less than 
 half the price which Mary had poured in ointment upon his 
 head. 
 
 Next day, about the hour of noon, a day to be known in 
 his Church for ever as Palm Sunday, Christ and his 
 
GA THERING FOR THE FEAST. 359 
 
 followers set out from Bethany, Jesus riding on an ass's 
 colt, a symbol of his sacred ofifice. On the way they met a 
 multitude of men and women coming out to them from 
 Jerusalem, all eager to see the man who had raised I.azarus 
 from the dead ; and, as their fashion was, carrying palms in 
 their hands and singing hosannas in the highest as they 
 swept along. Meeting the crowd coming from Bethany,, 
 they paused, and came back with them round the hill, 
 waving their green boughs and chanting their noble psalms. 
 
 As they were turning the south side of Olivet, just before 
 the road sinks down towards the Cedron, the great city, 
 with its Temple, palaces, and towers, burst upon their view ; 
 the procession halted ; every voice being hushed before that 
 majestic picture ; and gazing on the doomed metropolis of 
 his people, Jesus wept. 
 
 " If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, 
 the things which belong unto thy peaee ! But now they are 
 hid from thine eyes. For the days" shall come upon thee, 
 that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and 
 compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side ; and 
 shall lay thee with the ground, and they shall not leave in 
 thee one stone standing on another." 
 
 Crossing the Cedron, Jesus entered Jerusalem by the 
 Sheep gate, and having gone for a little while into the 
 Temple courts, he returned to Bethany for the night. 
 
 Monday and Tuesday, he came early to the Temple ; 
 mixing among the people, restoring sight to the blind, and 
 preaching to the poor. On Tuesday, certain members of 
 the Sanhedrin came into the court where he was preaching, 
 to question him and collect evidence against him ; being 
 sent by the Council after Judas had been closeted with the 
 high priest. They found Jesus among a crowd of Baptists, 
 followers of his cousin John ; and they demanded of him by 
 whose authority he taught? It was a question in which 
 Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, Boethusians, Sethians, 
 could all concur ; the Sanhedrin in which all the princes sat 
 being the sole judge of doctrine, without whose license no 
 
36o THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 man had a right to teach. Christ answered these Elders of 
 the Sanhedrin by asking them the question whether John's 
 baptism was of heaven or of man ; which they dared not 
 meet with an open yea or nay ; for if they said of heaven, 
 he would have asked them why they did not receive him ; 
 and if they said of man, the multitude might have stoned 
 them. So the chief Elders of the Sanhedrin had to confess 
 before all these people that they could not say whether John 
 was sent of man or of God ! 
 
 Then each party in the Council put a question for itself; 
 in the hope of finding him at fault. 
 
 The Pharisees, against whom he appealed to the sacred 
 books, brought to him a woman taken in the act of 
 adultery ; a crime which the Mosaic law punished with 
 death. Under the influence of their Greek teachers, the 
 Jews had very much softened towards such an offender; 
 trial by the waters of jealousy had become rare ; and the 
 Sanhedrin was on the point of abolishing for ever a punish- 
 ment which the people had ceased to crave. Adultery was 
 not capital under the Roman law, and Pilate would have 
 seized as a murderer any man who should have stoned the 
 woman to death. Their case seemed one which would 
 compel Jesus to offend against either Moses or Rome ; but 
 he baffled their cunning device by turning to the witnesses 
 of her crime, and bidding the man who was innocent among 
 them cast the first stone at her. 
 
 The Herodians tried to ensnare him on the question of 
 paying tribute ; a point as fiercely contested among the 
 Jews as either a physical resurrection or an advent of Elias. 
 A Jew had two kinds of tribute to pay ; a tax to God and a 
 tax to Caesar ; neither of which was paid without much 
 dispute. Whether the Temple tax should be forced or free 
 had long been debated between the Separatists and 
 Sadducees ; a question like that of church-rates in England ; 
 but the Separatists, carrying their project into the San- 
 hedrin, after a debate renewed and adjourned during eight 
 days, had gained their point. The tax had been laid; a 
 
GA THE RING FOR THE FEAST. 
 
 ?6i 
 
 half-shekel ; to be paid in the sacred coin ; levied on the 
 first of Adar (end of January, early in February) ; receivable 
 at the feast of Purim ; finally due on the first of Nizan 
 (March or April) ; the fund being applied to the purchase 
 of fire-wood, incense, shrew-bread, and scapegoats, and to 
 the payment of servants, guards, and priests. It was a 
 popular tax, and had been carried against the aristocrats by 
 a popular vote. Not so the Roman poll-tax, on which the 
 same divisions had taken place. Here the Sadducees had 
 been for payment, the Separatists for resistance. Happy in 
 their high places, the priests, the magistrates, were accused 
 
 SACRED SHEKEL. 
 
 of caring more for this world than they cared for God. But 
 these men, knowing that societies cannot be governed with- 
 out cost, knowing also that unless the people were induced 
 to pay tribute their houses would be entered, their goods 
 confiscated, and their persons seized, had counselled sub- 
 mission for the sake of peace. Joazar, the Boethusian 
 High Priest, had taken the lead in advising his flock to 
 pay ; a course in which he had been seconded by Hillel and 
 supported by all the moderate Pharisees. The tax, a 
 denarius, had been levied ; the Jews had learned to bear it ; 
 all except the Galileans, who spurned these lessons of 
 placemen and cowards, continuing to denounce the impost 
 as a sign of bondage, and the man who paid the denarius as 
 a slave. The Separatist paid it under protest and remon- 
 strance. It was an unpopular tax, and one who courted the 
 multitude would hardly dare to defend it. 
 
 On this view of their case the Herodians spoke. If Jesus 
 
362 
 
 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 should deny the tribute he offended Pilate; if he should 
 approve it, he put their duty to Caesar on a level with their 
 duty to God. 
 
 They approached him softly, saying : 
 
 "Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the 
 way of God in truth ; neither carest thou for any man, for 
 thou regardest not the persons of men. Tell us therefore, 
 what thinkest thou ? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar 
 or not ?" 
 
 They did not know that he had met this question, not as 
 a mere phrase, but as a practical human fact ; that he had 
 acknowledged the Roman right to raise funds ; that he had 
 dwelt in the house of one tax-man, and chosen another as 
 one of the Twelve. He said to the Herodians : 
 
 " Show me the tribute money. Whose is this image and 
 superscription ?" 
 
 ROMAN DENARIUS. 
 
 " Csesar's." 
 
 " Render therefore to Caesar the things which are Caesar's, 
 and unto God the things that are God's." 
 
 Then the Sadducees came up, tempting him with 
 questions of the Resurrection, a doctrine in which they 
 themselves had no belief. Since the theory of a physical 
 return to life sprang ap in Jewry, the Sadducees, making 
 merry with the vulgar creed, had proposed the question as 
 to which of two brothers who married the same woman 
 could claim her at the resurrection for his wife. The 
 schools were divided by this debate ; for on one side it was 
 urged that the first man would plead the right of an original 
 contract ; on the other that this right would be considered 
 
GA THE RING FOR THE FEAST. 363 
 
 as having been lost by the failure of issue ; and that the 
 woman would be judged as belonging to the father of her 
 child. The Great College took note of a question which led 
 to many jealousies and bickerings ; and the rabbins ulti- 
 mately pronounced that the elder brother could claim the 
 rising woman as his wdfe. 
 
 This problem the Sadducees brought to Jesus; saying 
 that a woman among them had been married to seven 
 husbands, and requiring to know from him whose wife she 
 would be in the world to come. Jesus answered them : 
 
 " In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in 
 marriage ; but are as the angels of God in heaven." 
 
 Confounded by the new light in which he put their case, 
 the jesting Sadducees retired ; and the Pharisees, happy in 
 this rebuke of their aristocratic rivals, came once more to 
 the front with a fresh question. One of their body, a doctor 
 of the law, inquired of Jesus — which was the great com- 
 mandment ? This was another moot point in the schools. 
 Moses had put the fear of God first, the love of man second. 
 But this order of ideas had fallen into dispute. The 
 Sadducees, rejecting a future life, conceived that the better 
 part of righteousness consisted in man's conduct to man. A 
 moderate party among the Pharisees favoured a doctrine 
 which appeared to encourage virtue and to promote peace ; 
 and to this party Hillel lent the weight of his name when he 
 declared in the Great College that doing as one would like 
 to be done by was the whole law, the rest being only legend 
 and commentary. But the main body of the Separatists, 
 together with the Essenes, the Galileans, and other ardent 
 sects, regarded the social virtues as of little or no account ; 
 the highest of them being of far less value in the sight of 
 Heaven than the meanest ceremonial rite. For what was 
 man in the sight of God ? Dust and ashes, scum of the 
 earth, froth of the sea, vapour of the sky. God was every- 
 thing, man was nothing. All these men held that the first 
 commandment was not only the greatest, but of higher 
 significance than all the rest. 
 
364 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 Jesus raised the question above all these wrangles of the 
 schools by his answer to this Pharisaic doctor : 
 
 " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God ^vith all thy heart, 
 and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength ; this is the 
 first and great commandment. And the second is like unto 
 it : Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these 
 tvvo commandments hang all the law and the prophets." 
 
OLIVET. 365 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 OLIVET. 
 
 ^1 THEN Jesus turned away from the Temple court, 
 ^ ^ leaving this holy mount for the last time, one of the 
 Twelve, a Jew, and proud of the great works going on 
 around him, bade the Lord look at the mason's art expended 
 on wall and colonnade ; at the huge stones of the founda- 
 tations, twenty feet, thirty feet, long ; at the columns and 
 cloisters of pure white marble ; at the halls and chambers, 
 solid as the living rock. Crowds of artists were labouring 
 on the pile ; building the hhanoth, polishing the shafts, 
 inlaying the floors, finishing the stairs. A nation's wealth 
 was being lavished on the Temple hill ; an offering of stone 
 to One who required from the Jews the sacrifice of a regene- 
 rate life. 
 
 Jesus gazed on this goodly work, the pride of Herod, 
 the glory of Annas, and then turning to his disciple, said : 
 
 " Seest thou these great buildings ? There shall not be 
 left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown 
 down." 
 
 Quitting the Temple, the company went down from the 
 city by the Sheep gate into the Cedron bed, and crossing 
 the hollow near the garden of Gethsemane, they walked in 
 the cool evening over the brow of Olivet, through the 
 Galilean camp. On the hill-top, within sight of Moab, 
 Zion, Ramah, and the Dead Sea, they sat down together for 
 the last time on that sacred spot. They sat over against 
 
366 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 the Temple mount ; that is to say, with their backs to the 
 Dead Sea, their eyes turned towards Jerusalem. 
 
 The scene on which they gazed in the waning light, was 
 one that even apart from the interest derived from its sacred 
 history, had no equal on the earth. Where else could they 
 have sought a great city far from either sea or river and 
 seated among the highest peaks of a mountain land? 
 Where else could they have seen such heights as Zion and 
 Moriah, populous with Hfe, swept round by such grand 
 ravines as Gihon, Hinnom, and Jehoshaphat? Where else 
 could they have found this double spectacle of a festive city 
 within the walls, and a second festive city encamped about 
 it in booths and tents ? 
 
 Low down at their feet lay the Cedron bed, dry and 
 stony, flowing through ranges of graveyards into the desert, 
 on its way into the Dead Sea ; the ledges of hill dropping 
 down to this dry brook being terraced for vineyards and 
 olive woods, and dotted with men and herds. The ravine 
 through which the Cedron flowed was dark, and the bare 
 rock on its sides was shaped into the monuments of forgot- 
 ten priests and kings. Midway down this ravine, stood the 
 little garden called Gethsemane, meaning Old Presses, in 
 which grew some aged olives. A mile lower down, where 
 the river bed opened and brightened into verdure, lay the 
 busy fountain of Siloam and its ruined tower. Beyond the 
 whole length of this sombre valley, quick and high rose the 
 scarp of Moriah, the Temple hill, with its magnificent breast 
 of wall ; a wall of which the stones could be seen from the 
 opposite hill, so that a man might have counted the tiers 
 and told ofl" the mason's work; here the grand art of 
 Solomon, marked with the Tyrian bevel ; there the more 
 hasty labour of Nehemiah, showing columns of porphyry 
 and serpentine flung into the mass ; the whole riveted and 
 topped with the less solid but more regular masonry of 
 Herod the Great. 
 
 Above this strong line of wall stood Solomon's Porch ; 
 over which, tier on tier of marble, rose the Gentile court, 
 
OLIVET. 367 
 
 the Israelite court, the Women's court, the Priests' court, 
 with their colonnades, stairs, and chambers ; and, crowning 
 these terraces, stood the Temple proper, the Holy of Holies, 
 with its front and cressets of burning gold. 
 
 Right of the Temple, joined to its courts by a colonnade, 
 frowned the castle of Antonia ; one of the two great centres 
 of Roman power. Away to the right of Antonia, on the 
 same ridge of hill as the sacred buildings, though divided 
 from them by a natural dyke, spread the great suburb of 
 Bezetha; already a city in the magnificence of its houses, 
 palaces and courts ; conspicuous among which rose the 
 palace of Antipas Herod, now swarming with his household 
 and his guards. As yet this suburb lay beyond the walls. 
 Behind this first ridge of the city, dropped the Cheese- 
 monger's valley, parting it from the ridge of Zion ; in which 
 valley lay the Xystus, the great bridge, the Maccabean 
 palace, with mansions and gardens unseen from the place 
 on which Jesus sat j but beyond this valley sprang the 
 majestic hill of Zion, rising higher than the Temple roof, so 
 that the inhabitants could glance down into the Israelite 
 and the Gentile courts ; being the first grand fastness, the 
 City of David, covered by the oldest wall and defended 
 by the strongest works ; a mass of noble structures, palaces, 
 walls, and towers, conspicuous amongst which stood the 
 great Synagogue, the Roman Praetorium, the house of 
 Caiaphas, the towers of Hippicus, Phasaelus, and Mariamne, 
 and beyond all these adornments and defences rose the brow 
 of Mount Gareb, with its waste of gardens, tenements, and 
 tombs. 
 
 " There shall not be left one stone upon another that 
 shall not be thrown down !" 
 
 Peter and Andrew, James and John, gathered around 
 Jesus, saying, " When shall these things be, and what shall 
 be the sign ?" And Jesus sat with them on the Mount of 
 Olives, discoursing of the fall of Jerusalem, the end of an 
 old world, and the beginning of a new, until the sun went 
 down. 
 
368 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 Next day, Wednesday, he remained at Bethany, in seclu- 
 sion, while Judas was arranging with Annas and the Nobles 
 how he should be seized, so as to avoid creating an uproar 
 among the common people, always the first consideration 
 with the aristocrats and their high priest. On Thursday, 
 Jesus sent Peter and John into Jerusalem, to prepare the 
 Passover, in the guest chamber ; and at sunset of that day 
 the Twelve sat down to the Last Supper. Judas left the 
 room to see Annas, and after singing the usual hymn of that 
 feast, the other disciples rose from the table, and passing 
 through the Sheep gate into the Cedron valley, came to the 
 cluster of olive trees which marked the site of Gethsemane, 
 the Old Presses. Here Jesus went apart, and while his 
 disciples slept in the warm spring evening, he watched and 
 prayed, until the betrayer came and delivered him over to 
 his enemies with a kiss. 
 
 In the dead watches of the night, the Sanhedrin were 
 called together, not in the Lishcath ha-Gazith on the 
 Temple hill, but in the Sagan's palace, near the great 
 bridge over the Xystus. Those members who came early to 
 the call, found Annas with his prisoner in the audience 
 chamber, trying witness after witness as to his acts and 
 words ; but finding nothing to sustain a legal and open charge, 
 such as could be laid before a Roman magistrate. Annas 
 bade him speak for himself, but he answered not a word, 
 until the High Priest said to him — " Art thou the Christ ?" 
 
 Then the Lord opened his lips, saying : 
 
 " I AM." 
 
 Then Annas bade him say who were his disciples and 
 what were his doctrines ; for the magnificent High Priest, 
 the chief ruler in Zion for twenty years, had paid little 
 attention to what must have seemed to him the youngest 
 and obscurest of the Galilean sects. Jesus replied : 
 
 " I spake openly to the world ; I taught in the synagogue 
 and in the Temple, whither the Jews resort ; in secret have 
 I said nothing. Ask them which heard me. They know 
 what I said." 
 
OLIVET. 369 
 
 An officer of the Temple smote him on the face, saying — 
 " Answerest thou the High Priest so ?" 
 
 Annas commanded the priestly guard to bind him with 
 cords ; and when it was day, being Friday, they went in a 
 body, Annas and the Great Council, to the palace of Caia- 
 phas, nearer to the Praetorium on Mount Zion, the Sanhe- 
 drin having a legal right to meet in their President's house. 
 Here the Lord was questioned again, in a formal manner, 
 and answering before Caiaphas that he was the Christ, the 
 official high priest rent his clothes, in sign that these words 
 were blasphemous, and worthy of death by the cmeliest 
 punishment — that of the cross. The Sanhedrin pronounced 
 him guilty, and the officers seizing his person, bound him 
 again with cords, and carrying him to the Praetorium gates, 
 delivered him a prisoner into the hands of Pilate's guards. 
 
 Unable to pass those gates, since to enter into a Gentile 
 dwelling might have rendered them unclean, the elders 
 waited and clamoured before the court until Pilate awoke 
 and came out to see them. What did they want ? They 
 had brought him a prisoner. What was this person ? An 
 evil-doer; or they would not have brought him to the 
 Judgment hall. Then why not have tried him by their law ? 
 They could not ; the case was grave ; and they had no 
 power to put a man to death. 
 
 Death ! That word was a surprise. Pilate might go far 
 to be friends with the high priests and with the people ; but 
 oftences worthy of death could only be judged by the 
 Roman law. 
 
 Going away from the elders, he sent for Jesus into his 
 court, and put the plain question to him — " Art thou the 
 king of the Jews?" 
 
 " My kingdom is not of this world," said the Lord. That 
 answer seemed enough for the Roman soldier. Careless 
 about empires in the clouds, indifferent to crimes of thought, 
 Pilate went out to the elders, saying he could find no fault 
 in this man — no fault against the Roman law. They cried, 
 that he was a leader of sedition ; one who had stirred up 
 
 2 B 
 
370 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 tumults in the land from Galilee to Jerusalem. Galilee ? 
 Pilate caught at this word ; for if Jesus were a native of 
 Galilee, his own prince, Antipas Herod, then staying in 
 Bezetha for the feast, had the right to judge him. 
 
 Pleased by this deference of the Roman governor to his 
 wishes, Antipas received the elders and their prisoner in the 
 midst of his guard ; listened to the accusation, and then 
 began to question Jesus. But the Lord stood dumb. He 
 had refused to appear in the Golden house ; and being 
 brought to the Bezetha palace, bound and by force, he 
 refused to answer one word to the husband of Herodias, to 
 the murderer of John. Vexed, uneasy — for his conscience 
 pricked him, his people murmured, and his very soldiers 
 canvassed his offences — Antipas would do nothing with the 
 Silent Teacher ; neither free him from the accusation nor 
 condemn him upon it. He merely sent him back to Pilate, 
 to be dealt with according to the Roman law ; a return of 
 courtesy which had the happy effect of making the Jewish 
 prince and the Roman procurator friends. 
 
 UnwilHng to offend the high priests and Sanhedrin — that 
 is to say, all the chiefs of parties through whom he ruled 
 the people — Pilate went down once more to the palace 
 gate, and sitting in his chair on the Gabbatha, proposed to 
 the Jews that as nothing appeared against Jesus worthy of 
 death, his offences should be treated like other synagogue 
 transgressions ; that is to say, that he should be scourged 
 and expelled from the Temple court. The elders would 
 not hear him. One of his wife's pages now came out from 
 the palace, saying that Claudia had been warned by a 
 dream, and that she begged him not to assist in shedding a 
 good man's blood. Then Pilate suggested to the people, 
 that if they considered his crime of treason penal, he, as 
 Caesar's officer, should pardon and release him, giving his 
 life to them, as their custom was at every celebration of the 
 Passover. Still, they would not hear him : crying about his 
 chair of state — " Release to us Bar- Abbas, release to us 
 Bar- Abbas !" This man had been condemned for murder 
 
OLIVET. :.-i 
 
 and sedition, and was therefore a political criminal— a 
 genuine offender against Caesar's" power. 
 
 The Procurator held out long ; his practical Roman genius 
 making him but a mild judge of such treasons as Annas and 
 Caiaphas had found in Jesus. Quick to see the offence of 
 tearing down his brazen shields, of refusing to pay his poll- 
 tax, of hustling and stabbing his guards — he was slow at 
 comprehending such crimes as talking with a Samaritan, 
 doing good deeds on the seventh day, breaking bread with 
 unsprinkled hands, announcing the kingdom of heaven. 
 Again and again he cried — What evil has he done? To 
 which the elders answered with a loud shout — "Away with 
 him ! Crucify him !" 
 
 Pilate still doubting what he should do, and being loth to 
 shed blood for an offence which he could not understand, 
 the elders turned upon him also, raising the cry of treason : 
 " If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend ! He 
 who makes himself a king speaks against Caesar !" A dan- 
 gerous cry ; and one which might imperil both Pilate's 
 fortunes and the public peace. Political considerations 
 weigh heavily with a politician. Pilate had made a friend 
 of Antipas by sending Jesus to Bezetha ; now he had a 
 chance of conciHating the whole Sanhedrin by sending him 
 to Golgotha. So, calling for water, he yielded him to the 
 Jews ; saving himself, as he thought, by saying that he 
 washed his hands of innocent blood ; of innocent blood 
 according to the Roman law. 
 
 Jesus was now led away from the palace, by way of 
 David's tower and the Almond pool to Genath, through 
 which gate of Jerusalem the procession of soldiers and 
 people marched into the nest of gardens and tombs below 
 the city wall. 
 
 At the cross, dying between two thieves, on a charge of 
 blaspheming God, the human part of His story closed. 
 
 What followed is a tale for other pens to tell. 
 
 His parting words to His Church — His sudden appearance 
 to the Magdalene and the holy women — His conversation 
 
; 72 THE HOL Y LA ND. 
 
 with the two disciples going into Emmaus — His revelation 
 to the eyes of Peter who took him for a spirit — His coming 
 into the upper room — His promise of a further Gift — His 
 rebuke of Thomas the Twin — his walk by the lake of 
 Galilee, early in the morning — His ascent from Olivet to 
 heaven : — these details of a second portion of the Sacred 
 Story seek no illustration from scenery and books. 
 
 They form a divine episode in the history of man, and 
 must be left to the writers who could not err. 
 
AFTER EVENTS. 373 
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 
 AFTER EVENTS. 
 
 IV/r ANY of those priests and elders who stood on the city 
 ^^ ^ wall overlooking Golgotha until Jesus died, and 
 then hied away home before sundown, so as not to profane 
 the Sabbath day by walking a mile after the shofa sounded, 
 lived through the troubled years which followed that event. 
 Some lived to see the camp fires of Titus, and to perish 
 miserably in the wreck of Jewry and Jerusalem. Annas 
 survived until after the great revolt, and was the victim of 
 an atrocious scene in the civil war. 
 
 The chief dates may be given in a few words. 
 
 In 29 A.D. (as we reckon the time — an error of four years 
 having crept into the record) Jesus suffered death. 
 
 30. Simeon, son of Hillel, died ; and his son Gamaliel, 
 chief of the moderate party among the Pharisees, became 
 Rector of the Great College. 
 
 33. Annas, Caiaphas, and their partizans, alarmed by the 
 increasing numbers of the new Church, seized Peter and 
 John, called a meeting of the Sanhedrin, and charged the 
 two apostles with disturbing the pubHc peace. It was the 
 old police affair ; no question of their faith or teaching ; 
 only of their right to teach at all. These Sadducees cast 
 them into the common prison of Jerusalem ; the doors of 
 which were opened by angels in the night. Next day, in 
 the Sanhedrin, Gamaliel spoke in their defence ; advising 
 that they should be left alone, for if their work were of men 
 
174 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 it would perish, like that of Judas the Galilean, and if it 
 were of God they would not be lifting up their hands against 
 the Most High. 
 
 The new Church went on increasing. 
 
 36. Pilate, after ten years of service, was disgraced and 
 called to Rome. One of that cloud of false witnesses which 
 sprang up every year, told the people of Samaria that he 
 knew where the sacred vessels lay hid, and fixed a day when 
 they should meet him in thousands on Gerizim, the Mount 
 of Blessings, to dig them up. Hearing of this movement, 
 Pilate sent troops into the highways and villages round 
 Shechem, and these soldiers, setting upon the people, slew 
 the innocent with the guilty, and put the whole body of 
 Samaritans to flight. A great cry for vengeance arose in 
 Samaria ; the Senate sent an embassy to Antioch ; and 
 Vitellius, a man of craft and policy, wishing to stand well 
 with the Jews, put the government of Samaria and Judea 
 into fresh hands, and commanded Pilate to report himself 
 in Rome. Here we lose sight of him. Legends make him. 
 a suicide ; some in a Roman prison, others in Gaul, and 
 others again near the lake of Lucerne, on the summit of the 
 mountain which bears his name. 
 
 Vitellius came up from Antioch to Zion, where he calmed 
 many passions, and won over to his person both the people 
 and the priests ; the first by taking off the taxes on fruit, 
 the chief article of food ; the second by restoring to their 
 custody the sacred robes. He conciliated Annas, just as 
 Cyrenius had won him thirty years earlier, by settling 
 the high priesthood in his house. In virtue of this new 
 settlement, the Sagan's second son Jonathan succeeded his 
 son-in-law Caiaphas, and his third son Theophilus succeeded 
 Jonathan — for a little while. 
 
 Fortune began to frown upon Antipas Herod about the 
 same time as she deserted Pilate. During a great battle 
 with Aretas, the father of his divorced and exasperated 
 wife, some of his troops went over to his enemy, and the 
 field was lost. But worse to him than the loss of towns 
 
AFTER EVENTS. 375 
 
 and hamlets in Perea was the rumour which flew abroad 
 like fire that the hand of God was now turned against him, 
 and that his people had been slain on account of his crimes. 
 The soldiers who betrayed him justified themselves by his 
 offences, and from Judea to Galilee it was repeated in the 
 gateway and the synagogue that Heaven was abandoning 
 the murderer of John. Aretas occupied Damascus, and 
 was the king of that city when Paul set forth on his journey. 
 
 38. Antipas, urged by Herodias, sailed for Italy, in the 
 hope of being able to beg Samaria and Judea, and of 
 receiving from Csesar the rank of king ; but Herod Agrippa, 
 brother of Herodias, having poisoned the imperial mind 
 against him, the Tetrarch, instead of gaining a crown by 
 this journey, was accused before the Roman senate, de- 
 prived of his province of Galilee, robbed of his money, and 
 banished into Gaul. Herodias, pardoned for her brother 
 Agrippa's sake, refused the offer of a large sum of money, 
 and clinging to the man whom she had ruined, went 
 proudly to his exile in the West. 
 
 41. Prince Agrippa was made King of Judea, Samaria, 
 Galilee, and Perea ; in fact of all the countries which had 
 owned the sway of Herod the Great. His arrival in Jeru- 
 salem was the signal for a change of men ; the aristocratic 
 party falling, the popular party rising into power. Theo- 
 philus the Sethian was deposed from the High Priesthood, 
 and Simon, the Boethusian, occupied once more the pon- 
 tifical throne. The great works of Herod were now resumed 
 with spirit; a third wall being added to the city on its 
 northern side ; taking in the new town of Bezetha, with a 
 large part of Gareb, including the place of crucifixion and 
 the site of Joseph's tomb. 
 
 But with all his vivacity and splendour, Agrippa could 
 not govern the Temple through the Boethusians, and after 
 struggling for a few months against the Sadducean nobles, 
 he was compelled to make terms with the aristocrats, put 
 down his aged kinsman Simon, and raise Matthias, a fourth 
 son of Annas, to his place. 
 
376 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 44. The popular Agrippa died, and his son, also called 
 Herod Agrippa, being thought too young for such a throne, 
 Caspius Fadus came out from Rome as Procurator. Judea, 
 Samaria, Galilee, became provinces of the empire ; the 
 responsibility of naming high priests being left with the 
 Herodian prince. 
 
 45. Theudas, one of the many false Christs, led a multi- 
 tude of men from all parts of Judea into the wldemess, 
 saying he would take them beyond the Jordan into a free 
 country, where they should feel the stranger's yoke no more. 
 Fadus sent out bodies of horse and foot; caught the 
 seceding host, with all their flocks and herds, broke through 
 their ranks, and seizing Theudas in their midst, struck off 
 his head. 
 
 46. Tiberius Alexander, an Egyptian Jew, succeeded 
 Fadus as procurator of Roman Judea. More false Christs 
 appeared. As the people grew in turbulence, the Roman 
 rule became more savage \ but it was never so ferocious as 
 when administered by this Alexandrian Jew. Every tumult 
 was suppressed in blood ; hundreds, nay thousands, were 
 slaughtered in a single day; and the false prophets were 
 either put to the sword or nailed to the cross. Among 
 others who perished under this Jewish Procurator were 
 Simon and James, sons of Judas, the two Galilean chiefs. 
 This sect of Zealots, having strengthened itself in number, 
 not only in Galilee, but in the hamlets of Perea and Judea, 
 even in Zion and Jericho, until it included the most active 
 and daring of the population, fancied itself strong enough 
 to begin the holy war. Simon and James gave the word 
 to rise ; but on Tiberius Alexander marching a cohort 
 against the rebels, they broke and fled, leaving their cap- 
 tured prophets to be nailed on a cross. 
 
 48. Ventidius Cumanus replaced Tiberius Alexander. 
 The new Procurator put a strong cohort into Antonia, 
 from which a colonnade ran to the Temple. The roof 
 of thi^ colonnade, open to the soldiers, looked down into 
 the Israelites' court, and when the Jews came up to the feast 
 
AFTER EVENTS. 
 
 377 
 
 of unleavened bread, the soldiers mocking and insulting 
 them from the roof, caused a great uproar in the court ; 
 the Jews flinging stones, the Romans launching darts : 
 until the riot becoming general, Cumanus sent for fresh 
 troops, and his soldiers, forcing their way into the temple 
 courts, drove out the people in disorder, so that the gates 
 were choked, and ten thousand men were trodden to death. 
 
 Quarrels also broke out between the Gahleans and Sama- 
 ritans. A Galilean caravan was coming up to Zion by way 
 of Shefelah, instead of by the Jordan route; at Gemin, 
 a Galilean was murdered by a Samaritan ; on which the 
 Galileans, not only from the north, but from Jerusalem also, 
 marched into Samaria, plundering and burning the houses 
 and hamlets in revenge. Cumanus, at the front of his 
 Sebastan cavalry, rode upon these rioting Jews, dispersing 
 the mob, and making prisoners of their chiefs, whom he 
 carried into his camp at C^sarea. The nobles of 'Sebaste 
 and Jerusalem appealed against each other to Quadratus, 
 President of S)T"ia, then staying at Tyre. Jonathan, son of 
 Annas, represented the Jews. 
 
 50. Gamaliel died. Felix, a slave, and an empress's 
 lover, succeeded Cumanus, and the noble party gained the 
 upper hand in Jerusalem. Jonathan son of Annas became 
 high priest for the second time. The aristocrats, aided to 
 the full extent of Roman power, made war on the refomiing 
 Galileans ; who, since the massacre of Simon and James, 
 having taken Menahem, a third son of Judas of Gamala. 
 and Eleazar, a son of Simon, for their captains, had become 
 a state within the state, a church within the church, ab- 
 sorbing many of the Essenes, most of the Pharisees, and 
 counting within their pale a majority of the Jews. Mode- 
 ration died with Gamaliel ; the Separatists merged for a 
 time into the warlike sect of the Galileans ; and the war 
 between the Sadducees and these Galileans — the Nobles 
 and the People — became a war to the death. 
 
 Villages were burnt and razed ; hundreds of Galileans 
 were crucified; roads became unsafe; commerce declined; 
 
378 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 the old calm of prosperity was at an end. Having the 
 legions at their call, the Sadducees, everywhere masters 
 of the open field, pursued these dreamers of an earthly 
 kingdom as a threatened oligarchy always pursues a crushed 
 but still formidable foe. Every ditch had its cross, and the 
 roads round Jerusalem were black with murder. Excess 
 begot excess. Doras and a band of desperate fanatics, 
 putting short swords under their cloaks, went up into the 
 Temple, through the Israelites' court into the Holy Place, 
 and finding the high priest Jonathan before the altar, rushed 
 upon him, pierced him with their weapons, and left him 
 dead on the ground, as Mattathias had struck down the 
 false priest on Modin. Done in broad day, in the midst of 
 crowds, this murder of Jonathan, son of Annas the Sadducee, 
 was not avenged ; for the common people felt with the 
 assassins, and the Zealots declared that this deed was done 
 for the glory of God. 
 
 Quick to perceive that the Temple and the Temple 
 courts offered them a field in which they could meet their 
 enemies in open fight, beyond Roman help, the Zealots 
 went up again. No Gentile could enter the sacred courts ; 
 and as Felix cared nothing about the Temple feuds, except 
 so far as they might disturb the city, and as he had begun 
 to favour the popular party, if he had not actually incited 
 Doras to commit his crime, he left the Jews very much to 
 themselves ; keeping the gates, and confining the riot and 
 bloodshed to the Temple courts. So the Swordsmen (sikars) 
 found an open field in the house of God ; and after Jona- 
 tlian's murder, they picked off several persons daily, glutting 
 their vengeance on every man who had done them wrong. 
 
 Of the false Christs who rose in the reign of Felix, the 
 Egyptian prophet made the greatest noise. One of the 
 Messianic prophets had foretold that the Deliverer would come 
 up out of Egypt ; a fact which had conduced to the popu- 
 larity of Simon the high priest, and of Tiberius Alexander, 
 the procurator, both of whom had been Alexandrian Jews. 
 The Egyptian Prophet announced himself as Christ ; set up 
 
AFTER EVENTS. 379 
 
 his camp in the wilderness, among the Essene villages and 
 caves; drew a vast multitude of dupes together; telling 
 them that on a certain day he would lead them to the 
 top of Olivet, whence he should command the walls of 
 Jerusalem to fall down, as the walls of Jericho had crumbled 
 under the trumpet blast, and that he should march his 
 disciples into the Temple through this miraculous breach. 
 Four thousand men came up the wadies to Olivet; but 
 instead of seeing the walls fall down and the legions fly in 
 panic, they saw the Roman shields and helmets moving up 
 the hill-side, solid, terrible in array. Four hundred of th6 
 fanatics fell in the first onset ; two hundred threw them- 
 selves on their knees ; the rabble fled into the wilderness ; 
 and the Egyptian Prophet disappeared for ever. 
 
 60. Fortius Festus, the upright judge of Paul, came out 
 as Procurator on the accession of Nero. He essayed to 
 rule through an old and eminent race of high priests, the 
 house of Fabus ; procuring the re-elevation of that Ishmael, 
 son of Fabus, who had first succeeded Annas in the reign ot 
 Valerius Gratus. But the time for men of easy manners 
 and simple hfe had long gone by. The Gahleans, under 
 the various names of Zealots, Swordsmen, Brigands, were 
 masters of the country, having persuaded the foolish Felix 
 that they, and not the nobles, were the only friends of 
 Rome. 
 
 On the other hand, the high priests, of whom there had 
 been ten in thirty years, nearly all of whom were still living, 
 raised companies for their own defence. Every house was 
 becoming a fortress ; every serv-ant a soldier. The partizans 
 of Annas set upon those of Ishmael; at first with abuse, 
 then with clubs and stones ; and Festus, thinking he had 
 no concern with these pious bickerings, left the rabble to 
 fight it out. 
 
 Rapid changes now passed over the nominal priesthood. 
 In a few months Ishmael gave way to Joseph, son of Simon 
 the Boethusian, and Joseph fell in turn before Ananus, fifth 
 son of the old Sagan, under whom the Noble party regained 
 
:;8o THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 its power. But though they won it bravely, they could not 
 keep it long. 
 
 6 1. The Sethian faction being masters in the Sanhedrin, 
 James and other Christians were condemned to death, 
 contrary to the Roman law; on which account Ananus, 
 after a reign of three months, was deposed from the ofiice 
 he had thus abused ; being replaced by Jesus, son of 
 Damneus, a man of weaker character and more moderate 
 views ; who in turn yielded his seat to Jesus, son of 
 Gamaliel. These three high priests, appointed within a 
 year, took arms against each other; filling the streets of 
 Jerusalem with daily broils, until the wealth, daring, and 
 connections of Ananus carried tlie day and put the city at 
 his disposal. 
 
 62. Albinus arrived in Syria, and his object being to 
 restore peace in Zion, he first made terms with the Noble 
 party in possession, and then arrested ten of the most 
 daring Swordsmen. By these acts of policy and vigour, the 
 Sadducees were won to Rome, and the mutinous spirit of 
 the Jews appeared to be quelled. But the Galilean bands 
 were stunned, not crushed, by these blows, and society was 
 become too corrupt for any sedative action of the public 
 force. Knowing that Ananias son of Nebedeus (Paul's 
 Ananias) was one of those who had prompted the seizure of 
 their chiefs, the Swordsmen went up into the Temple, and 
 carrying ofi" the Temple scribe, a servant of his son Eleazar, 
 the Temple Captain, sent to the High Priest and Temple 
 Captain a message to this effect — that the secretary's life 
 should be spared and his liberty restored on condition that 
 the high priest persuaded Albinus to give up the Swords- 
 men's chiefs. 
 
 The priest went up to Zion with his tale of woe, and the 
 Procurator, yielding to the man's miseries, set the Swords- 
 men free ; an act of weakness which increased the evil ■ it 
 was meant to cure. Feeling their strength, since they had 
 found a way to treat with Temple and Palace as an 
 independent power, the Swordsmen, whenever a man of 
 
AFTER EVENTS. 381 
 
 their party fell into trouble, had only to seize a son, a 
 nephew, a servant, of one of these priestly nobles, and so 
 ransom him from death. 
 
 Some of these daring bands found leaders who were 
 formidable to the high priests in another way ; Saulus and 
 Costobarus, princes of the line of Herod; who gathered 
 troops of servants into their houses, and set up a kind of 
 royal state, doing their own will in the city and allowing 
 their followers to do theirs also. But in the Temple and 
 the Palace, the Sethians held their own and even increased 
 their power; Jesus, son of Gamaliel, being now formally 
 deposed in favour of Matthias, son of Theophilus and 
 grandson of Annas ; and in the pontificate of this Matthias 
 the great revolt against Rome took place. 
 
;82 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 CHAPTER LVI. 
 
 REVOLT AND CIVIL WAR. 
 
 65. r^ ESSIUS FLORUS came into Judea ; a man unfitted 
 ^-^ by nature and education to control a society so 
 corrupt as that of the Jews ; being one of the basest of the 
 base, and having in Cleopatra, his wife, a companion as 
 black in heart and hot in blood as he was himself. Neglect- 
 ing the nobles, despising the people, he, in less than a year 
 of mismanagement, drove moderate men to despair, and 
 Sadducees into revolt. 
 
 The first signal of the national war was given by a 
 priest. 
 
 66. When Nero sent his usual ofi'ering to Moriah, to be 
 laid on the Jewish altar, Eleazar, Captain of the Temple, 
 being opposed in policy to Florus, Matthias, and the 
 Romanizing Jews, persuaded the sacrificing priests to reject 
 the emperor's gift ; on which some of the elders, timid and 
 rich, went up to Nicanor's gate, opening into the Priests' 
 court, and reasoning with the sacrificers, begged them to 
 accept the imperial gift and perform the customary rites. 
 But the people, relishing Eleazar's counsels, rose upon these 
 elders, drove them from the bronze gates with threats and 
 outcries, and the Temple guards and servants, snatching up 
 spear and shield, ran through the courts and alleys of the 
 city, shouting that the hour of revolt had come, and calling 
 on every man to arm. In a few hours the open city was in 
 Eleazar's hands; the Romans, under Metilius, having 
 
REVOLT AND CIVIL WAR. 383 
 
 quitted the Temple gates, retiring into Antonia and Zion, 
 fortresses admitting of defence by a smaller body of dis- 
 ciplined men. 
 
 Either from the policy which so often puts father and son 
 on opposite sides in a civil strife, or from his having been 
 seized as a hostage by Metilius, Ananias (Paul's Ananias) 
 remained in the Roman camp, while his son Eleazar led the 
 city bands. Each party fought with undaunted heart ; the 
 Jews increasing in numbers as the country came in ; the 
 cohorts thinning by the daily waste of life. Judea, Galilee, 
 Perea, joined in the insurrection, and night and day the 
 bands came marching up the wadies to assist their brethren 
 and direct the war. In a week, the Romans were driven in 
 upon the Praetorium; many noble houses in Zion were 
 destroyed by fire, including Agrippa's palace near the great 
 bridge, the archives of Judea, and the house of Ananias. 
 Then, the people assaulted Antonia, carried the fortress by 
 storm, and put the whole garrison to the sword. Except 
 Herod's palace on Mount Zion, and the three great towers 
 above it, Eleazar was now lord of every part of Jerusalem. 
 But in the very moment of his conquest, the post of General 
 of the Insurrection was wrested from his grasp by a man of 
 bolder spirit and higher assumption than his own. 
 
 This new chief was Menahem, son of Judas of Gamala. 
 Since the crucifixion of Simon and James, Menahem had 
 become the great chief of this turbulent party of Galileans 
 — Swordsmen, Zealots, Brigands, what not — having for his 
 principal captain his nephew Eleazar, son of Simon. In 
 Galilee, Idumea, and Perea, they made themselves masters 
 of all the open country ; in the towns they became strong 
 enough to displace many of the old magistrates and generals ; 
 and even in the capitals, Tiberias and Jerusalem, they could 
 carry everythmg before them which depended on audacity 
 and vigour. Joshua, son of Sapphias, one of their party, 
 raised a great insurrection of sailors and shepherds in 
 Galilee ; and the time being come when they felt strong 
 enough to march on Jerusalem and give battle to the 
 
j84 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 Romans, Menahem and Eleazar drew their followers to- 
 gether into the wilderness, on the western shore of the 
 Dead Sea, and seizing by stratagem the great fortress and 
 armoury of Masada, put the Roman garrison to the sword. 
 Amiing his camp of shepherds and artizans, Menahem now 
 instituted a body guard, assumed the office of Messiah, 
 surrounded himself with royal state, and marched into the 
 Holy City, where he deposed Eleazar, Captain of the 
 Temple, from his command, giving the chief military power 
 into the hands of Eleazar, his nephew, and pressing the 
 siege of the Romans in Mount Zion with an irresistible 
 ardour and success. The native troops begged quarter and 
 retired. The Romans, too proud to sue, too weak to resist, 
 abandoned their camp, retreating into the three great 
 towers ; at the very moment when Menahem was forcing 
 their lines, massacring their stragglers, and burning their 
 magazines. 
 
 Ananias (St. Paul's high priest), being found in a sewer 
 of the palace, was put to death. 
 
 Then the new Messiah, robing himself as a king, went up 
 to the Temple, attended by his guards, to offer sacrifice to 
 God : but on the Sacred Mount he was encountered by 
 Eleazar, son of the murdered high priest, at the head of his 
 Temple guards. Rushing upon Menahem, the Captain 
 scattered his troops, and drove him out headlong and in 
 disorder from the Temple courts. For some hours ^lena- 
 hem was lost in the vaults and corridors of the Temple, but 
 a swift and stern pursuit discovered him in Ophel, under 
 the Temple wall, when he was put to incredible tortures, 
 and at length was mercifully slain. 
 
 Eleazar, Captain of the Temple, now resumed his com- 
 mand, prosecuting the siege of Metilius with as much furious 
 valour as the false Messiah had displayed. Metilius, driven 
 to despair, proposed to surrender the great towers, maga- 
 zines, armouries, everything in his possession, if the lives of 
 his soldiers should be spared ; a base proposal, which Eleazar 
 accepted, making it the basis of a treaty of surrender, which 
 
REVOLT AND CIVIL WAR. 385 
 
 he signed and violated within an hour. Every man who 
 marched out of David's tower was put to the sword; Metihus 
 alone excepted ; for on being offered his choice of death or 
 circumcision, this unspeakably degenerate Roman consented 
 to become a Jew. 
 
 The whole country now rose in revolt, and a war of races 
 and of principles began. Every Jew tried to kill a Gentile, 
 and as an act of safety the Gentiles began to massacre the 
 Jews. On the day of Eleazar's treachery in Zion, every Jew 
 in Ciesarea was slaughtered by the Roman troops. Sebaste 
 was carried by assault, Gaza was reduced to ashes. Hippos 
 and Gadara were the scenes of faction fights. Two thousand 
 Jews were murdered in Ptolemais, two thousand five hundred 
 in Askalon. In Tyre and Sidon none were left alive, 
 
 Cestius, president of Syria, now brought up the twelfth 
 legion from Antioch to Ptolemais, Caesarea, and Joppa, the 
 last of which towns he plundered and burnt. Sephoris and 
 Sebaste were soon occupied by the Romans, and a main 
 part of the army, marching under Gallus mto the hill country 
 of Judea, encamped on Scopas, from which they entered 
 into the suburb of Bezetha, and menaced Mount Zion itself 
 with assault. The Nobles, welcoming this advance of Ces- 
 tius, their only protection against the Swordsmen and Zealots, 
 sent Ananus, son of Jonathan (that high priest who had been 
 slain by the Swordsmen) to speak with Cestius from the walls, 
 offering to submit themselves to Rome, and throw open the 
 city gates. Cestius hesitated to believe in these friends of 
 Rome, until the Zealots, discovering this treachery of the 
 Nobles, set upon them, pelting them with stones and 
 driving them to their palaces. An open assault by the 
 legionaries failing, Cestius retired to Scopas, galled in his 
 retreat, and thence fell back to Bethhoron, Lydda, and the 
 sea-coast. 
 
 The Zealots were now masters of nearly all Palestine, and 
 the people, many of them insincerely, professed the tenets 
 of these triumphant Galileans. Not to bring ruin on their 
 kin, the high priests and nobles had to humour the fighting 
 
 2 c 
 
386 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 sectaries ; courting their leaders, praising their great deeds, 
 and professing to share their zeal. In part they succeeded 
 in allaying the old suspicions and animosities of the Swords- 
 men, and when governors and generals came to be appointed 
 by the insurgent people, the Nobles secured a very fair share 
 of power, especially in Jerusalem, where Annas was elected 
 in a joint commission with Joseph, son of Gorion, to the 
 supreme direction of affairs, with the special object of de- 
 fence. Eleazar, the Temple Captain, a man of great ser- 
 vices, but unsafe opinions, they sent as general into Idumea, 
 naming as his coadjutor Joshua, son of Sapphias, the daring 
 rebel, who prefen-ed to remain in Galilee, of which province 
 he made himself a petty king. 
 
 Having a vast authority over the boatmen and peasants 
 of the lake country, this Joshua led a gi-eat company of 
 Zealots and idol breakers into the neighbourhood of Tibe- 
 rias, whence he sent a message to the senators of that city 
 demanding that they should deface the Greek sculptures and 
 destroy the shining roof of the Golden house. The senate 
 refused. Joshua marched within a mile of the city and 
 renewed his demands" In the meantime messengers, among 
 them Josephus the historian, had come down from Jerusalem 
 to organize the national war ; and these men of high rank 
 insisted, like the sailors and shepherds, on the sculptures 
 being cleansed from the wall and the golden roof pulled 
 down. The senators of Tiberias, finding that they could 
 not save the palace, even by risking the streets in which it 
 stood, were about to yield the chief ornament of their city 
 to the mob, when Joshua, vexed at the long and tedious 
 parley of these old Pagans, burst into the town, put the 
 Greek inhabitants to the sword, plundered the royal apart- 
 ments, and set the magnificent pile on fire. The spoil of 
 his bands was vast and precious ; inlaid tables, candlesticks 
 of Corinthian brass, and quantities of silver bars, being found 
 in every room. But when the flames ascended to the rafters, 
 and the thieves expected the golden plates to fall mto their 
 laps, they were surprised and maddened to learn that, unlike 
 
REVOLT AND CIVIL WAR. 387 
 
 the doors and roofs of the Temple, the timbers of the Golden 
 house had been only gilt. 
 
 Joshua was not punished for this outrage against the 
 Golden house. Josephus recommended the Sanhedrin to 
 treat him well, lest he should do much worse ; and as they 
 could not punish him for his crimes, they counted his 
 offences to him for virtues, took him into favour, and re- 
 warded him with the great command of Tiberias. 
 
 67. Vespasian was appointed President of Syria. 
 
 The Christians quitted Jerusalem ; retiring with their pas- 
 tors to Pella, the Greek city beyond Jordan. 
 
 The Romans conquered Galilee and Perea. 
 
 Being now the undisputed masters in Jerusalem, the 
 Zealots deposed Matthias the Sethian high priest ; and de- 
 priving the princely houses (Seth, Boethus, Fabus, Damneus, 
 and Nebedeus) of their right to supply candidates for the 
 sacred office, they cast lots for his successor, and the appoint- 
 ment fell on Phannias, a rustic who could scarcely be made 
 to understand what the priesthood meant. Annas, being 
 one of the two official magistrates who had charge of every- 
 thing in the city, protested against this stretch of lay power, 
 and going with his son Ananus, and Jesus, son of Gamaliel, 
 into the streets, exhorted the poorer Jews to rise up against 
 the Zealots and wrest the Temple from their hands, offering 
 to expend all that remained of his own bodily strength and 
 mental force in this holy labour. While the aged priest was 
 rousing the people to resist these spoilers of noble houses, 
 the Zealots, hearing of all that was being done, rushed forth 
 into the streets, and a fight began. The nobles came out 
 with their sons and servants, and being joined by many of 
 the citizens, they charged the Zealot bands ; first throwing 
 stones and darts at them, and when they saw their oppor- 
 tunity, dashing in upon them with their swords. Slowly, the 
 Zealots fell back towards the Temple gates, through which 
 Annas and his partizans pressed with the retiring foe, until 
 the gates and the outer courts were won. Jerusalem might 
 have been saved, but for a scruple which seized upon the 
 
388 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 advancing priest. According to the Law, no man could 
 enter the inner courts until he had undergone purification ; 
 and this aged Sadducee, who rejected the doctrine of an 
 after life as a silly fable, paused at the inner gates, and drew 
 off the victors from their prey, lest the victorious citizens 
 should pollute by their presence the sacred ground ! He 
 set a guard of six thousand men about the cloisters, and 
 sent the rest of his army home ; hoping- to persuade the 
 Zealots to surrender and avoid any further desecration of the 
 Temple courts. 
 
 This hesitation of the old man cost him his party and his 
 life. 
 
 The Zealots had time to send into the country, and 
 especially to Idumsea, saying that Annas meant to sell them 
 to Caesar, and begging their partizans to march at once on 
 Jerusalem. Before Annas knew that a message had been 
 sent, the Idumasans were at the city gates. A parley from 
 the wall, in which Jesus, son of Gamaliel, urged them to go 
 back, incensed the strangers, who replied that they had 
 come to defend the capital of their nation and the altar of 
 their God from enemies without and factions within. But 
 the gates being closed, and a siege of the city beyond their 
 means, they had to camp out in the open valleys of Hinnom 
 and Jehoshaphat. In a tempest of wind and rain the night 
 came down. Annas, saying that God was defending them 
 by storms, neglected to go his usual round of the walls; and 
 many of the nobles, deserting their irksome posts, went 
 home to bed ; setting servants and poor citizens to hold 
 their watch. At midnight, in the midst of deafening thunder, 
 the guards being housed or sleeping, the Zealots opened one 
 of the gates, that nearest to the Idumasan camp ; and the 
 strangers, rushing into the city and spearing the sentinels 
 and guards, drove back the citizen troops, giving and taking 
 no quarter, but slaying the aristocrats as they sprang from 
 their beds and sallied into the streets. 
 
 Day dawned upon a city of corpses. Eight thousand 
 five hundred dead were carried from the Temple court. 
 
REVOLT AND CIVIL WAR 389 
 
 Every noble house was pillaged. Every man caught in a 
 palace perished by the sword. 
 
 Annas — the aged priest, the first among the Jewish nobles, 
 the official crucifier of Christ, the chief ruler of Jerusalem 
 for sixty years — was found and murdered ; and his body, 
 reviled and spurned, was cast over the city wall to become 
 the prey of dogs and wolves. 
 
 70. Titus captured and destroyed Jerusalem. 
 
590 THE HOLY LAM). 
 
 CHAPTER LVII. 
 
 THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. 
 
 TN time, the remnant which was saved from fire and 
 ■^ sword, from slavery and exile, ventured to return from 
 Pella to Jerusalem, and to found among the ruins of an 
 apostate city, the new Church of that Christ whom the 
 Separatist people had put to death. 
 
 Gentile and Jew now became one in faith and fellowship; 
 and in a little while Gentile bishops began to reign in 
 Jerusalem over the common Church of Jew and Greek. 
 
 Constantine built a church over the Holy Sepulchre, 
 which the Persians destroyed and Heraclius restored. More 
 than once that church has been razed to the ground by 
 Oriental sects; for the Resurrection of Christ is the cardinal 
 fact of Christianity, and the Holy Sepulchre is the visible 
 sign of that great event. 
 
 For a thousand years this central evidence of Christian 
 truth has been left in the power of Islam, a second Oriental 
 development of the Jewish church ; and by the disciples of 
 this Arabic creed, the Holy Sepulchre has been kept, on the 
 whole, and with rare exceptions, open, free, and safe. 
 
 A first day spent in the Rotunda will not edify a pilgrim 
 much ; even though he should remember that it stands in 
 an Oriental city, close to the wilderness and the Dead Sea, 
 and subject to the spirit of such a place. 
 
 Passing from the open court into the low doorway of the 
 basilica, his instinct of solemnity is shocked by noticing in 
 
THE HOL Y SEPUL CURE. 39 1 
 
 a deep recess on the left hand a squad of Turkish Hght 
 troops ; picturesque, agile fellows, lolling on a mat, throw- 
 ing off curls of smoke, and listening to tales of love and 
 war. The men are grave and decorous, as Turkish soldiers 
 are everywhere, except on the battle-field ; yet their sabres 
 clank on the stones, their jebile rises into the fane, and 
 their pistols and yataghans gleam, unbecomingly, in the 
 house of God. But far more painful to the pilgrim's feeling 
 than the presence of these soldiers in a church, is the fact 
 that in three or four days he will become reconciled to it as 
 a minor evil. A little experience of life in the Rotunda, as 
 it may be seen from dawn to sunset, more than at all other 
 times in the holy week, will perhaps suggest to his mind 
 some explanation of this great mystery — 
 
 Why has Providence, in its wisdom, taken from oui care 
 the custody of our most sacred shrines ? 
 
 It is not because we are feeble. It is not because we 
 are poor. It is not because we are distant and lukewarm. 
 The masters of Delhi and Algiers might become the masters 
 of Jerusalem in a single week, if it depended solely on the 
 assertion of physical power. But we are weak in the 
 spiritual charities of brotherhood and forbearance. 
 
 Among the crowds who gather in this porch and worship 
 under this dome, there are twenty rivals, and not two 
 brothers. A pilgrim of one country believes the pilgrim 
 from another country to be a heretic and a scoundrel, a 
 deserter from the true church, a denier of the true God. 
 The monk of Mount Gareb scowls on the monk of Mount 
 Zion as on a man who is hurrying to his bed of everlasting 
 fire. What a Catholic peasant of Connemara thinks of a 
 Presbyterian tradesman in Derry is something tolerant and 
 fraternal compared with the bitterness of heart in which a 
 Spanish padre speaks of a Greek, an Armenian pastor of a 
 Copt. With each it is a shrug and a curse. Every friar in 
 Jerusalem imagines that his Christian neighbour is already 
 damned beyond hope of mercy ; being worse, far worse, 
 than a benighted Moslem, an abandoned Jew. A Turk has 
 
392 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 no better light; a Jew has been cursed with a heart of 
 stone ; but what excuse can a Christian pastor imagine for a 
 brother who has had his choice, and has wickedly selected 
 an impure creed? Why, he asks himself, should the portion 
 of a false Christian be made better on earth than it will be 
 in heaven ? In the world to come the schismatic will have 
 to dwell among the lost : why, then, should he not be hated 
 and reviled, condemned and spurned, by his fellow-men ? 
 
 It is in this fierce spirit — a Galilean, not a Christian spirit 
 — that we judge each other at the tomb of Christ. Greek 
 meets Nestorian, Latin encounters Copt, on i spot which 
 each professes to revere, asserting that his brother is not 
 his brother; that he is a stranger and worse than a stranger; 
 an intruder into the holy house, whose presence in the 
 shrine is a positive abomination in the sight of God. Hence 
 our only salutation is a scowl of hate, our worship is a 
 scuffle, which requires the presence of negroes and Bashi 
 Bazouks to prevent from degenerating into a daily fight. 
 
 Each sect has a right to its turn of service before the 
 shrine ; a service of chants and candles, much clouding of 
 incense, much blazing of flambeaux, much glamour of in- 
 cantation in ancient and mystic tongues ; making a scene 
 as wild as the bronzed and picturesque men whom it 
 appears to kindle into flame. 
 
 The Copts, say, are standing before the shrine : long 
 before they have finished their service of sixty minutes, the 
 Armenians have gathered in numbers round the choir ; not 
 to join in the prayers and genuflexions, but to hum profane 
 airs, to hiss the Coptic priests, to jabber, and jest, and snarl 
 at the morning prayer. The singers repay them in frowns 
 and curses. As the hour draws nigh for these Copts to 
 cease, the men who should be their brethren begin to rear 
 and push : one side trying to remain a second of time beyond 
 their right ; the other side elbowing them away a second 
 before they are bound to retire. To steal one moment 
 from the false church is held to be a victory for the true. 
 Often these priests and worshippers come to blows ; but on 
 
THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. 393 
 
 the very first cry of an attack — an affair of candles, crooks, 
 and crucifixes — the Turkish guard is under arms and on the 
 spot ; and unless blood has been drawn, in which case the 
 church is cleared and locked up, the ferocious rivals are 
 allowed to complete their hymns and prayers under the 
 protection of a line of Moslem matchlocks. 
 
 Each party in these struggles regards the Turkish soldiers 
 as its allies against the others ; and it may be said in 
 plainest words that among the Greek and Armenian Chris- 
 tians of Judea, many would not scruple to join the Dervishes 
 and Fakeers in cutting every Latin throat in Jerusalem. 
 The grave Arabs look on without a smile ; saying to each 
 other, " Allah is great — How these Nazarenes love each 
 other !" 
 
 Sitting under the great dome of the basilica, amidst 
 scenes so wild and strange, it is not without shame that one 
 recalls the beautiful Moslem service in St. Sophia — simple, 
 fervid, pathetic — a service chaste and decorous to eye and 
 ear, as that of an English abbey or cathedral church. 
 
 A common feeling for the decencies of public worship — a 
 sovereign power of tolerating rival creeds — are but two out 
 of a hundred points in which there seems to be an approach 
 of character between the Saxon and the Turk ; an approach 
 of character which the keen Asiatics, judging by visible 
 signs, have not failed to seize. In truth, it has become a 
 habit of mind with the Syrians to connect these races of 
 East and West. A Syrian notices that the Turk is never 
 mean ; that he never lies or goes away from his pledge ; 
 that he is personally brave ; that he is haughty yet reserved, 
 masterful yet kind ; that he speaks few words ; that when 
 pressed by danger he will rather fight than parley. And 
 does he not find the same things in a Saxon ? Then, again, 
 he sees that the Englishman and Turk are sworn brothers. 
 Are they not always in the same camp ? Who defends the 
 Caliph against his enemies ? Who drove Napoleon out of 
 Syria? Who crushed Mohammed Ali ? Who revenged 
 Sinope ? Who fought against the Russians in Kars ? Those 
 
394 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 paler and less corpulent Turks who dwell in the far West, 
 and come to Jaffa and Beyrout in ships. And if they have 
 one camp, why not one creed ? Many a smart Arab in 
 Palestine believes that we English are Moslems, of a 
 Western sect, as the Persians are Moslems of an Eastern 
 sect ; whom pride alone prevents from kneeling in the 
 mosques of a humbler and darker race. A clever bey, who 
 spoke French very well, though he had never been west of 
 Jerusalem, said to me, in substance : — " You English are 
 not Nazarenes. I have watched you very closely, and you 
 have none of the signs by which we know them. If you 
 meet a bishop, you do not dismount from your horse. 
 When you pass a Greek or a Latin priest in the streets you 
 make no sign of the cross. You never kneel before idols. 
 When you pray, you neither screech in the voice, nor foam 
 at the mouth, nor bump your head against the wall. When 
 you walk into the Holy Sepulchre, you do not kiss the great 
 stone at the door ; you neither light a candle, nor tear your 
 hair, nor begin to fight. You smile at the singers ; you 
 part them when they quarrel ; you pity them when they 
 bleed, just like an Arab. When I go up to your grand 
 house on Mount Zion, what do I see ? A mosque. You 
 build no minaret ; for every Englishman keeps a muezzin in 
 his pocket to tell him the time of prayer ; but you have 
 built a mosque. A Nazarene church is painted with 
 pictures, and lighted with candles ; a waxen image on this 
 side, a wooden image on that ; friars carry dolls and young 
 men tinkle bells. You have no pictures and candles, no 
 images and bells. You have no friars on Mount Zion. 
 Your priest does not shave his head, nor wear a gown. 
 Your house has no cross on the top. Your priest is a 
 mollah, and your people pray like the Moslem." The bey 
 only argued from what he saw ; and in likening an English- 
 man to a Mohammedan he meant to convey the very 
 highest compliment that his idiom could express. 
 
 Standing before the shrine, a man cannot help inquiring 
 — How long, how long shall we remain unworthy to possess 
 
THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. 395 
 
 our own ? For upwards of a thousand years, watch and 
 ward over the Holy Sepulclire have been given to Egyptians, 
 Saracens, and Turks. How long will the Christian nations 
 continue to be unworthy of possessing their sacred shrines ? 
 Why has our ark been taken from us ? Is the Moslem 
 Turk a nobler guardian of the Tomb of Christ than the 
 Nazarene Greek ? The facts reply : 
 
 Under Moslem rule, this Church of the Holy Sepulchre is 
 the only Christian edifice in any great capital, to which the 
 multitudinous tribes and peoples of our common faith can 
 freely come, with the right to kneel at its altars, and in 
 whatever tongue and ritual they may use, to offer up praise 
 and thanksgivings to the Father who is in heaven. Would 
 it be free to all, if it were governed by any one Christian 
 sect ? Would the Russ divide his privilege of grace with a 
 Frank ? Would the Greek permit the Copt to kneel at his 
 holy shrine ? Would the Chaldean tolerate the presence of 
 either an English Quaker or an American Evangelical near 
 the Tomb ? No one believes it ; no one imagines it. 
 
 Except among the Turks, there is no true toleration in 
 the East ; neither among the Arabs, nor the Greeks, nor the 
 Jews ; nothing but a deceptive truce in the midst of a cruel 
 war. The Turk is tolerant, and he is consequently supreme ; 
 a necessity, like the Saxon in Calcutta, the Gaul in Algiers, 
 to all these inferior and more fanatical races of men. 
 
 To the Moslem rule in Palestine, it is due that we have 
 still a Christian Church, as distinguished from the many 
 churches of Christian sects ; a visible type, perhaps a living 
 centre, of that Christianity of the future in which a thousand 
 peoples and congregations may be absorbed into the 
 universal Church of God. 
 
 Look at the great dome. It springs over the Sepulchre, 
 the Holy of Holies, the very Shrine of Shrines. If there is 
 one piece of man's work on earth that should be strong and 
 perfect, built of marble and gold, and of all that is costly and 
 durable, surely it is yon vault over the Tomb. Yet the dome of 
 the Sepulchre is a wreck. The plaster is falling from the wall ; 
 
396 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 the metal has been stolen from the roof; the paint is either 
 washed away by the rain or scorched away by the sun ; and 
 the showers of winter come rattling through the rents. Any 
 day, any hour, this magnificent Tomb may be destroyed by 
 its crumbling canopy of stone and lead. And this danger 
 to the basilica threatens, this scandal to religion lasts, not 
 because the Christians are either few or poor, but because 
 they cannot agree among themselves ; because they are 
 wanting in charity for each other. The vices of jealousy 
 and hatred which we see in the rotunda, among friars and 
 priests, have their springs in the cabinets of P^urope, among 
 statesmen and princes. Greek and Latin, each prides him- 
 self on being the elect, and treats his rival as the damned. 
 The Russ will not share his part of the Sepulchre with a 
 Frank, nor will the Frank divide his altar with a Russ. 
 Every church would be master ; each king would be lord 
 of the keys ; each priest would be the dispenser of favours 
 on earth and in heaven. 
 
 So long perhaps as we Christians have so little of 
 Christianity as to forget that we are brothers, the guardian- 
 ship of the Holy Sepulchre will be left with the more liberal 
 and impartial Turk. 
 
JEWS. 397 
 
 CHAPTER LVIII. 
 
 JEWS. 
 
 T N one of our rides from Olivet to Bethlehem, we find the 
 Tomb of Rachel open ; a mob of men, women, little 
 ones, squatting on the stones j some droning prayers from 
 printed scraps of paper ; some beating their temples against 
 the pillars ; all crying piteously to the dead mother of 
 Joseph and Benjamin for help. 
 
 The pillar which Jacob is said to have set up over the 
 ashes of his beloved wife, is built of loose stones, bound 
 together by cement ; low in height ; in form a rude altar ; the 
 surface being smoothed and whitened, and the fair page 
 scrawled over with Hebrew names and ejaculations. A 
 square room, covered by a Saracenic dome, protects this 
 grave ; in the eyes of Jew, Christian, and Mohammedan 
 alike, one of the holiest spots of the earth. The outer 
 chamber, serving for a door of entry, has been added by 
 some native sheikh. 
 
 Once a year, the Rabbi comes from Jerusalem with a 
 procession of men and women, to throw himself at Rachel's 
 feet, recite a long form of prayer, and wail over the departed 
 glories of his race. This passionate grief has spent itself for 
 eighteen hundred years ; yet the men seem choking with 
 agony, and the women and children sobbing as though their 
 hearts would break. 
 
 At Hebron, Zion, Safed, every place in which a Jew is 
 found (not the trading Jew, who comes to Jaffa and Beyrout, 
 
398 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 buying and selling, and making money, as he would other- 
 wise have gone to Glasgow, Fez, and San Francisco ; but 
 the Jew of Restoration theories, a man who has been drawn 
 from his home in Houndsditch, the Marais, the Ghetto, the 
 Juden Gasse, and sent back to Palestine by Christian help) 
 — this pecularity is to be noted about him — that he is 
 always wailing and at prayer ; never cheery and at work. 
 A Syrian Jew at work ! the very words seem to spurn each 
 other. 
 
 Taking into account the Ashkenazim, the newest comers 
 into the land, there are said to be six or seven thousand 
 Jews in Palestine, more or less restored, which means, in 
 honest English, more or less dependent for their bread on 
 alms. Oldest of these swarms on Zion is the colony of 
 Sephardim; men who claim to have been driven out of 
 Spain by Isabella the Catholic, and to have found a home, 
 denied to them by a Christian queen, under the benignant 
 sceptre of a Moslem prince. 
 
 We Christians cannot pride ourselves on having been 
 either very wise or very logical in our treatment of the holy 
 race. 
 
 In the middle ages we shut them up in ghettos; we declared 
 them infamous ; we banished them, robbed them, roasted 
 them alive ; treated them as vermin, not as human beings. 
 And why ? Because in another age and country, an aristo- 
 cratic and unpopular high priest, w^hom the people afterwards 
 rose upon and murdered, had, from political motives, cmcified 
 our Lord ? Far, very far, was that from being the cause. No 
 passion will bum for a thousand years. The English who 
 drove out the Jews under Edward, the Spaniards who 
 banished them under Isabella, were thinking less perhaps of 
 Annas than of Maimonides ; less of the unforgotten Jewish 
 crime than of the unsocial Jewish code. A Jew's hand was 
 supposed to be against every man's, and by the rule of moral 
 dynamics every man's hand was turned against him. 
 
 All that the Oral Law had made the Galileans, it made 
 their children under the Dispersion. Every Roman writer. 
 
JEWS. 399 
 
 every Christian father, who refers to the Jews of his day, 
 uses the language of denunciation ; treating these exiles as 
 a people of (qw talents and no virtues; gloomy, fierce, 
 intractable ; whose bravery in war was but a savage glee ; in 
 a word, as enemies of the whole human race. Tacitus, 
 Juvenal, Suetonius, felt no anger against them on account 
 of Christ; yet these Pagan writers described them in the 
 blackest tints. Lust of gain might tempt a Jew to sell com 
 and oil, to lend money on usury to a Roman ; but not even 
 lust of pelf could induce him to eat at a Roman table, sleep 
 under a Greek roof, help a Gaul in his distress, or marry 
 into an Iberian's house. All Gentiles v/ere to him hateful 
 and abominable. Nothing could persuade a Jewish beggar 
 that a European prince was his equal ; and pedlars who 
 could not recite their own shema, prided themselves on 
 their superiority to masters of Hellenic eloquence and art. 
 This pride was carried so far, and shown so offensively, that 
 eminent rabbins, even so late as the reign of Saladin, taught 
 in the public schools of Spain and Egypt, that a Jew was so 
 fenced about with holiness, he could not travel in the same 
 caravan with a Frank for fear of pollution. 
 
 Thus, the Jews, by their own acts and teachings, cut 
 themselves off from fellowship with their kind ; and hating 
 the whole world, the world repaid them wiih scorn and 
 wTong, confining them in ghettos, borrowing their money, 
 putting them to the question, roasting them alive. 
 
 But the Western Franks, after taking a few centuries to 
 think of it, have, of their own will, repealed these old and 
 barbarous laws ; allowing the Jew to come back into our 
 midst ; a free man, a citizen of London, Paris, New York ; 
 equal before the law, eligible for office ; opposing our light 
 and liberty to his darkness and superstition; convinced 
 that in the long day of strife the noblest weapons will always 
 win the fight. This confidence in light, justice, and fra- 
 ternity, is the philosophy that Jesus taught. It came to 
 us from a Jewish source, and in the fulness of time it is 
 returning to the Jews from whom we learnt it. We begin 
 
400 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 to perceive that when a Jew has become a good English- 
 man, he has made a considerable progress towards the 
 religion of Christ. 
 
 Some among us would would go farther and faster. 
 Action and reaction are equal ; and as we went very far 
 astray in persecution, it is likely that we shall go far astray 
 in patronage. Taking up the work of Providence, a 
 number of zealous men and women have begun the mighty 
 labour of transferring Houndsditch and the Marais to Zion. 
 Does that duty lie upon us ? 
 
 Is it certain that a bodily return of the Jews to Palestine 
 is a Christian idea ? Is it not rather certain that the physical 
 kingdom is a Pharisaical notion, foreign to Christ ? Surely, 
 if the Jews are to be restored to Jerusalem at all, they are 
 to be restored in the spirit, not in the flesh, by reconcilia- 
 tion to His people and communion with His Church. Our . 
 Lord founded his Church in Jerusalem, and by divine ap- 
 pointment that Church has never yet sunk into the home of a 
 mere sect. It is the one true Church of Frank and Greek, 
 of Copt and Armenian, of Chaldee and Maronite ; its doors 
 open to all ; its services free to all ; and a reconciliation 
 with this Church, by the ways of culture, purity, and social 
 progress, offers, as some think, the only restoration possible 
 to the Jews. 
 
 In order to effect such a return, it is not necessary for 
 Houndsditch to be driven across the seas and up the hills into 
 Judea. The Church of Jerusalem is about us everywhere ; 
 for it is built in the heart of every man who has learned 
 the great law of loving his neighbour as himself. 
 
 There are said to be seven millions of Jews alive ; of 
 whom less than seven thousand have been landed in Acre 
 and Jaffa ; poured into a land without roads, capital, com- 
 merce, agriculture, peace. Who shall say at how much 
 cost? 
 
 In the convent of Mar Elias I was told a story of one 
 attempt to place this restoration movement on a rational — 
 that. is to say, an economical and practicable — basis. This 
 
y£ws. 401 
 
 tale, told me by a man who was perhaps wanting in reve- 
 rence, since he had lived in Judea for twenty years, and 
 had learned to regard men and affairs in that country from 
 a humorous rather than a sentimental side, may be read, if 
 the reader pleases, as an Apologue : 
 
 A man of science, living in New York, is said to have 
 amused his leisure by writing down a list of the sums which 
 had been spent in restoring about six thousand Jews to the 
 Holy Land ; showing the cost per head in hundreds of 
 pounds sterling. He is said to have shrunk appalled from 
 the line of figures when his zeal induced him to multiply the 
 remaining seven millions (speaking roughly) by that average 
 cost. England is known to have spent much money on 
 war ; but her mighty mound of debt is a molehill beside 
 the magnitude of that restoration fund. A doubt having 
 seized this man of science, it was whispered from lip to lip, 
 until the broad question got under weigh, as to whether the 
 societies of London and New York, aided by branch 
 societies in Stoke Pogis and Pough Keepsie, would suftice 
 to equip and transport the tribes, unless the six thousand 
 Jews already sent home, and the fresh arrivals in due course, 
 should begin to earn their bread ? All the actuaries said — 
 No. What then was to be done? Consult some of the 
 best Jews of Jerusalem ? Well, the Sephardim were con- 
 sulted on the policy of asking the restored community to 
 labour. Few men have any difficulty in seeing another 
 man's duty ; but the Sephardim could not easily see their 
 way in that direction of getting the Jews to work. In 
 their European homes, these Jews had been merchants ; 
 selling pencils, sponges, old clothes ; but where in Zion and 
 Hebron were the openings for such sales ? As the Greek 
 never writes, there is no call for pencils ; as the Hebrew 
 never washes, there is no demand for sponges ; as the Arab 
 wears no garments, save the rag in which he is bom and 
 buried, there is no supply of old clothes. But even if such 
 trades were brisk, six thousand Jews could barely expect to 
 thrive on the wants of four or five thousand Arabs and 
 
 2 D 
 
402 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 Greeks. So, when sponges, rhubarb, toys, old clothes, and 
 toothpicks had been weighed and set aside, some one took 
 the liberty of suggesting land. There is always the land. 
 Grain still waves in Sharon, olives and vines still bloom in 
 Judea. Hinnom was once a garden, and the great plain of 
 Rephaim grew barley enough to tempt the Philistines from 
 the sea. But the Jews, it is said, felt safe against all these 
 snares of science ; for a Jew is an alien, and no alien in 
 Syria is allowed to buy land. Yet, as men will go a long 
 way for their theories, the reformers went to Stamboul, where 
 by patience and piastres they succeeded in persuading the 
 Caliph to grant them a special firman, enabling them to buy 
 and to hold land in Judah. The battle was won, said the 
 men of science. Having bought a noble piece of the soil 
 from an Arab aga, they proposed that certain families of 
 Jews should be chosen, as a privilege, to plant and tend it ; 
 being paid for their toil in wages and in kind ; and after a 
 few years of culture and success, receiving as a gift the land 
 which they should have then made fmitful by their tilth and 
 care. The families were chosen, the tracts laid out, the 
 olive trees bought. But the labourer slackened in his zeal ; 
 mid-day found him dozing in the shade ; and in the morn- 
 ing he was absent from his patch. The planting was never 
 finished and the crop never garnered. After three months 
 of trial the experiment came to an end. 
 
 High words being spoken in the West, excuse was made 
 for the poor Jews that the men had been badly chosen ; the 
 selected olive dressers-being taken from the refuse of St. 
 Mary Axe, men who had never before handled a rake, and 
 who could not tell the good soil from the bad. Very well, 
 said London and New York ; try again, with these better 
 lights. Among the poor Ashkenazim, being Polish and 
 German peasants, there must be many who have been used 
 to dig and delve, and to whom the culture of an olive 
 garden near Jerusalem will not be a heavier toil than cutting 
 fir trees in frost and snow. Yet the results were very much 
 the same. Like his London brother, the Pole escaped from 
 
JE IVS. 403 
 
 his labour in the field, and could not be persuaded to return. 
 In vain it was pointed out to him, that by steady labour he 
 might make himself a man ; that after ten or twelve years of 
 earnest thrift he would be able to sit under his own vine and 
 fig tree. He would not work. 
 
 Then the men of science, k~>.owing that individuals and 
 societies are governed by the same natural laws, insisted on 
 inquiries being made as to why a knot of poor Jews, li\dng 
 on alms in the back slums and filthy alleys of Jerusalem, 
 should have one and all declined to become cultivators of 
 olive fields and vineyards, with a sure prospect of becoming 
 in good time owners and occupiers of their fields ? An 
 answer was ready. The beneficence of London and New 
 York, it was said, already sufficed for their simple wants ; 
 the rabbins who dispensed this beneficence to their flocks 
 had no wish to see them withdrawn from the city ; and in 
 short the experiment failed because a committee of men of 
 science presumed to direct and control Jehovah's plans. 
 
 And in making this answer (in other words, and with 
 much courtesy of phrase) the Jews felt that their position 
 v/as strong. They were not arguing with the world ; only 
 with those who considered it a duty to persuade the sponge- 
 seller and old clothesman to go and live in Zion, not 
 because he liked it, but because he would be paid for 
 doing so. To those who would play Providence over him, 
 had not the Jew a right to say : The return of Israel to 
 the Holy Land is not a work to be conceived by a com- 
 mittee, conducted on commercial principles, and made to 
 pay ten per cent. ? It is to be a miracle ; a crowning act of 
 love. As the Dispersion was, so will the Restoration be. 
 
 London and New York were made to feel that their part 
 of the plan for restoring Israel was to collect piastres and 
 hold their peace. 
 
 Then, the land which in a few years would have belonged 
 to the Ashkenazim, passed over into the hands of the more 
 worldly and industrious Greeks; men who, long in fore- 
 sight knowinsj the landlords' power, and looking to the 
 
404 THE HOL V LAND. 
 
 future of their Church, buy up every rood of ground that finds 
 its way into the market. Sales of land are rare. A Moslem 
 aga has an English squire's humour for the possession of 
 much dirt, and the State policy discourages any transfer of 
 the soil into alien hands. Yet the shrewd, insinuating Greek 
 is slowly gaining for himself the few corn-fields, the best 
 olive-groves in Judah ; and among the great barons of 
 Palestine must be reckoned the Priors of St. Constantine, 
 Mar Saba, and the Holy Cross. 
 
SYRIAN CONVENTS. 405 
 
 CHAPTER LIX. 
 
 SYRIAN CONVENTS. 
 
 A SYRIAN convent may belong to any one of the grand 
 -^^ divisions of the Christian Church; for Greek and 
 Latin, Copt and Armenian, Melchite and Maronite, have 
 each and all availed themselves of Moslem toleration to set 
 up their own chapels and religious houses. People who in 
 their own countries are weak enough to refuse a Jew per- 
 mission to build a synagogue, a Mohammedan to erect a 
 mosque, are not ashamed to enjoy under the Sultan's rule 
 the most perfect liberty of worship. Even Spain, which 
 repels the Hebrew and the Moor from its soil, and refuses 
 the Anglican and the Greek the comfort of having a church 
 in Madrid, may in Palestine construct its convents and altars 
 in ostentatious rivalry to the native mosque. We Franks 
 have much charity to learn from these Orientals. 
 
 But, of all the Christian churches in Palestine, the Greek 
 Church alone appears to see hoAv its religious houses can be 
 turned to any practical account in mastering the country 
 and its people. 
 
 The Greek convents had a different origin to the Frank. 
 From Alexander's days the Greeks have been in Syria ; for 
 a long time they were its rulers, and they have always been 
 either its secular or its religious guides. They built the 
 first Gentile churches, and they inherited the Essenic settle- 
 ments in the Dead Sea wastes. They were, in fact, the 
 original Christians of this land, and the convents which 
 
4o6 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 they built in Judah were their natural homes. A Latin 
 convent, on the contrary, was by its very nature a strangers' 
 house ; serving, in the first place, as a hotel, in the second 
 place as a fortress, in the third place as a prison. When a 
 stream of pilgrims from London and Paris, Rome and 
 Vienna, began to flow into the Sharon ports, bringing a 
 crowd of men who were nice in their habits, rich in their 
 attire, to whom a lodging such as that under the tree at 
 Kuryet el Enab or by the tank at Jericho, was odious, a 
 demand for bed and supper, for cells and stables, caused 
 the Latin hospice to start up. A traveller in a land like 
 Palestine is content with little : a high wall, a strong gate, a 
 cool chamber, a well, and a cook. To these things add a 
 long table, plenty of spare cells, with just as many friars as 
 may suffice to serve the guests, and your establishment is 
 complete. The Latin convent is in theory an asylum, not 
 an inn. No bill is made out and signed ; for you are 
 supposed to be a pious pilgrim, making a holy tour, and 
 carrying no purse and scrip. No ; there is no charge. 
 Your highness may drop a dole into the common box, if 
 your highness pleases. Of course you will please. Gold 
 will not offend the brethren. You must not fancy you are 
 paying a bill ; but giving to the poor and lending to the 
 Lord. Charity knows no tariff; on Carmel you may pay 
 twenty piastres for a cup of coffee, at Nazareth ten piastres 
 for a glass of lemon-water. A month at Mar EHas will 
 waste your means like a month at Brighton ; and a sojourn 
 with the Armenian fathers on Mount Zion is no less costly 
 than a residence at Long's. 
 
 Yet none of these Latin convents pay their cost. They 
 are never full of guests, and for months together they may 
 not behold a stranger's face. Ramleh and Nazareth are the 
 busiest; but they do not pay their expenses. Carmel is 
 conducted at a serious loss. If the Greeks do better than 
 the Franks, it is because the inmates of their convents are 
 colonists ; because they know the country, and practise the 
 arts by which laymen thrive. 
 
SYRIA.V CONVENTS. 407 
 
 A convent may be one thing or another. It may stand in 
 the mountains Hke Carmel, or nestle in a hollow like the 
 Holy Cross ; it may camp out in the wilderness like Mar 
 Saba, or dominate a caravan road like Ramleh. It may be 
 of any age and style; for in the Russian convent of Ncav 
 Jerusalem the mortar is not yet dry, and the legends of the 
 Maronite edifice on Mount Sinai go back for a thousand 
 years. Yet the main distinctions among these religious 
 houses are the uses to which they are severally put by 
 Frank and Greek. 
 
 The Latin convents, however much they may differ as to 
 site, service, and government, have certain negative proper- 
 ties in common which they never shed. A Latin convent 
 in the Holy Land is not a nursery of learning, not a 
 hospital for the sick, not a missionary station, not a school 
 of agriculture, art, and trade. The fathers seek no duties 
 among the people in whose towns and villages they dwell. 
 To count their beads, to repeat their ofiices, to sing lauds 
 and complines, and, like St. John of the Cross, their mystic 
 model, to dream away the day and night, is their rule of life. 
 Their deeds are not for men, and they must hope to be 
 saved by grace and not by works. They neither feed the 
 hungry, nor clothe the naked. Not one man in a hundred 
 among them ever sets himself to learn the native tongue. 
 They take no measures for the rescue of Paynim souls. 
 Hating the country, despising the peasants, they regard 
 their convent as a prison and their residence as an exile. 
 As a rule, they have not come into Palestine of their own 
 desire, nor do they live here now with their free consent. 
 Of course, it would be unfair to cast a reproach on all ; 
 among hundreds of holy men, many must be truly devout 
 and honest, worthy to be called the brethren of St. Francis 
 and St. Theresa; still, the great monastic bodies of Syria 
 regard their residence in the land as banishment from a 
 more joyous home in Italy or Spain. 
 
 The truth must be told :— a convent in Syria has been 
 found a convenient jail. Having no Australia, no Cayenne, 
 
4oS THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 of her own, the Latin Church is said to have made a handy 
 sort of penal colony in the Holy Land, for such priests and 
 friars as are either too good or too bad for Europe to 
 endure. A monk who has scandalized Madrid, a brother 
 whom Naples cannot forgive, may be sent away by ecclesi- 
 astical orders, without incurring noisy protest and public 
 scandal, for a dozen, or twenty years ; in the firm hope, not 
 often thwarted, that the unruly fellow may find peace from 
 either fever, dysentery, or an Arab lance. It may be 
 doubted whether this penal discipline is a good thing for 
 the Latin Church in Palestine. Bating the want of freedom 
 to go astray, the life led by these exiles is not a very hard 
 one. A monk of Carmel never goes among the poor, a 
 brother of Gareb has no charge of souls. His chief duties 
 are to dangle after pilgrims, to chatter about the news, to 
 show the lions of his abode, and to wait with a dumb and 
 eloquent hunger for his vails. Beyond these troubles, he 
 has only to recite a daily prayer, to lock his doors against 
 the Ishmaelite, and to keep his shaven crown from the 
 noontide sun. He may indulge himself with many carnal 
 comforts. Wine is cheap. Fruits are abundant. Tobacco 
 is not forbidden. In some religious houses they keep 
 private stills and make tolerable cordials. A Greek is far 
 less lax in his discipline than a Frank, yet even in the 
 Essene settlement of Mar Saba, where Demetrius denies 
 you goat's flesh and mutton in favour of roots and wild 
 honey, you will be proftered the consolation of raki. The 
 Latins eat flesh, which they know how to stew in oil. 
 
 In this world of tears, every man has some drawback to 
 his happiness ; but grant the Latin monk a good conscience, 
 a skilful cook, a flask of sweet Cyprus wine at table, with an 
 afternoon pipe on the convent roof, and he may learn in 
 time to endure the privations of a convent life. 
 
 How far the Latin Church may gain or lose credit by 
 having such men to represent her in the Holy Land is 
 another thing. 
 
 The course pursued by the Greek communities is wiser. 
 
SYRIAN CONVENTS. 409 
 
 The Greek father makes himself at home in his convent and 
 in the country. He Hves there, he means to die there. If 
 the language is not native to him, he learns to speak it. If 
 the Arabs are unfriendly to him he tries to win them over 
 by service. He trains himself to mix potions, to dress 
 wounds, to choose seed and grain, to graft trees, and to pre- 
 serve dates and olives. Having to dwell among a Moslem 
 people, he feels that it will not do to treat them altogether 
 like dogs. In a thousand ways he learns how he can 
 befriend them and gain credit with them; while carefully 
 eschewing such controversies as might offend their pride of 
 faith. He employs their labour when they are idle ; he 
 advances them money (on interest — as is right) ; he gives 
 them bandages and physic when they are sick ; until the 
 poor Arabs, though they may hear their benefactor called a 
 giaour, admit in their hearts that the Greek father is a very 
 good man. A convent like Mar Saba, instead of being a 
 barren refuge and lodging-house like Carmel and Ramleh, is 
 a centre of ideas, charities, and improvements for the whole 
 country side. The peasants look up to it ; the wandering 
 Bedaween respect it. Every nook of the wilderness in 
 which a plant will bloom, is the richer and greener for Mar 
 Saba. Of course, in the present Arab temper, there can be 
 no direct religious teaching ; nor is such labour of the 
 tongue either needful or desirable just now. Christianity is 
 a life to be lived, not a word to be professed. The best of 
 all sermons is a noble deed, and in worthy doing, the 
 circumstances under which the Greek of Palestine lives 
 enables him to appear to some advantage when compared 
 against a Frank. 
 
 The chief thought of a Latin monk is how he can guard 
 his chest and larder, his robe and lamp. To this great end 
 of self-defence, his wall is built high and thick, his doorway 
 is made small and strong. A convent being wholly unarmed 
 in the midst of warlike, predatory tribes, every man of whom 
 owns a firelock, bolts and chains have to do duty for sword 
 and lance. The door is plated with iron. A tower over- 
 
4IO THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 looks the entrance, and when a man is to be admitted within 
 the gates, as many precautions are used as would be taken 
 in a city under siege. A lamp is kept burning through the 
 night, and a watch is maintained by the monks in turn. 
 
 In spite of much care, the convents of Palestine are some- 
 times forced and robbed ; but this is a case extremely rare, 
 even with the Greek convents, which are known to be rich 
 in silver and gold, and which have no Zouaves and fire-ships 
 to avenge their wrongs. In truth, a monk of Mar Saba, of 
 Mar Elias, of the Holy Cross, has come to be regarded as 
 one of the Arab's best friends. 
 
 Should a Frank regret and oppose this mastery of the 
 Greek church in Syria ? I cannot think it would be wise to 
 do so. The old fear of our finding a Muscovite in every 
 Greek is at an end ; and in Palestine the Czar has no hotter 
 adversaries than those dwelling in the Greek religious 
 houses. Have we not judged our brethren a little too 
 much in the spirit of sect ? Of course, a Greek of the 
 Levant is somewhat undertaught ; but he is apt and shrewd ; 
 and in Palestine, at least, he seems to be laying the founda- 
 tion of his empire in the only way in which a solid founda- 
 tion can be laid — by gaining a property in the soil, and an 
 influence over the native tribes. Our brother may have 
 many faults ; he may believe in the holy fire, and in num- 
 berless legends of the saints ; he may wear a different garb, 
 and follow another rubric ; yet he is still our brother. Why 
 should we resist his progress ? He is an Oriental, addressing 
 himself to Orientals. And is not every patch of earth that 
 he reclaims, every Arab whom he wins, every olive that he 
 plants, a gain for that Church which represents peace on 
 earth and good-will to men ? 
 
LYDDA. 4u 
 
 CHAPTER LX. 
 
 LYDDA. 
 
 /^N our way down from the hill country into the plain, 
 ^-^^ by the way of Beth-horon (Said with the baggage in 
 advance ; Ishmael, of many piastres, a youth who will one 
 day be a banker and perhaps a pasha, at his side ; Yakoub 
 slightly in the rear), a single horseman dashes past us ; a 
 man with long boots, a tall hat, a furred cloak, a yellow face ; 
 not an Oriental, it would seem, and certainly not a pure 
 Frank. In the stony desert of Beit Ur we overtake, salute, 
 and pass him. He is badly mounted and a vicious rider. 
 Left behind on the road, he is soon forgotten ; the more so 
 that a long ride and a fiery sun have made us sick for food, 
 and strain after shade and water ; but so soon as the mat is 
 spread by Yakoub, the bunch of sticks fired by Ishmael, the 
 bread and chickens unpacked by Said, the stranger trots up, 
 throws himself from his horse, draws near to the carpet, and 
 whispers to Yakoub that he hopes to be invited to share our 
 meal. 
 
 Now, welcome to strangers is a habit of the country older 
 than its recorded annals ; a habit which has known no 
 interruption save during that reign of the Oral Law when 
 ever}'thing went wrong ; for among an Arab people the act 
 of breaking bread with a stranger is not only an act of 
 charity, but a bond of peace. Bread is life. Before eating 
 with a man, you are an alien, maybe an enemy; after 
 eating, you are a friend, a brother, a guest. To beg for 
 
412 
 
 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 bread is therefore, in a certain sense, to ask for peace. If 
 you should be engaged in a sacred office — visiting the sick, 
 praying for the dead, preaching to the poor — you may fairly 
 claim food and drink at the nearest house or tent. There 
 is no discredit in being hungry and fatigued ; and no hajjee, 
 whether Moslem or Christian, is ashamed to beg meat and 
 shade. Yet a Saxon and a Gaul never do so ; and the 
 intruder upon our meal soon shows that he is a Muscovite 
 and a Greek. No Frank would have the boldness to 
 attempt what he has done. 
 
 He was a farmer in the Ukraine ; a breeder of horses and 
 kine \ busy with his labours, when the thought came upon 
 him that he should recite a prayer over the Virgin's fountain 
 and the Saviour's tomb. With a few copecs in his belt and 
 a sack of meal on his pony, he rode to Odessa, where he 
 sold his beast and bought a passage to Beyrout. From the 
 Lebanon to Nazareth, from Nazareth to Jerusalem, he 
 trudged on foot ; now joining caravans, now going on alone ; 
 always cheery and hungry ; one night sleeping under an 
 olive, the next night in a convent ; never too proud to beg, 
 or to help himself freely from the roadside grapes and figs. 
 He made his journey and relieved his soul. When about 
 to return, a Greek pope lent him the poor mare, which he 
 is to leave with the Russian consul in Jaffa, from whom he 
 expects to get a deck passage in some Russian boat going 
 nome to the Black Sea. No one thinks his proceeding 
 odd — for every year a thousand pilgrims arrive in Jerusalem 
 without a piastre in their pockets and with scarce a rag 
 upon their backs. 
 
 In judging our brethren of the East, it is well to 
 remember that they all have more or less of this childlike 
 faith. 
 
 Lydda, the bright little town of many names — the Hebrew 
 Lod, the Greek Lydda, the Roman Diospolis, the Frank 
 St. George, the Arab Lud — is a place of ten or twelve good 
 houses, and a hundred poor huts, with the ruins of a fine 
 English church, standing in the midst of Sharon ; a town 
 
LYDDA. 
 
 413 
 
 of figs and mulberries, with date-trees growing in the streets, 
 and olives and oranges hanging over every wall. The 
 whole countryside may be described as an orchard. Arabs 
 call the plain round Lydda the garden of Palestine, and to 
 distinguish it from the rest of this green district it is known 
 as the Field of Sharon. Water abounds, and the warmth is 
 tropical. The loam is dark and ruddy, free from the sterile 
 sands of the sea, and the not less sterile limestone of the 
 hills. A hardy and industrious Moslem people till the soil 
 and gather in the crops of grain. Few scenes in Palestine 
 have a more perfect Arab character than the gate of Lydda, 
 A\dth its palms and pomegranates, its string of passing 
 camels, its knot of effendis smoking, and its group of girls 
 gossiping at the well. 
 
 Yet the story of Lydda is not less typical than the names. 
 It was built by the three sons of Elpaal ; reoccupied after 
 the Exile ; separated from Samaria under Jonathan Mac- 
 cabeus ; annexed to Judah as part of the Temple property ; 
 taken by the Romans ; ravaged by Cassius ; restored by 
 Anthony j visited by St. Peter, who founded a church within 
 its walls ; burned to the ground by Cestius Gallus ; colonized 
 by Vespasian ; made the seat of a Jewish college, of a 
 Roman court, and of a Christian bishop \ rebuilt by Hadrian 
 as Diospolis, city of Jove j honoured by the birth and burial 
 of St. George ; adorned by Justinian j disturbed by the 
 heresy of Pejagius ; captured by the Saracens ; retaken by 
 the Crusaders ; destroyed by Saladin ; garrisoned by Lion 
 Heart. Perhaps the most singular event in its strange 
 history was its division by Richard and Saladin into two 
 parts, a Christian side and a Moslem side, in which it was 
 agreed that under the protection of St. George, a martial 
 and heroic saint, worthy to be the patron of gallant men, 
 the English knight and his Saracenic foe, a foe no longer, 
 should dwell in peace and charity with each other, the 
 Frank being free to kneel in his church, the Arab in his 
 mosque. 
 
 Other times brought other men ; knights less magnani- 
 
^14 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 mous than Richard, Sultans less wise than Saladin ; yet the 
 lessons of this gracious treaty were not wholly lost, Eng- 
 land adopted St. George of Lydda as her patron ; and the 
 Saracens not only continued to respect the Frankish 
 Church, but added to their own calendar the name of our 
 English saint. For many years after the last Crusader had 
 retired from Lydda, the Christian church was kept in repair 
 by English funds, and when these moneys ceased to flow 
 into Palestine, the beautiful remains were protected against 
 waste and theft by the erection in one corner of a tiny 
 mosque : a plan which the Latins have wisely imitated from 
 the Saracens, and applied to the Pantheon, the Colosseum, 
 and other imperial edifices in Rome. 
 
 In spite of its Arab charms, Lydda will always present 
 itself to the imagination as an English place. Under these 
 palms and myrtles, St. George, the lord of chivalry and 
 courtesy, was born ; and under this sacred pile, preserved 
 for us by Moslem care, his ashes are said to lie. And how 
 have we treated our warlike saint? In a way to make a 
 Mohammedan flush with ire. It is doubtful, perhaps, 
 whether any poor saint in the calendar has either achieved 
 a higher glory, or suffered a deeper wrong, than George. 
 For six hundred years we have borne his banner of the red 
 cross into every corner of the globe; we have placed his 
 badge on the noblest breasts ; we have kept his day as our 
 special feast; we have given his name to the most regal 
 chapel in our land ; we have dedicated to him a hundred 
 churches ; and while we have been doing all these things in 
 his honour, we have been indolently content to allow our 
 greatest historical writer to describe him as one of the 
 lowest scamps and darkest villains who ever stained this 
 earth with crime. The St. George of our common books 
 was a low fellow : born in a shop, in an obscure provincial 
 town ; who rose from a servile condition by the arts of a 
 parasite ; who sold swine-flesh to the arniy and made 
 money by frauds on the treasury; who fled away from 
 justice, joining the sect of Arians in Egypt, and becoming 
 
L YDDA. 
 
 415 
 
 archbishop of Alexandria ; who cast into prison all men 
 differing from himself in belief; who robbed the merchants, 
 played the part of informer and spy, and was at length most 
 justly murdered by his own people, exposed in the public 
 streets of Alexandria, and cast like a dead cur into the sea. 
 But the true St. George of the calendar, the true St. George 
 of England, was another m.an. Our George was a Syrian 
 saint, as Mohammedan story, not less than Christian story, 
 tells. We had two Georges in history, and, to our shame, 
 we have made them one 
 
 ST. GEORGE'S CHURCH AT LYDDA. 
 
 Above the grave of St. George of Lydda, a church was 
 built in very early times, some say so early as by Justinian : 
 a convent grew up beside it ; and for many ages the town 
 itself was known to crusading knights by no other name 
 than that of St. George. In the first retreat of Saladin 
 
4i6 THE HOL Y LAND. 
 
 before the Lion Heart, the wall and church of Lydda were 
 destroyed. Richard spent much time in the place, in the 
 neighbouring Ramleh, and in the meadows and orchards 
 between these towns. Tradition asserts that he rebuilt the 
 church of St. George in Lydda; a legend which is likely 
 enough to be true, and is sustained by the beautiful ruins 
 now standing near the mosque. Yon arch might belong to 
 a part of either Furness or Glastonbury. 
 
 St. George having become a Moslem as well as a 
 Christian saint, Lydda has taken a conspicuous place in the 
 Arabic traditions. These agas and effendis, smoking and 
 chatting by the gate, may never have heard of Saladin's 
 treaty, and of the toleration in which Saracen and Latin 
 once lived together in the town of oranges and pome- 
 granates ; but they know that St. George is a martial saint, 
 and they beHeve that the fiercest battle of the latter times 
 will be fought on this very spot. Al Dajjal, the one-eyed 
 Cafir, the Anti-Christ, whom the Jews are said to call 
 Messiah ben David, is then — according to these Moslem 
 traditions — to arise on the frontiers of Syria, to lay waste 
 kingdoms, and to assume the dominion of land and sea. 
 The whole earth will be afraid of him. He is to ride upon 
 an ass, to be followed by the Persian Jews, and to bear the 
 brand of Cafir on his brow. Then a stir will be heard 
 about the white tower near Damascus; Jesus Christ will 
 descend from heaven upon that spot ; and, gathering his 
 people into one camp, He will drive Al Dajjal before Him, 
 across the Hauran, across the Jordan, through Galilee and 
 Samaria into the Plain of Sharon, and finally engaging him 
 in the gateway of Lydda, He will transfix the monster with 
 a lance. Jesus, say these legends, will then march up to 
 Jerusalem, arriving at sunrise, at the hour of morning 
 prayer, when the Imaum will give way before him, and 
 Jesus will put up the early prayer. Setting up his throne in 
 Zion, He will prepare the kingdom of God by causing 
 justice to be observed and truth to be taught ; so that all 
 men shall be happy and the whole earth at peace. 
 
LYDDA. 4,7 
 
 So far the spirit of these legends may perhaps be traced 
 to the bright Httle episode of Saladin's treaty— to the 
 charities of a time when the Moslem and Christian knights 
 laymg aside their lances and morions, dwelt together in 
 Lydda. Then comes the spirit of a later day, of a new 
 estrangement; and the legends go off into fables about 
 Jesus becoming a Mohammedan, manydng a wife, and 
 tearing down the Cross. 
 
 Yet even in their corrupted state, these legends of Lydda 
 suggest how much truth and beauty may come of a little 
 toleration. And if one touch of charity can make the 
 Frank and Arab somewhat of kin, who shall limit the power 
 of a whole scripture of love ? 
 
 If we could only rise above the spirit of sect, of service, 
 and of form ! Are ceremonies vital ? He who died in the 
 flesh, that men might live in the spirit, appeared as though 
 He set no store on names and forms ; for He founded no 
 system, He published no laws. The religion which He 
 gave to his people was a holy life. Fear God ; love one 
 another ; such were his rules. In his system, fear of God is 
 not a slave's dread of his lord, still less a Persian's dread of 
 Ahriman, but a wholesome objection to living othenvise 
 than in accordance with the divine and natural laws. 
 In his system, the love of man is not the pride of a 
 father in his son, of a citizen in his friend, but the 
 reverence and affection which we owe to each other as 
 sons of God. 
 
 The Jew is our brother ; the Moslem is oui brother. We 
 have all Abraham to our father : an Arab in the flesh, a 
 Frank in the spirit. We bow to one and the same 
 God. Is it a dream to imagine that a time may come 
 when all these children of Jehovah shall be gathered 
 into one fold ? 
 
 The earth belongs to them even now. Divided by sects 
 and weakened by wars, they are still the sole worshippers 
 who live and thrive, who make conquests over nature and 
 over men. The sea is theirs ; nearly all the land is theirs. 
 
 2 E 
 
41 8 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 In them beats the brain of the world. How are they to 
 become united in a common spiritual bond? How but 
 in God's own way — by the exercise of charity, by the 
 magnetism of love ? In war, the strong subdue the weak ; 
 but in morals and in faith, it is the just who subjugate the 
 frail. 
 
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