Cities of the Dawn

CHAPTER X
THE HOLY CITY

The three principal sights in Jerusalem are the Mosque of Omar, now standing on the site of Solomon’s Temple, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Muristan, which is the conglomerate remains of numerous edifices raised on the same spot in the course of ages, from Charlemagne to Saladin, but named from the madhouse built there by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre should be visited in the sunniest part of the day, as the interior is awfully dark. It may be that it is what it assumes to be. There are people who doubt this, as they do everything; but here countless pilgrims in all ages have come to pray and weep, and have kissed every stone and shrine to be seen within the sacred precincts. I have read somewhere how a young lady from the country came to town to hear the immortal Siddons, then in the zenith of her fame. As soon as the performance began, the young lady began to weep immediately. ‘If you weep in this way,’ said a gentleman to her, ‘you will have no tears to shed when the real Siddons appears.’ The same feeling occurs to you in Jerusalem. One is never sure that the people are wailing and weeping at the right place. People seem there so much taken up with the dead Christ that they are actually in danger of forgetting the living one, who speaks to us to-day as when He lifted up His Divine voice in the crowded streets of Jerusalem or beneath the proud pillars of the Temple itself.

The question has long been discussed whether the traditional site on which stands the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the true one. The matter turns upon the course of the city walls in the time of Christ. All are agreed that wherever the sepulchre was, it was without the gate, and not within Jerusalem. From the Gospels we learn that the tomb was rock-hewn, and that it was nigh the place of the Crucifixion. Major Conder’s excavations have almost conclusively proved that the traditional site was without the circuit of the city wall, and though the point cannot be considered as quite settled, there are very strong grounds for believing that the site was elsewhere. By the common consent of experts, the true site has been found a short distance north-east from the Damascus gate of the present city on the rocky knoll immediately above the Jeremiah Grotto of our Bible map. Indirectly, the so-called Jeremiah Grotto contributes some support to the modern identification. It is the spot where executions by stoning were carried out. The locality General Gordon brought into notice as the Holy Sepulchre seems to be quite unfounded. Major Conder points out that the tomb was no new discovery when the General was in Jerusalem – that it is probably not a Jewish tomb at all, and may be assigned to the middle ages.

It is a wonderful city, this old Jerusalem. It was here Solomon built his Temple a thousand years before Christ. This structure was subsequently destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, rebuilt by Zorobabel, and afterwards by Herod. Then came Titus and the Romans, who left the city a desolation. Of all its stateliness – the populous streets, the palaces of the kings, the fortresses of her warriors – not a ruin remains, except three tall towers and part of the western wall, which was left for the defence of the Roman camp. From a Roman point of view, Titus had well earned the honour of a triumph.

Of course in this connection one falls back on Gibbon: ‘In the midst of a rocky and barren country the walls of Jerusalem inclosed the two mountains of Sion and Acra within an oval figure of about three miles. Towards the south the upper town and the fortress of David were erected on the lofty ascent of Mount Zion; on the north side the buildings of the lower town covered the spacious summit of Mount Acra, and a part of the hill distinguished by the name of Moriah, and levelled by human industry, was crowned with the stately temple of the Jewish nation. After the final destruction of the temple by the arms of Titus and Hadrian a ploughshare was drawn over the consecrated ground, as a sign of perpetual interdiction. Sion was deserted, and the vacant space of the lower city was filled with the public and private edifices which spread themselves over the adjacent hill of Calvary. The holy places were polluted with monuments of idolatry; and, either from design or accident, a chapel was dedicated to Venus on the spot which had been sanctified by the death and resurrection of Christ. Almost 300 years after these stupendous events the profane chapel of Venus was demolished by the order of Constantine, and the removal of the earth and stone revealed the Holy Sepulchre to the eyes of mankind. A magnificent church was erected on that mystic ground by the first Christian emperor; and the effects of his pious munificence were extended to every spot which had been consecrated by the footsteps of patriarchs and prophets and the Son of God.’

Admirably Gibbon puts the case. Nevertheless, from that praiseworthy zeal on the part of Constantine, innumerable woes and awful demoralization have ensued. The history of Jerusalem has been dark and dolorous ever since. The priests reaped a golden harvest, and found a believing generation ever ready to accept even the most marvellous of their statements, the Empress Helena leading the way. The clergy made the most of these devout pilgrimages, and exhibited their powers of invention on an enormous scale. The more the pilgrims demanded, the greater the supply. The clergy fixed the scene of each memorable event. They exhibited the instruments which had been used in the passion of Christ: the nails and the lance that had pierced His hands, His feet, and His side; the crown of thorns that was planted on His head; the pillar at which he was scourged; and, above all, they showed the cross on which He had suffered – dug miraculously out of the ground! It seems to us impossible that the credulity of people could ever have been so great; but, alas! there are no miracles or traditions which devoted men and women are unable to swallow. Such miracles as seemed necessary found ample credence.

‘The custody of the true cross, which on Easter Tuesday,’ writes Gibbon, ‘was solemnly exposed to the people, was intrusted to the Bishop of Jerusalem; and he alone might gratify the curious devotion of the pilgrims by the gift of small pieces, which they enchased in gold or gems, and carried away in triumph to their respective countries. But as this gainful branch of commerce must soon have been annihilated, it was found convenient to suppose that the marvellous wood possessed a secret power of vegetation, and that its substance, though continually diminished, still remained entire and unimpaired.’ That is enough. It is unnecessary to carry our investigations any further. The only relics in which I could believe were the spurs of that grand old crusader, Godfrey of Bouillon. In that city of pretended sanctity, with its doubtful hallowed ground, it does one good to think of Campbell’s vigorous lines, never more applicable than now:

 
‘To incantations dost thou trust,
And pompous rites in domes august?
See, mouldering stone and metal’s rust
Belie the vaunt
That man can bless one pile of dust
With chime or chaunt.’
 

Be that as it may, all steps in Jerusalem are dogged with doubt. You hear a great deal more than you can believe. We tread on ruins and know what they are, – so far we can believe their testimony. Yet the city is full of surpassing interest. ‘After Rome,’ writes Dr. Russell Forbes, in his valuable little work, ‘The Holy City: its Topography, Walls, and Temples,’ ‘there is no city which appeals to the feelings like Jerusalem; the sympathy is deeper and stronger than that of Athens, which we place third on the list. As the sympathy towards the Eternal City is derived from profane history, so as it were in opposition, one’s feelings toward the Holy City owe their origin to sacred history. These two cities, sacred and profane, stand out boldly on the world’s surface like the figures in Titian’s celebrated picture – one appealing to the sun, the other to the wind. The sacred is more ancient than the profane, and the wind of controversy has swept equally over both, while the spade of modern science has in each case confounded the sceptic and established the truth of the unbroken records of the past.’ That is putting the case rather strongly. At any rate, in studying the topography of Ancient Rome the authorities are many. In Jerusalem they are few – but the Bible, Josephus and the Talmud. It is only of late that we got at the real Jerusalem. It was not till explorations, surveys, and excavations were made that anything beyond tradition, mostly false, was known of the ancient city. It is below its modern level that one has to trace the remains of the real Jerusalem. As Byron wrote of Rome, so we may say of the Holy City:

 
‘The Goth, the Christian, time, war, flood, and fire
Have dealt upon the seven-hilled city’s pride.
She saw her glories star by star expire,
And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride,
Where the car climbed the Capitol; far and wide,
Temple and tower went down, nor left a site:
Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void,
O’er the dim fragments cast a lunar light,
And say, “Here was, or is,” where all is doubly night?’
 

It was not till 1868 that the time arrived for cheap excursions to Jerusalem. The credit of the idea is to be given to the late Mr. Thomas Cook. In the time of the Crusades the bands which visited Palestine did so under a leader. At a later date parties travelled in the form of a caravan. Before visiting the lands of the Bible Mr. Cook consulted that eminent traveller and at one time popular author and lecturer, Mr. James Silk Buckingham, as to the best route, – and collected information from every available quarter. Then he made the trip by himself in 1868. On his return home he advertised a tour in Palestine and the Nile in the following spring. Before a month had elapsed thirty-two ladies and gentlemen had taken tickets for the trip to the Nile and Palestine, and thirty to Palestine only; and now they come by the hundred at a time, so popular is the trip. From the year 1868 up to 1891, 1,200 persons had visited Palestine under Cook’s protection. Many of these travellers held high social positions, such as their Royal Highnesses the Duke of Edinburgh, the Duke of Clarence and Avondale, Prince George of Wales; their Imperial Highnesses the Grand Duke and Duchess Sergius, the Grand Duke Paul of Russia, the King of Servia, and other travellers of distinction. It is a part of the business of the firm much patronized by American tourists and the clergy of all denominations. Up to the time of the firm taking up the matter, travellers were at the mercy of savage chiefs, who made them pay dearly for the permission which they granted to pass through their districts. These chiefs were as fickle as they were avaricious, and as dilatory as they were exacting. All this vexatious delay has vanished. When you start you are certain of arrival at the day indicated, and of being able to return in a similar manner. Moreover, the element of danger has been eliminated. You are safe in Jerusalem as in London – perhaps safer; for as there is always danger in the streets of London from hardened criminals and careless drivers of cabs and omnibuses, and the ever-increasing multitude of men and women who have taken to the bicycle – and ‘rush in where angels fear to tread.’

Finally, after Omar and Saladin, Syria and Palestine were conquered by Selim, and since then, with the slight advent of the Crusaders, have formed part of the Turkish Empire. The inhabitants complain a good deal of the injustice and corruption of the Turkish tax-gatherers, and I fancy not without reason; but that the city is prosperous and flourishing now is evident to the most superficial observer, from the number of new buildings erected in every direction. I believe it is a fact that the number of people living outside the city is far greater than the population within. It is a fashion to build schools and churches and convents everywhere, Russia in this respect standing ahead of the rest. I don’t care to go into the city. What I see there is all fiction, hallowed, if you like, by the superstition of ages. In the daytime all is noise and confusion. The trader sits in his little shop in a narrow street, covered from the sun, and there the people collect in every variety of costume – some in rags and almost naked; others, like the cavass of some consulate, in a dark, showy dress, with a grand sword hanging from his thigh; but the prevailing fashion seems to be a brown or blue jacket hanging over a print skirt extending down to the feet. Some are almost as black as niggers.

Immense as is the traffic of the city and the noise and tumult by day, the silence by night is equally wonderful. There is no living soul or body to be seen in the streets by night – nor a light; not even the bark of a dog is heard. There is scarce a street in which you can walk comfortably either inside Jerusalem or outside. There are stones everywhere to throw you down, and then there is the dust. That deserves a chapter in itself. It is simply awful. There is a cartload of it inside me now. It is white as snow; it fills the air; you can see nothing. As we got out of the railway-station, and got into carriages to drive towards the hotel, we could not see an inch of the way on account of the dust. To make it worse, the drivers all set out at full speed, and in the race to get in first it seemed to me that a collision was inevitable; however, happily, no casualty occurred. A poor unfortunate donkey was run over – that was all.

As an illustration of what the natives have to suffer under Turkish rule, let me give the following account of a gossip with a driver I met with. His father had died and left him a little property in the fertile plain of Sharon. The man did all he could to improve it – fenced it with stones, dug it over and enriched the soil, planted olive-trees and dates, and then, when the crop was nearly ready, the Turkish taxpayer came and demanded a third of the estimated value, and got it. In a fortnight after he was visited by the Bedouins, who took another third, and in the end the poor man had to give up his little farm. The Turks are bad, but the lawless Bedouins who harry the land are infinitely worse. For instance, one of our party drove down to Jericho by himself. He got out to walk in one part of the road, and got ahead of his driver. Immediately he found himself surrounded by a crew of these ruffians. Happily, he had with him the American Consul’s cavass, who, seeing the position, came up with his loaded revolver, at the sight of which the gentleman was rescued, as the rascals fled. There is no taming the Bedouin of the desert. He only owns the rule of his sheikh. The Turkish ruler of the province is afraid of him, and actually pays him a tribute to be allowed to send his yearly offering to Mecca. No wonder the land is bare of life. It is a wonder that there is any cultivation at all. The people are forced to live in villages, remote from one another, and there they defend themselves against the enemy as best they can. You see nowhere a farmhouse, a cottage, or country house. For miles and miles not a human habitation is visible.

As most of us are sitting half asleep in the smoking-room after our mid-day meal, a wailing sound reaches my ears. I rush to the window and see a funeral procession. Someone has died in one of the houses above us, and they are bearing the dead body into the city for burial. About 100 men and women follow, wailing as they go, while on each side of the coffin – a very unsightly structure borne on a rude bier – walk the black-robed priests, evidently of the Greek Church. The sight is not particularly imposing as the procession makes its way, while the world goes on selling and buying much as usual. I pity the poor mourners and the priests as they move slowly along. I know not, but perhaps the presence of so many priests may indicate that the deceased was a person of some consequence in his community.

I resume my writing, and then a native comes in to rub off the white dust which has come in through the open window. It is impossible to keep out the fine white dust, and all day the flies are equally troublesome. I hear of some of the ladies being bitten by the mosquitoes, but the latter, happily, leave me alone. The courteous manners of the dragomans who fill the hall of the hotel are amusing. All of them seem much interested as to my health, and anxiously inquire how I slept. As I write, Mr. Howard’s nephew is arranging the papers in the smoking-room; a native enters, who kisses the back of his hand with effusion – a pledge, I learn, of faithful service. As to the people in general, they seem to be mere drudges and to have little idea of amusement; amusement in the Holy City is not tolerated. Now and then you see in the narrow, darkened streets a few sitting round a hookah, enjoying a quiet smoke, but the people, dressed out in all the colours of the rainbow, plod up and down wearily in a never-ending stream, in pursuance of their daily tasks. A good deal of building is going on outside the city walls. There is no scaffolding, no hodman with bricks and mortar; the solid stone walls seem to grow up in the most hopeless confusion. Of course you see no decent carriages. Around the door of the hotel there is a daily collection of donkeys and horses and carriages, the last all white with dust and of the most rickety character. One would think they would fall to pieces over the bad roads, almost as bad as those of Constantinople; but I hear of no accident, though it seems as you watch the flying crowd that one may occur at any moment.

As I chat with my dragoman, I ask him if he is married. His reply is that he cannot afford it; it would cost him £60 to get a wife. Perhaps it were as well that the cost of a wife in England were as much; we might have fewer marriages of the kind that tend to misery and want. The servants in the hotel seemed remarkably honest. There was a lock to my door, but I could not get it to act, so my room remained unlocked, and I missed nothing, even when one morning I left my purse on the table, containing all my money, when I went to breakfast. A breakfast consists of hot rolls, good coffee, and delicious honey. At lunch the first course consists of olives, radishes, lemons and vegetables, which are supposed to create an appetite. At dinner we have a wonderful lot of stewed flesh, and vegetables are often served up as a separate course. In the evening the hall is lighted up with many lamps, and the dealers come and turn it into a bazaar. They are not above making a considerable reduction. But really there is very little manufactured in Jerusalem – the Sacred City. Oh, how I loathe the term as I tread the church of the reputed Holy Sepulchre – its stones slippery with the tread of millions of pilgrims in all ages, its sacred shrines worn away by the kisses of the faithful. As I sit outside, a cripple comes to a pillar of the door, on which a cross has been rudely carved. He kisses that cross and stands there praying. Those poor devotees – how they kiss, and kneel, and crawl, and pray!

The most interesting man I have seen is the Rev. Ben Oliel. Born in Morocco in 1826, a man wonderfully active for his years, you would not take him to be more than sixty at the best. At Tangiers he attended the Rabbinical schools, learning Spanish at home, Arabic out of doors, and Hebrew and Chaldee at school. He speaks English with great readiness and fluency. When eighteen years of age he read the New Testament for the first time, but his father took it away from him – however, not before a spirit of inquiry was raised in his mind. In 1847, while visiting at Gibraltar, he became acquainted with a Christian friend, who gave him the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ and ‘Keith on Prophecy’ to read. From them he learnt that Jesus was the Messiah and the Saviour of men. He then resolved to come to England to prepare to preach the Gospel to the Jews. The committee of the Society for the Promotion of Christianity among the Jews accepted his services, and sent him to labour in Gibraltar and North Africa. During a visit to England in 1850 he translated the Gospel of St. Luke into Hebrew-Spanish, and also a number of tracts into Hebrew and Spanish. In 1852 he was ordained to the ministry in Orange Street Chapel, London, by twelve ministers representing Presbyterian, Congregational, Baptist, and Lutheran Churches. Shortly after he was recognised by the Presbytery of Edinburgh as a minister, and ordained a missionary of that church, and was sent to Thessalonica and Smyrna, where he established missions. Later on his old society – the British – sent him to Algiers, when he succeeded in inducing his relatives to become Christians, who are now usefully employed in Christian work. Mr. Ben Oliel has been twice married – first to a daughter of Rev. B. Lewis, a Baptist minister of London, and then, after a widowerhood of some years, to a sister of Mr. Seeley, Vicar of Clacton-on-Sea, and a cousin of Professor Seeley, author of ‘Ecce Homo.’

We next find him in Spain. In Cadiz he laboured with much success, sometimes having a congregation of 1,000 hearers. He opened schools for both sexes, where he had as many as 360 children. His success provoked the animosity and opposition of the Romish priests, who started a newspaper to put him down. Thence, for reasons perfectly satisfactory, he returned to his old scene of labour in Algeria, and commenced a very successful mission at Oran. From Oran he was sent to Rome to labour among the Jews, and then the question was put to him – would he go to Jerusalem? To this question there could be only one, and that an affirmative, reply. In the ancient city he is certainly the right man in the right place. In the first place, he can converse in Hebrew with learned Jews and Rabbis, with whom the city is full. It is a curious fact that Hebrew is fast becoming a living tongue in Jerusalem, as is evident from the fact that the only newspapers now published in Palestine are two weeklies in Jerusalem, both in the Hebrew tongue. Another advantage Mr. Ben Oliel possesses is that he can talk to the Sephardim Spanish Jews in their own dialect; and they, it seems, are the most ancient in the city and the most easy of access; and then, again, as an undenominationalist, he has provided an upper room, where he holds an English service on a Sunday, sometimes attended by as many as 100 English-speaking travellers from all parts of the world. His work is now entirely supported by friends, especially Americans, who sympathize in his aim. He has no great society at his back; he fights on his own behalf, in faith that the supplies when needed will come. In his work he is greatly aided by his devoted wife and daughter, who have established schools – one of them a sewing-class of girls, to which I paid a visit.

In his schools Mr. Oliel met with great opposition from the Jewish Rabbis. They held a conference on the subject. The outcome of their conference was seen the following Saturday. Great and solemn warning was preached in every synagogue at morning prayer to the Jews not to continue going to the Christians, and earnest pleading with them to put an end to this sin in Israel. On the doors of all synagogues, inside and outside town, were placards, some of which were handed to individuals. Here is a translation of one:

‘Inasmuch as we hear that two schools of the English have been opened, one inside and the other outside the town, and women, sons and daughters of the Israelite people are going to them, and according to the information that reaches us they are stumbling in the sin of idolatry, for above all they are required to believe in their religion, as their conditions, as it is heard; we heard and our bowels trembled, how can it be that because of straits we should forsake our faith, God forbid, and believe in the sin of idolatry, and the end will be that in a short time they will abandon the Holy Law and turn to the law of the Protestants, God forbid, whose whole interest is to tempt and push precious souls of Israel and bring them to their faith, thereupon they are told in the name of the First in Zion, and in the name of the exalted Rabbis, even all the fathers of the House of Judges, the righteous, and in the name of all the Rabbis, that from this day forward, after we have given them to understand the heavy forbidden thing they are doing – certain that Israel are holy – they should withdraw and not go to those places, neither women nor young men, nor girls or little children at all, and let them trust in the Blessed be His Name, who feeds and nourishes all, and to whom is the power and the greatness, and let them not think for a moment of benefit, whose end is bitter like poison of losing their Judaism, God forbid; and no benefit will they derive from those cents, and keep this exhortation before their eyes continually all the days; and in eight days from to-day those schools will be found empty, that no Jew’s foot shall tread in them any more, which we shall hear and rejoice, and if, which God forbid, that time arriving and any still continue to go, let them know assuredly that as they sought to separate themselves from the community of the people of Israel, we also therefore will endeavour with all our strength to separate from them. If sons are born to them, there will be no one to circumcise them, if any get married, there will be no one to give the nuptial blessings. If any die, they will not be buried with the Jews. The women will not be married to Jews. To young men no Jewesses will be given. They will be a separate people. We trust that from this day forward they will withdraw from the said schools, and despise them as unclean, and will not go near their doors; and will have trust in God, exalted be His Name, preferring to starve to death as Jews, and not arrive to this measure [of punishment]. And let them not suppose that we shall be silent, but we shall persecute them to the bitter end as far as our hands can reach.

‘Blessing to those who obey.’

Seal of the Chief Rabbi.

Seal of the Judges.

Considering that the Rabbis have considerable sums of money sent them from abroad to distribute among the poor every month, and that many houses are given to the worthy penniless free of rent for several years, it is no wonder that the parents of the little ones were afraid to disobey their tyrannic rulers, and kept their children away from the school.

I find the Y.M.C.A. have a branch here, founded by Mr. Hind Smith in 1890, and are doing useful work, and just outside the Jaffa Gate is a depot for the sale of Bibles. But I have been somewhat astonished at the bitter, exclusive spirit displayed in some quarters where I might have hoped for better things. It is difficult for a Jew to make a profession of Christianity. If he does so, he has to leave the place at once. The strong caste spirit among the Jews is also very great. The high caste will not associate with the men of a lower caste. But where people dare not go to the recognised agencies for Jewish conversion, many come to Mr. Oliel for a chat, and Turks as well. Such missionary work as he does seems to be of the right stamp and worthy of British support. An increasing interest is being taken in Jerusalem, though, alas! I cannot say with the Psalmist, ‘Thy servants take pleasure in her stones and favour the dust thereof.’ They are my stumbling-block by night and day.