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the miracle was performed. The dwellings of Simon the Leper, of Mary Magdalene, and of Martha are pointed out by the Mussulmans, who traffic on the credulity of ignorant Christians. Nay, they undertake to identify the spot where the barren fig-tree withered under the curse, and the place where Judas put an end to his life, oppressed by a more dreadful malediction.

There is no traveller of any nation, whatever may be his creed or his impressions in regard to the gospel, who does not make the usual journey from the Jewish capital to Bethlehem the place of our Lord's nativity. The road, as we find related, passes over ground extremely rocky and barren, diversified only by some cultivated patches bearing a scanty crop of grain, and by banks of wild-flowers which grow in great profusion. On the way the practised guide points out the ruined tower of Simeon, who upon beholding the infant Messiah expressed his readiness to leave this world; the Monastery of Elias, now in possession of the Greeks; and the tomb of Rachel, rising in a rounded top like the whitened sepulchre of an Arab sheik. "This,' says the honest Maundrell, "may probably be the true place of her interment; but the present sepulchral monument can be none of that which Jacob erected, for it appears plainly to be a modern and Turkish structure." Farther on is the well of which David longed to drink, and of which his mighty men, at the risk of their lives, procured him a supply; and here opens to view, in a great valley, that most interesting of all pastoral scenes, where the angel of the Omnipotent appeared by night to the shepherds, to announce the glad tidings that Christ was born in Bethlehem.*

As there was another town of the same name in the tribe

"Bethlehem soon after came in sight,-a fine village, surrounded with gardens of fig-trees and olives. There is a deep valley below, and half-way down on the top of a hill is a green plain, the only one we have seen in Judea :-I could fancy Boaz's field forming part of it. The convent is a very remarkable building, and well worth seeing. Without, it is a perfect fortress, with heavy buttresses and small grated windows; on entering, we immediately came to a magnificent church, with a double row of ten Corinthian pillars of marble on each side,-forty pillars in On the arched roof are the remains of Mosaic, of the Empress Helena's time. One part was very distinct it represented a city with temples, &c., and over it was written in Greek characters, Laodicea." Anonymous Journal.

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of Zebulon, the Bethlehem that we now approach was usually distinguished by the addition of Ephrata, or by a reference to the district in which it was situated. The convent which marks the place of the Redeemer's birth was built by Helena, after removing the idolatrous structure said to have been erected by Adrian, from a feeling of contempt or jealousy towards the Christians. At present it is divided among the monks of the Greek, Roman, and Armenian sects, who have assigned to them separate portions, as well for lodging as for places of worship; though, on certain days, they may all celebrate the rites of their common faith on altars which none of them have been hitherto allowed to appropriate. There are two churches, an upper and a lower, under the same roof. The former contains nothing remarkable, if we except a star inlaid in the floor, immediately under the spot in the heavens where the su pernatural sign became visible to the wise men, and, like it, directly above the place of the Nativity in the church below.

This last is an excavation in the rock, elegantly fitted up and floored with marble, and to which there is a descent by a flight of steps through a long narrow passage. Here are shown a great number of tombs, and among them one in which were said to be buried all the babes of Bethlehem murdered by the barbarous Herod. From hence the pilgrim is conducted into a handsome chapel, of which the floors and walls are composed of beautiful marble, having on each side five oratories, or recesses for prayer, corresponding to the ten stalls supposed to have been in the stable wherein our blessed Saviour was born. This sacred crypt is irregular in shape, because it occupies the site of the stable and the manger. It is thirty-seven feet six inches long, eleven feet three inches broad, and nine feet in height. As it receives no light from without, it is illumined by thirty-two lamps, sent by different princes of Christendom; the other embellishments are ascribed to the munificent Helena. At the farther extremity of this small church there is an altar placed in an arcade, and hollowed out below in the form of an arch, to embrace the sacred spot where Emmanuel, having laid aside his glory, first appeared in the garb of human nature. A circle in the floor, composed of marble and jas

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Adjoining the Altar of the Nativity is the Manger in which the Infant Messiah was laid. It is also formed of marble, and is raised about eighteen inches above the floor, bearing a resemblance to the humble bed which alone the

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furniture of a stable could supply. Before it is the Altar of the Wise Men,-a memorial of their adoration and praise at the moment when they saw the young child and Mary his mother.

This edifice, says the Vicomte de Chateaubriand, is certainly of high antiquity, and, often destroyed and as often repaired, it still retains marks of its Grecian origin. It is built in the form of a cross, the nave being adorned with forty-eight columns of the Corinthian order in four rows, which are at least two feet six inches in diameter at the base, and eighteen feet high, including the base and capital. As the roof of the nave is wanting, these pillars support nothing but a frieze of wood, which occupies the place of the architrave and of the whole entablature. The windows are large, and were formerly adorned with Mosaic paintings and passages from the Bible in Greek and Latin characters, the traces of which are still visible.

The top of the church affords a fine prospect into the surrounding country, extending to Tekoa on the south and Engedi on the east. In the latter place is the grotto where David, a native of Bethlehem, cut off the skirt of Saul's garment. There is also the convent of Elias, in which is said to be a large stone still retaining an impression of his body. Between this point and Jerusalem Mr. Buckingham was struck with the appearance of several small detached towers of a square form built in the midst of vine-lands. These, he learned, were for the accommodation of watchmen appointed to guard the produce from thieves and wild beasts; hence explaining a passage which occurs in the Gospel according to St. Mark:-"A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place for the wine-fat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen."*

It is painful to find that the same animosity which attends the claims of the several sects of Christians at Jerusalem for the possession of the Holy Sepulchre disgraces their contentions at Bethlehem for the Grotto of the Nativity. A few years ago, during the celebration of the Christmas festival, at which Mr. Bankes was present, a battle took place, in which some of the combatants were wounded, and others

* Richardson, Buckingham, Maundrell.

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