Part 36 (2/2)

In a word, nothing can be imagined more rude or extravagant than what was acted upon this occasion.

In this tumultuous frantic humour they continued from twelve till four o'clock: the reason of which delay was, because of a suit that was then in debate before the cadi, betwixt the Greeks and Armenians, the former endeavouring to exclude the latter from having any share in this miracle. Both parties having expended, as I was informed, five thousand dollars between them in this foolish controversy, the cadi at last gave sentence that they should enter the holy sepulchre together, as had been usual at former times. Sentence being thus given, at four o'clock both nations went on with their ceremony. The Greeks first set out, in a procession round the holy sepulchre, and immediately at their heels followed the Armenians. In this order they compa.s.sed the holy sepulchre thrice, having produced all their gallantry of standards, streamers, crucifixes, and embroidered habits upon this occasion.

Towards the end of this procession, there was a pigeon came fluttering into the cupola over the sepulchre, at sight of which there was a greater shout and clamour than before. This bird, the Latins told us, was purposely let fly by the Greeks, to deceive the people into an opinion that it was a visible descent of the Holy Ghost.

The procession being over, the suffragan of the Greek patriarch (he being himself at Constantinople), and the princ.i.p.al Armenian bishop, approached to the door of the sepulchre, and, cutting the string with which it is fastened and sealed, entered in, shutting the door after them, all the candles and lamps within having been before extinguished, in the presence of the Turks and other witnesses. The exclamations were doubled as the miracle drew nearer to its accomplishment, and the people pressed with such vehemence towards the door of the sepulchre, that it was not in the power of the Turks set to guard it, with the severest drubs, to keep them off. The cause of their pressing in this manner is the great desire they have to light their candles at the holy flame as soon as it is first brought out of the sepulchre, it being esteemed the most sacred and pure, as coming immediately from heaven.

The two miracle-mongers had not been above a minute in the holy sepulchre, when the glimmering of the holy fire was seen, or imagined to appear, through some c.h.i.n.ks of the door; and certainly Bedlam itself never saw such an unruly transport as was produced in the mob at this sight. Immediately after, out came the two priests with blazing torches in their hands, which they held up at the door of the sepulchre, while the people thronged about with inexpressible ardour, every one striving to obtain a part of the first and purest flame. The Turks, in the meantime, with huge clubs, laid on them without mercy; but all this could not repel them, the excess of their transport making them insensible of pain. Those that got the fire applied it immediately to their beards, faces, and bosoms, pretending that it would not burn like an earthly flame. But I plainly saw none of them could endure this experiment long enough to make good that pretension.

So many hands being employed, you may be sure it could not be long before innumerable tapers were lighted. The whole church, galleries, and every place, seemed instantly to be in a flame, and with this illumination the ceremony ended.

It must be owned, that those two within the sepulchre performed their part with great quickness and dexterity; but the behaviour of the rabble without very much discredited the miracle. The Latins take a great deal of pains to expose this ceremony, as a most shameful imposture, and a scandal to the Christian religion; perhaps out of envy that others should be masters of so gainful a business. But the Greeks and Armenians pin their faith upon it, and make their pilgrimages chiefly upon this motive. And it is the deplorable unhappiness of their priests, that having acted the cheat so long already, they are forced now to stand to it, for fear of endangering the apostasy of their people.

Going out of the church after the rout was over, we saw several people gathered about the stone of unction, who, having got a good store of candles lighted with the holy fire, were employed in daubing pieces of linen with the wicks of them and the melting wax, which pieces of linen were designed for winding sheets; and it is the opinion of these poor people, that if they can but have the happiness to be buried in a shroud s.m.u.tted with this celestial fire, it will certainly secure them from the flames of h.e.l.l.

_Sunday, April 4._-This day being our Easter, we did not go abroad to visit any places, the time requiring an employment of another nature.

_April 5._-This morning we went to see some more of the curiosities which had been yet unvisited by us. The first place we came to was that which they call St. Peter's prison, from which he was delivered by the angel[593]. It is close to the church of the Holy Sepulchre, and still serves its primitive use. About the s.p.a.ce of a furlong from thence, we came to an old church, held to have been built by Helena, in the place where stood the house of Zebedee. This is in the hands of the Greeks, who tell you, that Zebedee, being a fisherman, was wont to bring fish from Joppa thither, and to vend it at this place. Not far from hence we came to the place where, they say, stood anciently the iron gate, which opened to Peter of its own accord. A few steps farther is the small church built over the house of Mark, to which the apostle directed his course after his miraculous gaol-delivery. The Syrians, who have this place in their custody, pretend to show you the very window at which Rhoda looked out, while Peter knocked at the door. In the church they show a Syriac ma.n.u.script of the New Testament in folio, pretended to be eight hundred and fifty-two years old, and a little stone font used by the Apostles themselves in baptizing. About one hundred and fifty paces farther in the same street, is that which they call the house of St.

Thomas, converted formerly into a church, but now a mosque. Not many paces farther is another street crossing the former, which leads you, on the right hand, to the place where they say our Lord appeared, after his Resurrection, to the three Marys[594]. Three Marys, the friars tell you, though in that place of St. Matthew mention is made but of two. The same street carries you, on the left hand, to the Armenian convent. The Armenians have here a very large and delightful s.p.a.ce of ground, their convent and gardens taking up all that part of Mount Sion which is within the walls of the city. Their church is built over the place where they say St. James, the brother of John, was beheaded[595]. In a small chapel, on the north side of the church, is shown the very place of his decollation. In this church are two altars set out with extraordinary splendour, being decked with rich mitres, embroidered copes, crosses, both silver and gold, crowns, chalices, and other church utensils, without number. In the middle of the church is a pulpit made of tortoise-sh.e.l.l and mother of pearl, with a beautiful canopy, or cupola over it, of the same fabric. The tortoise-sh.e.l.l and mother of pearl are so exquisitely mingled and inlaid in each other, that the work far exceeds the materials. In a kind of anti-chapel to this church, there are laid up, on one side of the altar, three large rough stones, esteemed very precious, as being, one of them, the stone upon which Moses cast the two Tables, when he broke them, in indignation at the idolatry of the Israelites; the other two being brought, one from the place of our Lord's Baptism, the other from that of his Transfiguration.

Leaving this convent we went a little farther to another small church, which was likewise in the hands of the Armenians. This is supposed to be founded in the place where Annas's house stood. Within the church, not far from the door, is shown a hole in the wall, denoting the place where one of the officers of the high priest smote our blessed Saviour[596].

The officer, by whose impious hand that buffet was given, the friars will have to be the same Malchus whose ear our Lord had healed. In the court before this chapel is an olive tree, of which it is reported, that Christ was chained to it for some time, by order of Annas, to secure him from escaping.

From the house of Annas we were conducted out of Sion Gate, which is near adjoining to that which they call the house of Caiaphas, which is another small chapel belonging also to the Armenians. Here, under the altar, they tell us is deposited that very stone which was laid to secure the door of our Saviour's sepulchre[597]. It was a long time kept in the church of the sepulchre; but the Armenians, not many years since, stole it from thence by a stratagem, and conveyed it to this place. The stone is two yards and a quarter long, high one yard, and broad as much.

It is plastered all over, except in five or six little places, where it is left bare to receive the immediate kisses and other devotions of pilgrims. Here is likewise shown a little cell, said to have been our Lord's prison till the morning when he was carried from hence before Pilate; and also the place where Peter was frightened into a denial of his Master.

A little farther without the gate is the church of the Cnaculum, where they say Christ inst.i.tuted his Last Supper. It is now a mosque, and not to be seen by Christians. Near this is a well, which is said to mark out the place at which the Apostles divided from each other, in order to go every man to his several charge; and close by the well are the ruins of a house in which the blessed Virgin is supposed to have breathed her last. Going eastward, a little way down the hill, we were shown the place where a Jew arrested the corpse of the blessed Virgin, as she was carried to her interment, for which impious presumption he had his hand withered wherewith he had seized the bier. About as much lower in the middle of the hill, they show you the grotto in which St. Peter wept so bitterly for his inconstancy to his Lord.

We extended our circuit no farther at this time, but entered the city again at Sion Gate. Turning down as soon as we had entered, on the right hand, and going about two furlongs close by the city wall, we were taken into a garden lying at the foot of Mount Moriah, on the south side. Here we were shown several large vaults annexed to the mountain on this side, and running at least fifty yards under ground. They were built in two isles, arched at top with huge firm stone, and sustained with tall pillars consisting each of one single stone, and two yards in diameter.

This might possibly be some under-ground work made to enlarge the area of the temple, for Josephus seems to describe some such work as this, erected over the valley on this side of the temple[598].

From these vaults we returned towards the convent. In our way we pa.s.sed through the Turkish bazaars, and took a view of the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. But we could but just view it in pa.s.sing, it not being safe to stay here long, by reason of the superst.i.tion of the Turks.

_April 6._-The next morning we took another progress about the city. We made our exit at Bethlehem Gate, and turning down on the left hand under the castle of the Pisans, came about a furlong and a half to that which they call Bathsheba's Pool. It lies at the bottom of Mount Sion, and is supposed to be the same in which Bathsheba was was.h.i.+ng herself, when David spied her from the terrace of his palace. But others refer this accident to another lesser pool in a garden just within Bethlehem Gate; and perhaps both opinions are equally right.

A little below this pool begins the valley of Hinnom, on the west side of which is the place called anciently the Potter's Field, and afterwards the Field of Blood, from its being purchased with the pieces of silver which were the price of the blood of Christ; but at present, from that veneration which it has obtained among Christians, it is called Campo Sancto. It is a small plot of ground not above thirty yards long, and about half as much broad. One moiety of it is taken up by a square fabric twelve yards high, built for a charnel-house. The corpses are let down into it from the top, there being five holes left open for that purpose. Looking down through these holes we could see many bodies under several degrees of decay, from which it may be conjectured that this grave does not make that quick despatch with the corpses committed to it, which is commonly reported. The Armenians have the command of this burying place, for which they pay the Turks a rent of one seuin a day. The earth is of a chalky substance hereabouts.

A little below the Campo Sancto is shown an intricate cave or sepulchre consisting of several rooms, one within another, in which the apostles are said to have hid themselves, when they forsook their Master, and fled. The entrance of the cave discovers signs of its having been adorned with painting in ancient times.

A little farther, the valley of Hinnom terminates, that of Jehoshaphat running across the mouth of it. Along the bottom of this latter valley runs the brook Cedron; a brook in wintertime, but without the least drop of water in it all the time we were at Jerusalem.

In the valley of Jehoshaphat, the first thing you are carried to is the well of Nehemiah; so called because reputed to be the same place from which the restorer of Israel recovered the fire of the altar, after the Babylonish captivity[599]. A little higher in the valley, on the left hand, you come to a tree supposed to mark out the place where the Evangelical Prophet was sawn asunder. About one hundred paces higher, on the same side, is the pool of Siloam. It was anciently dignified with a church built over it; but, when we were there, a tanner made no scruple to dress his hides in it. Going about a furlong farther on the same side, you come to the fountain of the blessed Virgin, so called, because she was wont (as is reported) to resort hither for water; but at what time and upon what occasions is not yet agreed. Over against this fountain, on the other side of the valley, is a village called Siloe, in which Solomon is said to have kept his strange wives; and above the village is a hill called the Mountain of Offence, because there Solomon built the high places mentioned in 1 Kings xi. 7, his wives having perverted his wise heart to follow their idolatrous abominations in his declining years. On the same side, and not far distant from Siloe, they show another Aceldama, or Field of Blood; so called because there it was that Judas, by the just judgment of G.o.d, met with his compounded death[600]. A little farther on the same side of the valley, they showed us several Jewish monuments. Amongst the rest there are two n.o.ble antiquities, which they call the sepulchre of Zachary and the pillar of Absolom. Close by the latter is the sepulchre of Jehoshaphat, from which the whole valley takes its name.

Upon the edge of the hill, on the opposite side of the valley, there runs along, in a direct line, the wall of the city, near the corner of which there is a short end of a pillar jutting out of the wall. Upon this pillar, the Turks have a tradition that Mohammed shall sit in judgment at the last day; and that all the world shall be gathered together in the valley below, to receive their doom from his mouth. A little farther northward is the gate of the Temple. It is at present walled up, because the Turks here have a prophecy that their destruction shall enter at that gate, the completion of which prediction they endeavour by this means to prevent. Below this gate, in the bottom of the valley, is a broad hard stone, discovering several impressions on it, which you may fancy to be footsteps. These, the friars tell you, are prints made by our blessed Saviour's feet, when, after his apprehension, he was hurried violently away to the tribunal of his blood-thirsty persecutors.

From hence, keeping still in the bottom of the valley, you come in a few paces to a place which they call the sepulchre of the blessed Virgin. It has a magnificent descent down into it of forty-seven stairs; on the right hand as you go down is the sepulchre of St. Anna, the mother, and on the left that of St. Joseph, the husband of the blessed Virgin.

Having finished our visit to this place, we went up the hill toward the city. In the side of the ascent we were shown a broad stone on which they say St. Stephen suffered martyrdom; and not far from it is a grotto, into which they tell you the outrageous Jewish zealots cast his body, when they had satiated their fury upon him. From hence we went immediately to St. Stephen's Gate, so called from its vicinity to this place of the protomartyr's suffering, and so returned to our lodging.

<script>