Haifa; or, Life in modern Palestine

by Laurence Oliphant

Haifa, July 20.—It is a melancholy reflection, and one by no means creditable to the Christianity which prevailed in the fourth century after Christ, that the Jerusalem of the present day, the Holy City of the world par excellence, should contain within its walls more sacred shams and impostures than any other city in the world. The responsibility for the gross superstition which prevails in regard to sites and localities mainly rests with the fourth century, and chiefly with the Empress Helena, who was principally instrumental in inventing them, and the Christian churches, especially the Greek and Latin, find it in their interest to foster these transparent frauds, for the enormous pecuniary advantages which accrue from them.

The extraordinary amount of research and investigation of which Jerusalem has been the subject during the last twenty years, the extent of the excavations which have been made, involving an expenditure of about $100,000, and the conscientious impartiality and profound acquirements of the explorers, have demolished the whole superstructure which early and mediæval Christianity had reared upon the credulity of its votaries; and which the churches of the present day, despite all the evidences to the contrary, find it in their interest to perpetuate. Thus it has now been proved to demonstration that, wherever the tomb in which Christ was laid after his crucifixion may have been, it could not have been in the cave over which the gorgeous edifice called the Church of the Holy Sepulchre now stands; for we now know by recent examination the position of the walls which enclosed the city in the time of Christ, though some still deny the correctness of the latest conclusions which have been arrived at. We also know that Calvary, or Golgotha, where he was crucified, was “nigh at hand” to the sepulchre; that Golgotha was “nigh to the city,” and not in it, and that Jesus “suffered without the gate,” and that all tombs, saving those of David and Huldah and eight Jewish kings, were without the walls, while the cave over which the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is built is within them. As, however, even the churches do not go so far as to maintain that any tradition had been preserved among Christians during the first three centuries after the death of Christ of his place of burial, they have had to resort to inspiration as the means of its discovery. Some of the early writers maintain that it was the Emperor Constantine himself who was divinely inspired to find it; others that it was his mother, the Empress Helena. This is a trifling discrepancy. Whichever it was, the fact of the inspiration remains, and scientific investigation has, ever since the days of Galileo, been bound to give way before ecclesiastical inspiration and infallibility. So, no matter whatever evidences exist to the contrary, crowds of pilgrims will continue to crawl over those sanctified stones, wearing them hollow with their kisses, as long as the sacerdotal organization of which it is the representative remains to impose upon them its authority.

With considerate ingenuity, and possibly with a view to lightening the labors of the pilgrims as much as possible, the early Church crowded as many sacred stones together under the roof of the holy edifice it could with decency. Thus we have the Stone of Unction, on which Christ's body was laid for anointing, but it was getting so worn that the real stone lies below the marble slab, which, however, answers the purpose for the pilgrims. Close by is the Circular Stone, where the Virgin stood while the body was being anointed; also the stone on which Jesus stood when he appeared to Mary Magdalene, and the stone on which she stood, and the column to which he was bound when scourged; and your devout guide will show you, if you have the patience to attend to him, the exact place where Jesus was stripped by the soldiers, the place where the purple robe was put on him, the place where the soldiers cast lots for his raiment, the rent in the rock made by the earthquake, the place where his body was wrapped in linen cloths, the place where he indicated with his own hand the centre of the world, and so on, ad nauseam.

Sometimes another Church commits a burglary and steals some of these stones. The Armenians have been especially guilty in this respect. They have stolen from the holy sepulchre the stone on which the angel sat, that had been rolled away from the door of the sepulchre, which they now display in the chapel of the Palace of Caiaphas; also a piece of the true cross, which was originally discovered under inspiration by Helena, as well as that of the penitent thief, who is now canonized under the name of Dimas. I don't know what authority they have for calling him Dimas, whose reputed birthplace is, for political reasons, going to be converted into another holy place. There is something rather appropriate in the idea of the power that is waiting for a chance to despoil the Turkish empire of Syria erecting a shrine in worship of the penitent thief.

The most remarkable sites are those which illustrate the parables. Thus, pilgrims are shown the window which was the post of observation of Dives, and the stone, now worn by the kisses of the faithful, where Lazarus sat when the dog licked his sores. I asked my guide where the dog was, but he said he was dead, and added, with a smile, “I don't believe any of these things.”

I asked him why not.

“Oh,” he replied, “I'm a Jew.”

After that the glibness with which he pattered off all the Christian traditions was very edifying until my patience was exhausted, and I said, “Well, supposing, as we neither of us believe in any of these invented sites, we go and try and find something that is real.”

He had been in the service of some of the recent Jerusalem explorers, and I afterwards found him an intelligent companion.

It is a striking illustration of Moslem religious toleration, as compared with that shown by Christians in Jerusalem towards Jews, that while this man could accompany me into the Mosque of Omar, that most beautiful and sacred of Mohammedan temples, he was not allowed even to enter the street in which stands the Christian Church of the Holy Sepulchre.