An Artist in Egypt

by Walter Tyndale

We are taken down some dilapidated steps to visit the crypt, which we are told was the Egyptian house of Joseph and Mary while they hid their child from Herod’s wrath. Needless to say that the crypt is a Christian structure, and of a later date than the Roman fortress, which at its earliest is placed in the second century of our Lord. But there is no reason why this spot should not have been chosen by the Holy Family after their flight into Egypt. Some ruined shrine to a god of the decadent mythology may have stood here in which they may have made their home, as the early Christians oftentimes did some three centuries later. To build a church on so hallowed a spot would have been the first thought of these Christians, if any record still remained. When Babylon was besieged by the Mohammedan invaders, this church might have then been destroyed, or if it survived so long a siege, it would have disappeared after Merwán, the last of the Omayyad khalifs, had set fire to Fostat.

Be this as it may, it is quite probable that this pretty tradition has some foundation in fact.

There is little at present to see in the crypt by the light of the tallow dip which the Coptic servant holds in his fingers, but I should have regretted not to have seen that little. The tenth-century church above it is a little gem, and however much the dirt of those who attend it, and the formal ritual which few of the worshippers can understand, may prejudice one against the modern Copts, the fact remains that their faith has withstood centuries of persecution. Stanley Lane-Poole wisely remarks that ‘no one can stand unmoved in a Coptic church during the celebration of the Mass, or hear the worshippers shout with one voice, just as they did some fifteen hundred years ago, the loud response, “I believe this is the Truth,” without emotion.’

The whole of the Coptic settlement here is built within the girdle-wall of the Roman castle of Babylon, or ‘el-Kasr-esh-Shema,’ as the natives still call it. This Arabic name, ‘The Castle of the Sun,’ emphasises the position it held in regard to ancient Heliopolis, of which it was a bulwark. We also hear mention of this esh-Shema in the prophecies of Jeremiah xliii. 13: ‘He shall break also the images of Beth-shemesh, that is in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of the Egyptians shall he burn with fire.’

Perched up between two bastions of the Roman castle, and over its gate, is the Mu’állaka or the ‘hanging’ church. Less rich in traditions than its neighbour, with some of its romance destroyed by a modern approach, it gives the intelligent visitor even greater pleasure than Abu-Sarga which he has seen. He may confuse its plan with that of the neighbouring churches, and time may obliterate the construction of its piers and barrel-shaped roof, but never will he forget the little Byzantine pulpit standing on the fifteen slender Saracenic columns, and relieved against as rich a screen as ever closed in a sanctuary.

I have attempted to enter into more of the details of these Coptic churches in Below the Cataracts, also of the history of Fostat, the ‘Town of the Tent,’ which Amr Ibn el-Âs built around the fortress of Babylon, and which during successive dynasties of khalifs was extended until it covered the space now occupied by the old city of Cairo. The topography and history has been admirably given to us by Stanley Lane-Poole; students of early Christian architecture can find all that is known of the Coptic churches in that scholarly work of Dr. A. J. Butler, The Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt.

I cannot, however, refrain from mentioning the ‘hanging garden’ which adjoins the Mu’állaka. The palms which grow there, high above the fertilising Nile, are watered by the faithful to perpetuate the tradition that the Virgin Mary, on arriving at her new abode, first broke her fast with some dates which she culled from a palm-tree growing near this spot.

Four more Coptic churches are within easy reach of this one, and as parts of them date back to the third century, there is much to occupy the time of the archæologist even if the artist does not always find what is best suited to his brush.

The fortress of Babylon and the Coptic settlement within its walls are two or three miles south-west of the main part of the city, and situated at the back of an old suburb, opposite the island of Rodah, known as Old Cairo. This name is misleading, for the present mediæval Cairo existed long before this suburb, which was built on land recovered from the Nile after Fostat had become a ruinous waste. It looks old enough now, but it does not require many generations to impart an ancient appearance to the poorer Arab dwellings.

The Kasr-esh-Shema, on the higher level, is that part which might justly be called Old, for it is the nucleus from which the present huge city developed.