CONVENT OF SANTA SABA.

217

CHAPTER XVI.

Convent of Santa Saba.-A strange Picture.-Celebration of Good Friday. -Palm Sunday.-A Struggle for Life.-The Grave of a Friend.-A Convert.-Burial of a Missionary.

I SLEPT till nine o'clock the next morning. The first thing I did after breakfast was to mount to the tower at the top of the convent. This is the largest Greek convent in the Holy Land; and I remarked that it was in a good state of repair, and that large and expensive improvements were then in progress. The tower commanded a view of the whole convent, built in terraces, in a sort of amphitheatre, in the side of the mountain. All around, particularly in the mountain opposite, were ranges of grottoes, formerly the residences of anchorites and hermits, admirably situated for cherishing pious thoughts and leading a holy life. An old, white-bearded monk, leaning on his staff, was toiling up its sides, leading a long procession of pilgrims, probably to some very holy place; and below me, apparently growing out of the rock, was a large palm-tree, planted, as they say, by Santa Saba himself in the fourth century. The cemetery is about half way down, in a vault under an open area. flat stone that covered the entrance was fastened down with cement. The monk told me that the bodies of the dead were laid on stone benches, where lime was thrown over them, and, as soon as decomposition had taken place, the bones were removed and thrown upon a pile in another part of the cemetery.

The

The chapel, like all the other Greek chapels, was full of gaudy and ridiculous ornaments and paintings; and, among VOL. II.-T

the latter, there was one that attracted the particular admiration and reverence of the pilgrims. At the top of the picture sat the Father, surrounded by angels, and patriarchs, and good men ; and on his right was a range of two-story houses, St. Peter standing before them with the keys in his hand. Below the Father was a large, powerful man, with a huge pair of scales in his hand, weighing sinners as they came up, and billeting on each the weight of his sins; below him were a number of naked figures, in a sitting posture, with their arms spread out, and their legs enclosed in long boxes extended horizontally. On the left a stream of fire was coming down from the Father, and collecting in the mouth of a huge nondescript sea-monster, while in front stood a great half-naked figure, pitching in the sinners just as the fireman on board a steamboat pitches in the long sticks of wood, and the damned were kicking about in the flames. On the right was Elias doing battle with Antichrist; and below was a representation of the last day, and the graves giving up their dead, in almost every conceivable variety of form and situation.

In another chapel, dedicated to John of Damascus, who formerly lived there, behind an iron grating in a grotto of the rock was a large pile of sculls and bones, the remains of fourteen thousand hermits who dwelt among the mountains and were slain by the Turks.

The superior had been waiting some time to accompany me to Jerusalem. Will the reader believe it? This man had lived twenty years in the convent, and had never been to the Dead Sea! I was so disgusted with him that I rode on and left him; and, following the Valley of the Kedron, meeting on the way hundreds of Greek pilgrims, in three hours I was again in Jerusalem.

The next night being Good Friday, the monks of the Latin Convent performed the ceremony of the Crucifixion.

CELEBRATION OF GOOD FRIDAY.

219

The doors were open at an early hour for a short time, and then closed for the night, so that we were obliged to be there two or three hours before the ceremony began. Most of the pilgrims had prepared against the tediousness of waiting by bringing with them their beds, mats, and coverlets; and all around the floor of the church, men, women, and children were taking an intermediate nap. The proceedings commenced in the chapel of the Latin Convent, where priests, monks, pilgrims, Paul, and myself, all assembled, every one holding in his hand a long lighted candle. The superior, with his gold mitre and black velvet cloak trimmed with gold, my friend the Sicilian priest, and some other dignitaries of the church, were present, very richly dressed. On a large cross was the figure of a man, representing the Saviour, the crown of thorns on his head, nails in his hands and feet, blood trickling from them, and a gaping wound in his side. Before setting out on the procession the lights were extinguished; and, in total darkness, a monk commenced a sermon in Italian. After this the candles were relighted, banners and crucifixes raised, and the procession moved round the church towards Calvary. Stopping at the Pillar of Flagellation, at the prison where they say Christ was confined, where the crown of thorns was put upon his head, where his raiment was divided, &c., and giving a chant, and an address by one of the monks at each place, they wound round the church until they came to the staircase leading to Calvary; and, leaving their shoes below, mounted barefoot to the place of crucifixion. Here they first went to an altar on the right, where, as they have it, Christ was nailed to the cross; and laying the figure down on the floor, although they had been bearing it aloft for more than two hours, they now went through the ceremony of nailing it; and, returning to the adjoining altar, passed the foot of the cross through the marble floor, and, with the bleeding figure upon it, set it up in the hole in the natural rock,

according to the tradition, in the very spot where, eighteen hundred years ago, Christ was crucified. At the foot of the cross a monk preached a sermon in Italian, warm, earnest, and impassioned; frequently turning round, and, with both hands extended, apostrophizing the bleeding figure above him. In spite of my skepticism and incredulity, and my contempt for monkish tricks, I could not behold this scene unmoved. Every attendant upon the crucifixion was represented; for the Governor of Jerusalem was present, with a smile of scorn upon his handsome features, and Turkish and Mussulman soldiers, breaking the stillness of the scene with loud laughs of derision; and I could almost imagine that I heard the unbelieving Jews, with gibes and sneers, crying out, "If he be the King of Israel, let him come down from the cross!"

After the body had remained some time suspended, two friars, personating Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, approached the foot of the cross; and one of them on the right, with a long pair of pincers, took the crown of thorns from the head, waved it around slowly with a theatrically mournful air, kissed it, and laid it down on a table before him; he then drew long spikes from the hands and feet, and moving them around, one by one, slowly as before, kissed them, and laid them also on the table. I never saw anything more affecting than this representation, bad as it was, of the bloody drama of the crucifixion; and as the monks drew out the long nails from the hands and feet, even the scoffing Mussulmans stopped their laugh of derision. I stood by the table while they laid the body upon it, and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth; followed them when they carried it down from Calvary to the stone of unction; stood by the head of the stone while they washed and anointed it, and prepared it for burial, and followed it to the door of the sepulchre. It was now near two o'clock; the ceremony was ended, the Mussul

man soldiers had retired, and Paul and I returned to the convent. We had no lamp; and as, in all the Turkish cities, every one is obliged to carry a lamp at night, and, in fact, it is necessary for his own security, we walked through the narrow streets of Jerusalem bearing the same long candles with which we had figured in the procession of the crucifixion.

On Sunday morning, being Easter, or Palm Sunday, I visited, for the last time, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was more crowded than I had ever yet seen it. The courtyard literally swarmed with venders of amulets, crucifixes, and holy ornaments; and within the church were tables of oranges, figs, dates, &c. The Arab baker was walking about, with a large tray on his head, crying his bread; and in each of the altars was a sort of shop, in which Greeks were making and selling chaplets and wreaths of palm-leaves. It was altogether a lively image of the scene when Christ went into the temple, and "cast out them that bought and sold, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers." The ceremonies of the day were in commemoration of that on which our Saviour entered into Jerusalem, riding upon an ass, when the multitude followed him, strewing their garments and branches of palm-trees in his path, and crying, "Hosannah to the Son of David!" When I entered, the monks of the Latin Convent were celebrating grand mass before the holy sepulchre; and, in the mean time, the Greeks were getting ready for their turn. Their chapel was crowded, and all along the corridors the monks were arranging the people in procession, and distributing banners, for which the young Greeks were scrambling; and in one place a monk, with a standard in his hand, which had just been handed down from above, with his back against the wall, was knocking and kicking away a crowd of young Greeks, struggling to obtain it for the procession.