# On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt/Chapter 22

Contents
CHAPTER XXII.
AROUND THE PLACE WHERE CHRIST WAS BORN.
In entering Palestine from the South Country, instead of from the sea by Jaffa, there is the advantage that we approach Jerusalem through Bethlehem, and thus follow a natural order in coming to the place of our Lord's birth before we come to that of His active ministry, as well as of His death, burial, and resurrection.
In the confusion of localities which is so common in the East, it is a comfort to our Christian faith that there is one, the identity of which is not disputed. Seven cities contended for the honor of being the birthplace of Homer, but no question has ever been raised in regard to the birthplace of Christ. Long before His birth, Bethlehem figures in the Jewish annals. As far back as the days of the patriarchs, Rachel died near Bethlehem in giving birth to Benjamin, and her tomb is still shown, where, if her dust be not preserved, yet lingers the sweetness of her beloved name. Here too David was born, and in his boyhood rambled over these hills, and perhaps kept his father's flock in the field of his great-grandfather Boaz and his great-grandmother Ruth. As the City of David, Bethlehem had a place in the regard of every pious and patriotic Jew. Consecrated by such memories, it was pointed out as the future birthplace of One greater than David, by a prophecy, seven hundred years before Christ was born: "Thou Bethlehem-Ephratah, though thou be little among ​the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth that is to be ruler in Israel." Not only was it Bethlehem, but Bethlehem of Judah, to distinguish it from Bethlehem of Galilee. So precisely was indicated the place which was to be of such interest to all who should believe in Him unto the end of the world.
As to the time of the Saviour's birth, it is reckoned by scholars to have been at least four years before the date commonly fixed for the beginning of the Christian era. This earlier date is easily determined by reference to other events fixed in profane history. It was in the reign of Augustus Cæsar, at the time of a general enrollment of the inhabitants which had been ordered from Rome. But as to the season of the year, Biblical chronologists do not agree, and probably never will. Each season has had its advocates. Indeed there is hardly a month which has not been adopted by some commentator for reasons convincing to himself. The general consent of the Church since the fourth century has accepted the 25th of December. But some reason that it could hardly have been so near midwinter, when travelling would be difficult among the hills of Judea, that the Roman Emperor would send forth a decree that all should go to their own cities to be enrolled. This is partly answered by the fact that in Palestine there is an interval of about two months between the early and the latter rains, from the middle of December to the middle of February, which would furnish the opportunity required. Others argue from the fitness of things, that it might have been expected that the Saviour would be born in the Spring, when nature itself was in harmony with the new life that was coming on the world.
Such were our thoughts as we came out of the door of the tent, and looked down once more into the vale of Bethlehem. It was almost the last day of March — the ​very budding and blossoming and flowering season of Palestine. The morning sun showed us what we had seen but dimly by moonlight; and as we looked down into the deep valley below, the field of Boaz was green with the freshness of the early Spring. All around, the terraced hillsides were covered with vineyards or with orchards, on whose varied colors the eye rested with delight — the tender green of the olive and the red flowers of the pomegranate, mingled with fig trees, which were swelling with their young fruit. Surely this was the season of all the round year for the advent of Him who was, in another and a higher sense, to renew the face of the earth. So it seemed to us, and indeed if we could but follow the fancies of this inspiring hour, we should think it most in harmony with the event, that our Lord should have come into the world in the early dawn, when the morning star was just above the horizon, and the Light of the rising sun began to glow over the distant mountains of Moab, and to touch the crests of this hill country of Palestine. But what matters it whether the Lord came at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning, so that He came? It is the event which concerns us rather than the season, whether Spring or Summer, or Autumn or Winter. What imports the season of the year to Him who "has all seasons for His own"? What matters it whether the star in the East shone on harvest fields or on wintry snows, so that it but led the wandering Magi till it came and stood over where the young child was? As to the month or the day, that is a minor point on which we are not careful to answer — content to accept the day which has been observed for centuries as that of our Redeemer's birth. When the year comes round and brings the happy Christmas time; and the bells are ringing in every Christian land, we would join with universal Christendom in celebrating an event ​which brought "good tidings of great joy to all people." In such a spirit we take our morning walk to-day to the Church of the Nativity, to linger awhile beside the spot, where, according to tradition, our Saviour came into the world, and by the manger where they laid Him.
In visiting "holy places," one finds not infrequently a jar on his devout meditations, at the mingling of things sacred and profane, of the common and the trivial with that which is of far higher interest. As I walked along the narrow streets and looked into the little shops of Bethlehem, it was not easy to adjust the mingling of the petty cares and drudgery of daily life with the solemn and religious thoughts which filled the mind. And still they are not in such disaccord as they might seem; for Bethlehem is inhabited by Greek and Latin Christians (with but three hundred Moslems in a population of five thousand), whose main industry is that of providing material aids to devotion. As of old there were various kinds of business connected with the Temple, so here the chief occupation of the little town is the making of rosaries and crosses and images of saints from olive wood, from coral and mother of pearl, for the use of pilgrims.
Passing these we direct our steps towards the Church of the Nativity. Even a stranger would have no difficulty in finding it, for the building towers high above all others at the end of the town, the centre around which are clustered three Convents, making altogether an imposing architectural pile. Following the pilgrims, who are moving in one direction, we come to an open square, at the end of which rise the massive walls of the Church, which was begun by Helena in 327, and completed by Constantine in 333. It was formerly entered by three arched doors of imposing height and breadth, two of which are now walled up, and the third partly so, leaving an entrance almost as small as that ​at the Convent of Mount Sinai, and kept small for the same purpose of protection. In former centuries the proud Moslems were accustomed to ride through the high-arched portal to profane the sacred place and insult the feelings of those who came here as devout worshippers, to guard against which it was walled up on the side and at the top, so that now the lintel is not very far above a man's head. But this low and narrow door is quite sufficient for the pious pilgrim, who would not enter on horseback, but on foot, or even on his knees, if that were necessary, to mark his reverence for the holy place. He enters, and finds himself in the presence of the greatest shrine save one (that of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem) in the Christian world. The interior is vast and sombre. Everything speaks of centuries long gone. The old walls, which have stood for more than fifteen centuries; the open rafters of cedar overhead sent from England and reared in place by hands that have long been dust; give an impression of that which is very ancient, even if it were not for the voices of the monks "chanting the liturgies of remote generations."
We pass up the aisle to the end of the church, where, under the great choir, a flight of steps from either side leads to the crypt, which is the supposed scene of the birth of our Lord.
In coming to this place of pilgrimage, the first question is as to its identity. While no doubt can exist that our Saviour was born in Bethlehem, yet in what precise spot in Bethlehem, is a question which has been much debated: and although, like the question of the day or the season, it is not material to the significance of the event, yet it is a matter of interest, especially when we are standing on what is supposed to be the very spot. It is said of the mother of Christ that "she brought forth her first-born ​son, and wrapped him in swaddling-clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn." This first resting-place of the Holy Family is supposed to have been under ground, which at least is possible. The hillsides of Palestine are full of caves, which were often used for storing grain and feeding cattle. Sometimes a spacious cavern was turned into a kind of hostelry. If the impression be conveyed that there was an indignity offered to Mary and Joseph, in that they were obliged to take refuge in such a place, this will not be so interpreted by those who have lived in the East, and who know how in the great khans or caravanserais men and animals are often herded together in the same enclosure or under the same roof. Several weeks after this I was on Mount Carmel, where is a small but substantial stone building designed for the use of pilgrims, with but one large room, whose only division is that the place for men and women is two or three feet higher than that for the beasts of burden. On this raised platform the pilgrims sit and eat and sleep, while but just below them stand "the beasts of the stall." Along the edge of the raised platform is a long stone trough, in which, when not crowded with the heads of cattle feeding, children are laid down to sleep as the most convenient place of rest, and for safety, as its depth makes it a secure cradle, in which a child would be as safe from falling as in its mother's arms. Indeed at the moment that we entered, there was a child sleeping quietly in this stone manger, which gave us an exact image of the manger-cradle of Bethlehem, in which they laid the holy child Jesus.
As to this crypt under the church, whether it be the very place of the manger, there is a further question, not so easily answered. Tradition may not be conclusive, but certainly it is entitled to weight; and so far ​as tradition goes, it points to this spot, and to no other. Justin Martyr, who was born at the beginning of the second century, but a few years after John, the last of the Apostles, was in his grave, speaks of the birth of Christ as having taken place in a cave near. Bethlehem. Origen, who was born in the latter part of the second century, refers to it as a matter about which there was no dispute. And here in the fourth century was erected the great basilica, in everlasting commemoration of the event. In the latter part of that century, Jerome fixed his residence on this spot, to be near the birthplace of his Lord, while he wrought upon his great work of the translation of the Scriptures from the Hebrew and Greek into the Latin tongue. Against this concurrence of tradition there is only a vague uncertainty, so that the balance of probabilities may be said to incline in its favor.
With such a leaning towards belief, it was with a deep feeling that I descended the steps, and found myself in the Grotto of the Nativity. It is like any grotto or cavern, with low roof, only ten feet high, and would be quite dark but for the number of lamps, that cast their light on the marble pavement, in which the most brilliant object is a silver star under the altar, that is supposed to mark the very spot where our Lord came into the world. Encircling it is the inscription: Hic de Virgine Maria Jesus Christus natus est [Here Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary]. Opposite to this, and but a few feet distant, three steps lower, is another altar, covering the supposed place of the manger.
Had I been wholly incredulous as to the spot, I could not but be moved, if it were only by sympathy with the emotion it awakened in others. It was just before the Holy Week, and Bethlehem as well as Jerusalem was thronged with pilgrims. Here they came in crowds, and ​felt a strange awe as they entered the Grotto of the Nativity. They fell upon their knees before the altar; they bowed their heads in prayer; they kissed the sacred spot marked by the silver star, while tears fell upon the pavement; and as they lifted their eyes to heaven, and their lips moved silently, it seemed as if their thoughts were floating upward with the cloud of incense, and that they were responding to the prayers offered, according to the Greek and Latin rituals — pro vivis et defunctis — for the living and the dead.
So much was I interested in the associations of this ancient church — the oldest perhaps in the Christian world — that after I had been over it and under it and around it, and gone away, I came back again to spend another hour, and to renew the impressions of the place. As I walked up the aisle a second time, a monk in the coarse dark brown robe of the Franciscan Order, with a rope round his waist, recognizing me as a stranger, and perhaps divining the country from which I came, addressed me in English. He was an Irish monk, and had lived in America! He was very polite, and invited me into the Convent, taking me to the refectory and offering me refreshment, and up on the roof, which commands a beautiful view down into the valley and over the surrounding hills; from which we returned to the church, and to the grotto under it, and to the study of Jerome, where he spent the last thirty years of his life translating the Bible, and where was witnessed the scene of his Last Communion, which has been immortalized in the great painting of Domenichino. As we passed from place to place, we were deep in conversation about the sacred localities, in which I soon discovered the intense jealousy of the different Christian sects of the East. This church is walled in by three Convents — Greek, Latin, and Armenian — which are not planted against its sides to ​serve as buttresses for its support, but like hostile fortresses, that wished to keep in range of each other's guns. My guide spoke with evident bitterness of the way in which "the Greeks" had usurped control. He said they would not allow the Latins even to celebrate Mass at the altar over the birthplace, which he seemed to consider a great privation, even though the Latins had the altar over the manger! Indeed for a long time the Latins were excluded entirely. The question of the "holy places" was one of the causes of the embittered feeling between France and Russia, which led to the Crimean War, and it was finally owing to the determined position of Louis Napoleon, that the Latins obtained the rights which they now enjoy, apparently in equal degree with the Greeks.
Such exhibitions of religious jealousy, not to say animosity, produce a painful feeling, and it is hard to keep alive the associations of the birthplace of Christ, in the presence of a temper so little like that of our Master, Some are so grieved by this unchristian spirit, that they retire in a mood very far from that of devotion. And yet the bitterness which shows only human infirmity, cannot drag down to its own level that which is Divine; nor can the gross superstitions which have gathered round the place, destroy the sacred reality.
Walking slowly down the aisle to the side door which opened into the Latin Convent, the good monk courteously took his leave, while I lingered yet a little while within the walls that wakened such venerable associations. Turning again, I retraced my steps towards the end of the church, and once more descended into the Grotto of the Nativity. It was the same scene as before — the pilgrims were kneeling, the prayers were ascending. Withdrawing a little from the altar not to disturb the worshippers, I gave myself up to some quiet thoughts ​suggested by the place. Standing in the Grotto of the Nativity, how could one help trying to recall the scene witnessed here nearly nineteen centuries ago, before which the Magi knelt, and before which the Christian world is still kneeling? It is but a familiar domestic scene, a young mother with her first-born child in her arms. There are no surroundings of circumstance to give it pomp and splendor. It is not a royal birth, announced to an expectant kingdom by the waving of banners over a great capital. The fact that a child was born probably did not produce the slightest stir even in the inn. It was but a Hebrew woman, humble in appearance and attire as the subterranean chamber in which she had taken refuge, and perhaps with not a single attendant but Joseph, not even a nurse to perform the commonest offices for one who with her own hands "wrapped her child in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger." How insignificant was such an event! How little was there in that poor young mother to distinguish her from the thousands of the daughters of Israel!
And yet, such are the strange mutations of time, that no one of woman born, excepting only the son whom she herself bore, ever had such a name and place in history. How little she thought — lowly in heart as in life — of the homage that was to await her in future generations! As she lay here in this Grotto, on her bed of stone, she may have heard over her head the tramp of Roman soldiers, or of the crowd that had flocked to be enrolled at the bidding of Cæsar. Rome and Cæsar! The very words struck awe into the heart of a Hebrew, man or woman, as they suggested images of greatness and power. Little could one so poor dream that in the lapse of centuries her own humble name would be heard in the streets of Rome; that temples would rise to her, more numerous ​and more vast and splendid than the heathen temples they displaced; and that thus, poor, weak, and human as she was, she would be exalted as an object of worship. This indeed is an exaltation which throws all human honors into nothing. What are thrones and diadems to this? What queen so great, though she were the mother of a long line of kings, as to be worthy to be named in the presence of her before whom even kings and queens bow, hailing her as Regina Cœli and Mater Dei!
It would be a long history that should trace the growth of superstition, which culminated in this exaltation of the mother of Christ to a degree that became nothing less than idolatry. In the Roman Church not only is Mary revered as the mother of our Lord, but she is exalted to be a partner of his throne — the sharer of his divinity. She is the object of ceaseless intercessions and prayers. In every cathedral in the Catholic world, the Ave Maria mingles with invocations of the Redeemer.
This is more than honor: it is worship. It is giving to the creature that which belongs only to the Creator. These superstitions and idolatries have produced in Protestant minds a revulsion of feeling, which sometimes carries them to an equal extreme the other way. We are so shocked by a false estimate that we hardly take pains to get a true one. We find it difficult to disentangle our thoughts from this mass of legend, and to form a just conception of a character which is beautiful because of its freedom from all pretension, its simplicity, its modesty, purity, and truth. But surely it is worth the attempt. Shutting out all false lights, can we not, by the light of Scripture alone, form a just conception of the mother of our Lord?
In such a spirit let us study once more the group in this Grotto of the Nativity, and what do we see? A Hebrew maiden, of humble birth, with nothing of the ​queenly in her looks, such as poets and painters have given her. The artists of the Middle Ages are largely responsible, not for the deification, but for the idealization, of the Virgin Mary. Divesting ourselves of these misleading impressions of medieval art, we picture not a wondrous beauty of form or face, but that beauty of the soul which shines through the countenance, showing itself in deep, tender, thoughtful eyes; the spiritual blending with the womanly, producing a kind of illumination, such as is seen only in the faces of saintly women. Without ascribing to her supernatural graces, we can well believe that there was something sweetly spiritual in her face, as became the descendant of a long line of mothers in Israel — devout women who had been waiting for the kingdom of God. Her mind was filled with sacred thoughts, "waiting," like Simeon, "for the consolation of Israel," and so full of these great hopes, that she was, though "troubled," not affrighted by the apparition of the angel. For such interior grace and purity she was chosen to be the mother of our Lord. And when beneath this lowly roof came that blissful hour, there overspread her countenance an added grace which it never had before. There was no halo round her head, but in her face shone the light of love. Her eyes perhaps were downcast, as if she felt, at that moment more than ever, how unworthy she was of the honor which was given her, and yet there was the inexpressible beaming of a mother's joy, as she took her first-born child — and such a child — within her arms. Such is the image we gather from the few faint touches in the New Testament — that of a simple woman, pure, unworldly; with a woman's capacity for suffering, as well as for devotion; not self-denying so much as self-forgetting; never thinking of herself, but with her whole existence wrapped up in that of her Son, to whom she clung, not only with natural ​affection, but with unbounded faith as her Lord and Master.
While therefore we disown and reject, as unworthy of those who worship God only, the superstitious homage paid to the mother of Christ, we cannot but feel that the honor which is justly due to holy men and women, belongs in the highest degree to her whom God himself honored so greatly. How can any one speak lightly of her whose name is introduced in the most venerable of ancient creeds in connection with that of our Lord, "who was conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary"? "Blessed art thou among women," said the angel, and surely all generations may call her blessed who was chosen from her race to be the mother of Christ, the one to whom His eyes opened first in life, and turned last in death. She who bore that relation to our Saviour cannot be indifferent to us. She who received the Christ-child in her arms, and laid him in a manger; who watched over his infancy; under whose roof he grew in favor with God and man; who shared his bitter sorrows; who "stood by the cross" — "Stabat Mater Dolorosa"; to whom he cast a dying look of ineffable tenderness — to her is due, not worship, but the love and reverence of all the ages.
And that is the truest reverence which regards her, not as a being out of nature — a celestial spirit that came into our sphere to be the "mother of God" — but as in all things human. When we learn to look upon her, not as a divinity, or even as an angel, but simply as a woman and a mother, we shall see how, in the honor put upon her, honor is done to all womanhood and all motherhood. Recognizing her in a relation which they also bear, all mothers, without kneeling to her as an object of worship, may look into her pure and saintly face, and find in her love and tenderness an inspiration and an example.
​But whatever the inward grace and spiritual beauty of the mother of our Lord — pure and noble and saintly as she was — yet she shines chiefly by reflected light. In the celebrated picture of The Nativity by Correggio, the light is made to emanate from the Child, from which it shines in the faces of all the wondering group. This is as true to reality as it is beautiful in art — the chief glory of the mother was in her relation to her Divine Child, and it is the illumination of His countenance which casts up such a radiance into her face.
As we picture to ourselves that scene, we imagine the thoughts of that young mother concerning her child. She remembered the words of the angel, and had often pondered them in her heart; and now bends over his cradle, endeavoring to read the mystery of his fate. But her eyes were holden that she could not see it. Well was it that it was so, for amid all the signs and tokens of future glory, there were dark intimations of a period of suffering that must precede it. What meant those mysterious words of Simeon: "A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also"? The Christ was born, but to what was he born? Not to glory only, but to suffering such as the world had not known. Could the mother in that hour of happiness have foreseen all the future, her heart would have thrilled not only with rapture, but with pain. She would have seen coming to her child sorrows from which maternal love could not defend him. Could she have foreseen the trials and the bitterness of his mortal life — the agony in the Garden, the mockings and scourging in Pilate's hall, and the final scene, of which she was to be a witness — she would have turned away her eyes from the sight, and in her motherly shrinking from it might have implored the God who gave him to take him back again, ere yet he entered on a life of so much suffering.
​And yet beyond the darkness, beyond the clouds and the shadows, there was a brightness such as never shone on the world before. The full significance of that event no imagination could conceive. The Magi, bending low and offering gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, could not grasp the infinite destinies that were wrapped up in the life of him who lay apparently a helpless child in his mother's arms. Nor could that mother herself, in her fondest dreams, take in the great reality. Had her eyes been opened to see what was dawning on the world, she would have seen the new faith extending, till nations came to measure their own existence by the years and centuries from the birth of Christ.
Such are some of the thoughts that come to us in the Grotto of the Nativity. If it be indeed the place of our Saviour's birth, then is there not on the round globe a spot of greater interest than this, over which shone the guiding star, and sang the heavenly voices: for it has witnessed immeasurably the greatest event of all time. The birth of Christ was the coming of God into humanity — the coming of a new life into the world. The manger of Christ was the cradle of our Religion. Under this lowly roof was born, not only Christ the Lord, but Christianity and Christendom, from which have flowed all the mighty influences of modern civilization. He who would trace these to their source, must follow them far back in the ages to this subterranean chamber, as the fountain in the rock from which they sprung. Of all this what could that Hebrew mother know? Only as she looked into that sleeping face, she may have remembered how it was written, "A little child shall lead them." That child was to be indeed the leader of the human race. All history was in that manger-cradle. The fate of unborn generations was held in that little hand.