Chapter XL

(1A.) Another suggestion! Khodja is a corruption of the Persian word Khaja, a term that in the East generally denotes a merchant (Garcin de Tassy, Les Noms Propres et les Titres Musulm., 68). Or an interpretation of “Koldigen” is perhaps to be found in Koul, the Turkish for a detachment or small body of men, and jy, a termination significative of office, profession, or trade, as for instance, arabajy, one who drives; kayikjy, a boatman; ghemijy, a sailor, and similarly, Kouljy, one who leads a body of men. In European Turkey, however, Kouljy means also a coast-guard-man, and in other parts of that empire the term is applied to a keeper or custodian. In his Russian edition, Professor Bruun submits the word Koljy derived from Koll, the title of those of the second class of the Monastic Order of Kalender, the founder of which Order, singularly enough, was one named Joseph. With the reader must remain the privilege of deciding upon Joseph’s calling, whether monk, merchant, coast-guard-man, or custodian!—Ed.

(4A.) Of the lamp that burned in front of the Holy Sepulchre, Sir John Mandevile has also recorded that “it went out of itself, on Good Friday, and again lit itself at the hour that our Lord rose from the dead.” This lamp Schiltberger may have seen, but it appears doubtful whether he witnessed the performance of the miracle of the Holy Fire, “the brightness above the Holy Sepulchre, that is like fire”, or he surely would have described the supernatural occurrence.

This Easter miracle at the Holy Sepulchre has been the theme of most travellers who have witnessed it ever since the days of Charlemagne. Henry Maundrell (Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, etc., 96) was present at the Easter festival (1697) during the ceremony kept up by the Greeks and Armenians, upon the persuasion that every Easter a miraculous flame descends from heaven into the Holy Sepulchre. He describes the fearful tumult and clamour made by the people in their wild excitement in anticipation of the miraculous appearance of the Holy Fire at the sepulchre, produced, as he exposes, by the two miracle-mongers, the Greek and Armenian bishops, who had entered the sepulchre alone for the purpose. When they issued with two blazing torches in their hands, all the people rushed with candles that they might obtain the purest fire sent down from heaven, which they instantly applied to their beards, faces, and bosoms, pretending that it would not burn like an earthly flame; but Maundrell says he saw plainly that none could endure the experiment long enough to make good that pretension.

Dean Stanley, who was at Jerusalem in 1853 (Sinaï and Palestine, 467), states that Maundrell’s account is an almost exact transcript of what was still to be seen. Captain Warren also witnessed the strange doings in 1867–70 (Underground Jerusalem, 429–437); and in The Graphic, Sept. 21, 1878, was published an interesting illustration of the interior of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre during the performance of the miracle, together with a short account of the proceedings. “After a procession of bishops and priests thrice round the building, the Patriarch enters the Sepulchre. Now the noise becomes greater and greater ... making the place more like an Inferno than the Church of Christ.... The Holy Fire now issues from the holes in the walls, and hundreds of hands are stretched out as they frantically try to light their candles at the flame.... By this time one candle has ignited the other, and the crowd below is one mass of moving flame.” There is no abatement, in this the 19th century, in the huge sham, with its attendant blind superstition and noisy demonstrations.—Ed.

Noroff states further, that in ancient times there was upon the same side a church of St. Stephen, which was demolished by the Christians in consequence of its proximity to the walls, and because it presented an obstacle to their defence. Daniel the Russian pilgrim, saw that church intact, and asserts that St. Stephen there met his death and was buried. Schiltberger, no doubt, found it in ruins. De Lannoy, without mentioning the church, was of opinion that the martyr suffered death close to the gate which bore his name, the spot being near Kedron and the sepulchre of the Holy Virgin. The old chronicler Adamnanus (Raumer, Palæstina, etc., 312, note 92), in describing the basilica of Zion with its cœnaculum, says: “Hic petra monstratur supra quam Stephanus lapidatus extra civitatem obdormitavit.” According to Daniel, Zion was not within the city.—Bruun.

(7A.) Benjamin of Tudela knew of two hospitals at Jerusalem which supported four hundred knights, and afforded shelter to the sick. The four hundred knights were ever ready to wage war together with those who came from the country of the Franks. One hospital was called that of Salmon, having been originally the palace built by Solomon.—Ed.

Close at hand was the cœnaculum, in which the Last Supper took place—where the Holy Ghost fell on the apostles—where the Holy Virgin expired, and where Jesus Christ washed the apostles’ feet. The Church of Zion or of the Virgin Mary, that stood here and is described by Daniel and others, was afterwards occupied by the Franciscan friars, and eventually became a mosque. William of Tyre (Raumer, Palæstina, etc., 312), Schiltberger and his contemporaries, Zosimus (Pout. Rouss. loud., ii, 50) and De Lannoy, all agree that here was the tomb of St. Stephen; De Lannoy, however, adds that it was the second place of his interment.—Bruun.

(18A.) Captain Warren (Underground Jerusalem, 175) gives much new and valuable information on the Jordan and the valley of that river, and explains that the rise and fall in the level of the Dead Sea is caused by the fluctuations in the rush of water, the time of greater evaporations not coinciding with that of the freshets. This rise and fall might possibly be greater, were there no other regulating arrangement than evaporation; but at the southern end there is a vast tract of land, only submerged by a few feet (here is Robinson’s salt lake), and when this is covered the evaporation is great; and should the waters be unduly extracted, this becomes dry land. The Jordan overflows its banks at harvest time, which is simply owing to the harvest being early in that semi-tropical district, when the waters of the river are swollen by the waters of Hermon. The disparity in the dimensions of the Dead Sea, as noted by different authors, is here accounted for and explained. See Duc de Luynes’ Voy. d’Exploration à la Mer Morte, etc., Paris, 1874.—Ed.

The monastery of St. John the Baptist (De Lannoy) was perhaps identical with that constructed, according to Adamnanus (Raumer, Palæstina, etc., 60), by St. Helena, at the place where Christ was baptised. Pocock (Desc. of the East, etc., ii, 49) makes it distant one mile from the Jordan, and says that Greeks and Latins, who are at issue as to the exact locality, are mistaken in seeking it on the western bank of the river, John having baptised at Bethany beyond the Jordan. Noroff (Péler. en T. S., 49) points out that Pocock himself is in error, and that the Greeks and Latins were quite right in keeping to the western bank, in front of Bethabara and not of Bethany.—Bruun.

The valley of Jericho, compared by Josephus to a paradise, θεῶν χωρίον, tractum divinum, is far from meriting such encomium, even though we cannot but agree with Ritter that, considering the profusion and utility of the vegetation still growing wildly in this fertile valley, and the scattered remains of old aqueducts, it must have been one of the most beautiful gardens in Palestine whilst in a state of cultivation during the Crusades.

That the sepulchre of St. James was in this valley is a very puzzling statement, because it is asserted on tradition that the Apostle of that name, surnamed the Elder, was beheaded on Mount Zion, on the spot where stands the church that bears his name; it is alluded to by Schiltberger and De Lannoy, and is actually in the custody of the Armenians, who state that the head of the saint was carried off to Spain, Quaresimus (Elucidatio Terræ Sanctæ, ii, 77) asserting that the body, as well as the head, is at Campostella. According to Daniel and De Lannoy, the tomb of St. James the Less was in the valley of Josaphat, near that of the prophet Zacharias, close to which, says Schiltberger, reposed the remains of the prophet Jacob, a name substituted for that of James, or rather James the Less, who, it is said, concealed himself in a tomb near to that of Zacharias, upon the day that our Lord was betrayed.—Bruun.

Schiltberger was in Syria and Egypt at about the same time as De Lannoy, and may have heard this tradition, also the legend that was related to the Bishop of Lubeck, to the effect that the balsam tree did not put forth in the garden of Matarea until the Virgin, in passing by when on her flight from the persecutions of Herod, had washed her son’s clothes in the stream that irrigated the garden. Makrizi associates this very fable with the well at Matarea, adding, that the balm-tree had quite disappeared from the country about the Jordan where it was formerly exclusively obtained. Strabo (XVI, ii, 41) and Pliny (XII, v, 4) both say that this plant was cultivated in the royal gardens at Jericho, of which it was the chief ornament (Josephus, Wars, etc., iv, 8); but it is doubtful whether it disappeared entirely from Judæa after the days of Cleopatra and Augustus, because some was purchased at Jerusalem in 705 by St. Guillebaud (cited by S. de Sacy, Abd-Allatif, 91); and Burkhardt learnt that balm-oil was to be obtained at Tiberias, extracted from a fruit that greatly resembled the cucumber, and grew on a stem very like the balsam tree at Mecca.

Now-a-days, a sort of oil, produced from the myrobalsamum and prepared at Jerusalem, is sold to superstitious pilgrims for genuine balsam or extract of opobalsamum, although it does not possess its qualities. Deception was also practised in Schiltberger’s time, but he has shewn himself not to have been so great a simpleton as the many who are being continually duped.

That the sale of balsam was a great source of revenue to the sultan (the patriarch of Armenia paid a high price for it, see page 92), is confirmed by others. Makrizi considered it a most useful commodity. Christian sovereigns vied with each other in securing a supply, and it was greatly esteemed by Christians in general, because baptism was not considered efficacious unless oil of balsam was dropped into the water prepared for the purpose.—Bruun.

(23A.) A plant called the balsam, from which oil was extracted, and not to be found in any other part of the world, grew in the vicinity of Fostat the chief city of Egypt, situated on the river Nile to the north. So wrote Ibn Haukal in the 10th century. It was near Fostat that Cairo was founded in 968. Jacques de Vitry, a bishop in Palestine in the 13th century (afterwards bishop of Tusculum, the modern Frascati) alludes to the produce of balsam in Egypt, which previously was to be obtained in the Holy Land only (Gesta Dei per Francos, etc., Hanoviæ, MDCXI, Bongars edition). According to De Lannoy, it grew by the shore near the city of Cairo, and De Maillet, Consul for France at that city in the early part of the last century, specially describes the plant, which, however, he could not have seen, as it had disappeared two hundred years before his time.

The last of the plants that grew in the garden of Matarea, says this author, were not more than two or three cubits in height, the stem being about one inch in thickness; the leaves of a beautiful green, on slender branches, resembled those of the rue. The stem had a double bark, the outer of a reddish colour, the inner, the thinnest, being perfectly green. The smell of the two barks was not unlike that of the turpentine tree, but when bruised between the fingers emitted an odour similar to that of cardamom. Like the vine, this plant was primed annually, and De Maillet supposes that then was extracted the valuable balsam so greatly esteemed by all Christians, especially those of the Coptic church, the efficacy of baptism without its application being generally doubted (Descr. de l’Egypte, edited by the Abbé Le Mascrier, à la Haye, 1740). De Maillet distinguishes the balsam of Cairo from that of Mecca, which Ali Bey (Travels, etc.) informs us was not made there, but, on the contrary, was very scarce, as it could only be obtained when brought by the Bedouins. Ali Bey was told that it came from Medina. According to some authors, the last of the balsam plants growing in Egypt were destroyed in 1615 by an inundation of the Nile.—Ed.