On the Holy Places 1 part 3/4

Wondrous to say, only the house of Rahab remained after three cities had been destroyed in that same place—she who hid in the upper room of that same house of hers, under stalks of flax, the two spies whom Joshua the son of Nun had sent; the stone walls of which house remain without a roof. But the site of the whole city, deserted by human habitation, having no dwelling-house for sojourning, receives crops and vineyards. Between the site of that destroyed city and the river Jordan there are great palm groves, in the midst of which little plains are set, in which the houses of certain little men of Canaanite stock, almost innumerable, are built as their dwellings. XIV. CONCERNING GILGAL.

The oft-mentioned Arculf saw a certain great church founded in Gilgal, built in that place in which the children of Israel, having crossed the Jordan, encamped and had their first stopping-place in the land of Canaan. XV. CONCERNING THE TWELVE STONES WHICH THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL CARRIED FROM THE DEPTHS WHEN THE RIVER JORDAN HAD BEEN FORDED AND DRIED UP. In which church, that is, the same holy Arculf considered those twelve stones, concerning which the Lord spoke to Joshua after the crossing of the Jordan, saying: 'Choose twelve men, one from each tribe, and command them to take from the middle of the bed of the Jordan, where the priests' feet stood, twelve very hard stones, which you shall set in the place of the camp, where you shall fix your tents this night.'

These, I say, Arculf had seen, of which he beheld six lying in the pavement on the right side of the church and another six of the same number on the northern side, all unpolished and rough; each of which, as Arculf himself reports, two strong young men of this present time can scarcely lift from the ground. Of these, one—by what chance occurring is unknown—being broken into two parts, was again, by the hand of a craftsman, fastened together and joined firmly with iron.

Gilgal, then, where the church mentioned above was founded, lies on the eastern side of ancient Jericho, on this side of the Jordan, within the allotted territory of the tribe of Judah, at the fifth milestone from Jericho. There too the tabernacle was set up and stood for a long time; and on its site, as tradition holds, the church spoken of above was built, in which those twelve stones already mentioned are kept. By the inhabitants of that region it is held in wondrous reverence and is honoured with marks of esteem. XVI. CONCERNING THAT PLACE OF THE JORDAN IN WHICH THE LORD WAS BAPTIZED BY JOHN.

That most holy and venerable place, where the Lord was baptized by John, is always covered by the waters of the river Jordan. As Arculf relates, who had himself come to that very place and swum across the river there both this way and that, in that most holy spot a tall wooden cross has been fixed; beside it the water rises to the neck of a very tall man standing upright, or at another season of great drought up to his breasts; but when a greater flood occurs, that whole cross is covered by the rising of the waters. The site of that cross, then, at which (as has been said above) the Lord was baptized, lies on the near side of the river's channel; from it across to the further bank, on the side of Arabia, a strong man can cast a stone with the impetus of a sling.

Now, from the place of the cross mentioned above a stone bridge supported on arches extends right to the dry land, and by it those approaching the cross descend along the slope, and returning to the dry land they ascend again. At the very edge of the river there stands a certain small square church, founded (as tradition holds) on the spot where the Lord's garments were guarded at the hour in which the Lord was baptized. This church, supported on four stone columns, stands above the waters, uninhabitable, because the waters flow in beneath it on either side. It is roofed above with baked clay, but below, as has been said, it is sustained by columns and arches.

This church stands in the lower parts of that valley through which the river Jordan flows; but in the higher parts there is a certain great monastery of monks, which overlooks the church just described, built upon the brow of a little hill directly opposite. And there too a church founded in honour of the holy baptizer John is enclosed within the same monastery wall, built of squared stones. XVII. CONCERNING THE COLOUR OF THE JORDAN. The colour of the river Jordan, as Arculf informed us, appears whitish on its surface, like milk; and such is its colour as it enters the salt sea that it can easily be distinguished, over a long stretch of the sea, from the colour of the Dead Sea, throughout its course.

This Dead Sea, indeed, in great storms, through the clashing of its waves, deposits salt onto the lands, so that it is found in abundance around the circuit of that sea; and this, when sufficiently dried by the heat of the sun, affords a very great benefit not only to the neighbouring peoples on every side, but also to nations placed far off. In another manner, however, salt is wont to be obtained in a certain Sicilian mountain. For the stones of that mountain, when torn from the earth, are by taste proved to be truly the saltiest salt, and this is properly called the salt of the earth. So salt of the sea and salt of the earth are wont to be named differently. Whence the Lord too is believed to have said in the Gospel to the apostles by way of comparison: 'You are the salt of the earth,' and so forth.

Concerning this salt of the earth, then, found on the Sicilian mountain, the holy Arculf informed us, who, while staying in Sicily for some days, proved by sight and taste and touch that it is truly the saltiest salt. XVIII. CONCERNING THE DEAD SEA. He related to us also concerning the salt of the Dead Sea, declaring that it had likewise been proved by him through those same three senses mentioned above. He also frequented the maritime shore of that lake mentioned above, whose length stretches as far as Zoar of Arabia, five hundred and eighty stadia, and its breadth one hundred and fifty stadia, as far as the neighbourhood of Sodom. XIX. CONCERNING THE SOURCES OF THE JORDAN.

Our Arculf came also to that place in the province of Phoenicia, where the Jordan is seen to emerge at the foot of Lebanon from two neighbouring springs, of which one is called by the name Jor and the other Dan. These, mingled together, receive the compound name Jordan. But it must be noted that the rise of the Jordan is not at Panion, but in the land of Trachonitis, with one hundred and twenty stadia lying between it and Caesarea Philippi, which now, taking its name from Mount Panion, is called Panias. The name, then, of that spring which is in Trachonitis is Phiala, always full of water, from which the Jordan is drawn off through subterranean channels and bubbles up at Panion in divided outpourings of water, which, as has been said above, are wont to be named Jor and Dan.

From there too they emerge, and after a certain interval flowing together into one stream they unite, and thence directing its course it advances a hundred and twenty stadia without any further mingling as far as the city whose name is Julias. Afterwards it passes through that lake which is called Gennesaret with a course down the middle. From these places, after wandering around through many deserts, it is received by the Asphalt Lake and is laid to rest in it. And so, having issued forth a victor from two lakes, it sticks fast in the third. XX. CONCERNING THE SEA OF GALILEE. Our oft-mentioned holy Arculf went round the greater part of the Sea of Galilee, which is also called the Lake of Chinnereth and the Sea of Tiberias, and to which great neighbouring forests adjoin.

This lake, with a certain compass like that of a sea, a most ample gulf, extends one hundred and forty stadia in length, and spreads forty stadia in breadth; its waters are sweet and fit for drinking, since it takes in nothing of the thick or turbid mire of marshes, because it is surrounded on every side by a sandy shore, whence its draught is the purer and softer for use. Kinds of fish too, in taste and appearance more excellent than can be found anywhere in any other lake, are present there.

These brief notes concerning the rise of the Jordan and the Lake of Chinnereth we have set down, drawn partly from the third book of the Jewish Captivity, partly from the experience of the holy Arculf; who, as he himself relates without hesitation, made an eight days' journey from that place where the Jordan issues from the mouth of the Sea of Galilee to that place where it enters the Dead Sea. And that saltiest sea the holy Arculf himself, as he relates, often gazed upon from the watchtower of the Mount of Olives. XXI. CONCERNING THE WELL OF SAMARIA. The holy priest Arculf, traversing the region of Samaria, came to a city of that province which in Hebrew is called Shechem, but by Greek and Latin usage is named Sicima, which, however faultily, is also wont to be called Sychar.

And so near this same city he saw outside the wall a church built, which, formed in four parts toward the four quarters of the world, extends as in the likeness of a cross, whose figure is depicted below. In the middle of it Jacob's spring, which is also wont to be called a well, is set in the centre within, facing toward its four sides; over it the Saviour, wearied with the labour of the journey, was sitting at the sixth hour of a certain day. And to that same well that Samaritan woman came at that same noontide to draw water. Concerning that well, indeed, the same woman, answering the Lord among other things, said: 'Lord, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.'

Arculf, then, who drank of the water of that same well, relates concerning its depth, saying: 'That well which I looked upon has a depth of twice twenty orgyiae, that is, forty cubits.' Now an orgyia, or fathom, is the extension of both hands on either side. Shechem, then, which is also Sicima, formerly a priestly city and a city of refuge, is held in the tribe of Manasseh and on Mount Ephraim, where also the bones of Joseph are buried. XXII. CONCERNING A CERTAIN LITTLE SPRING OF THE WILDERNESS. The oft-mentioned Arculf beheld in the desert a certain clear little spring, from which, as tradition holds, the holy baptizer John used to drink, protected by a stone roof daubed with lime. XXIII. CONCERNING LOCUSTS AND WILD HONEY. For concerning that same John the evangelists write:

'His food was locusts and wild honey.' This same our Arculf, in that wilderness where John dwelt, saw a certain very small kind of locusts, whose little bodies are thin and short like a finger of the hand; and because their flight is very short, like the leaps of nimble frogs, they are easily caught in the grass. Cooked in oil they afford a poor sustenance. Concerning wild honey, indeed, we learned this from Arculf's experience, as he spoke thus: 'In that same desert I had seen certain trees, whose leaves are broad and round, of a milky colour and a honeyed taste; and the nature of these leaves is very fragile, and those who wish to take them for food first rub them together in their hands, and then eat them.'

And this is the wild honey thus found in the woods. XXIV. CONCERNING THAT PLACE IN WHICH THE SAVIOUR BLESSED FIVE LOAVES AND TWO FISHES. To this place our oft-mentioned Arculf came; its grassy and level field, from the day on which the Saviour satisfied five thousand with five loaves and two fishes, has never been ploughed. In it no buildings are seen; Arculf saw only certain few stone columns lying upon the margin of that little spring, from which they too drank, it is said, on the day on which the Lord refreshed them, when they were hungry, with such a feeding. This place, indeed, lies on the near side of the Sea of Galilee, looking toward the city of Tiberias, which meets it from the southern quarter. XXV. CONCERNING CAPERNAUM.

Those who, descending from Jerusalem, wish to go to Capernaum, as Arculf relates, take the road straight through Tiberias, then along the Lake of Chinnereth, which is also the Sea of Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee, and have a way through the place of the blessing mentioned above; from which, along the margin of the aforesaid lake, by no long circuit they reach Capernaum on the coast, within the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali. This city, as Arculf relates, who viewed it from a neighbouring mountain, having no wall, confined within a narrow space between the mountain and the lake, extends in a long line along that maritime shore, stretched out from west to east, having the mountain on its northern side and the lake on its southern. XXVI. CONCERNING NAZARETH AND ITS CHURCH.

The city of Nazareth, as Arculf, who lodged in it, relates, itself like Capernaum has no circuit of walls, being set upon a mountain; yet it has large stone buildings, and there are two very great churches built there: one in the middle of the city, founded upon two vaults, where once stood that house which had been built, in which our Lord the Saviour was reared.

This same church, then, supported (as said above) by two mounds with arches set between them, has below, between those same mounds, a most clear spring placed there, which all the population of the citizens frequent, drawing water from it; and from that same fount the water is raised up into the church built above, in little vessels by means of pulleys. The other church is built in that place where had stood that house in which the archangel Gabriel, entering to the blessed Mary, spoke at that same hour to her whom he found alone.

This experience concerning Nazareth we learned from the holy Arculf, who lodged in it for two nights and as many days; and therefore he could not lodge in it longer, because a soldier of Christ, well-acquainted with the places, was urging him to hurry—a man sprung from Burgundy, leading a solitary life, Peter by name, who after that same circuit returned to that solitary place in which he had previously dwelt. XXVII. CONCERNING MOUNT TABOR. Mount Tabor in Galilee stands three miles distant from the Lake of Chinnereth, gathered up on every side into a wondrous roundness, on its northern side looking toward the aforesaid lake, very grassy and flowery.

On its pleasant summit there is a broad plateau encircled by a very great wood, in whose midst, in the open ground, there is a great monastery of monks and many of their cells. For the level top of that mountain is not narrowed into a cramped peak, but is widened in breadth for twenty-three stadia, while its height rises to thirty stadia. On that upper plateau also there are three celebrated churches of no small building, founded according to the number of those tabernacles concerning which, on that same holy mountain, Peter, gladdened by the heavenly vision and greatly afraid, speaking to the Lord said: 'It is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles, one for you, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.'

And so the buildings of the aforesaid monastery and of the three churches, together with the cells of the monks, are all surrounded by a stone wall; where the holy Arculf lodged one night, on the height of that same holy mountain. For Peter, the Burgundian worshipper of Christ, the guide of his paths in those lands, did not allow him to tarry longer in one and the same lodging, on account of his haste. But among these things this too is to be noted, that the name of that famous mountain ought to be written in Greek letters thus, with d and long ō, ΘΑΒΩΡ, but in Latin letters with an aspiration, Thabor, with the o prolonged. The orthography of this word is found in the books of the Greeks. XXVIII. CONCERNING DAMASCUS.

Damascus, a great royal city, as Arculf relates, who lodged in it for some days, is set in a broad plain, encircled with an ample compass of walls, and moreover fortified with frequent towers, having many olive-groves outside the walls round about, which also four great rivers flowing through gladly enliven. In it the king of the Saracens, having obtained the chief power, reigns; and there a great church is founded in honour of the holy John the Baptist. A certain church too of the unbelieving Saracens themselves has been built in that same city, which they frequent. XXIX. CONCERNING TYRE.

Our Arculf, a traverser of very many regions, also entered Tyre, the metropolis of the province of Phoenicia, which in the Hebrew and Syriac tongue is called Sor. It is read in the Greek and Latin and barbarian histories that it had no access from the land; but some affirm that afterwards mounds were thrown up by Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Chaldeans, and that by the besieger the place was made ready with javelins and battering-rams, and that from an island it was made a peninsula and a level plain. This city was very beautiful and noble, which is not without reason interpreted in Latin as 'narrowness'; for the island, and the city, have this same narrow measure of land. It lay in the land of Canaan, of which the Canaanite or Syrophoenician woman in the Gospel had been a dweller.

It is to be noted, then, that the holy Arculf's account of the situation of Tyre agrees in all respects with those things which we set down above, excerpted from the commentaries of the holy Jerome. Likewise also those things which we described above concerning the situation and form of Mount Tabor, following the holy Arculf's narration, differ in no way from those which the holy Jerome relates concerning the situation of that same mountain and its wondrous roundness. From that Mount Tabor, indeed, as far as Damascus, Arculf had a journey of seven days. XXX. CONCERNING THE SITUATION OF ALEXANDRIA AND THE RIVER NILE.

That great city, which once was the metropolis of Egypt, was formerly called in Hebrew No, a very populous city, which, from Alexander the Macedonian king, its famous founder, is named throughout all nations by the well-known name Alexandria, receiving both the magnitude of the city and the name from that same rebuilder. Concerning its situation Arculf too, in his account, differs in no way from those things which we previously learned from reading; he, descending from Jerusalem and beginning to sail from Joppa, had a journey of forty days as far as Alexandria, concerning which the word of the prophet Nahum is briefly recorded, speaking thus: 'Water round about it, whose riches are the sea, the waters its walls.'

For on its southern side it is girt by the mouths of the river Nile, but on the northern side by the Mareotic lake. Thus, then, its situation, when so described, is plainly shown: that, being placed above the Nile and the sea, it is surrounded on this side and that by waters. As though a barrier, it lies between Egypt and the great sea, a city without a harbour and difficult of access from outside. Its port, more difficult than others, is, as it were, after the form of a human body, more capacious at the very head and station, narrower at the throat, where it receives the passage of the sea and of ships, by which certain means of breathing are furnished to the port. When one has escaped the narrows and the mouth of the port, then, like the remaining form of the body, so the spreading of the sea extends far and wide.

On the right hand of that port there is a small island, on which there is a very great tower, which Greeks and Latins in common, from the use of the thing itself, called Pharos, because it is seen from afar by those sailing, so that, before they approach the harbour, especially in the night-time, they may know by the burning of flames that the neighbouring land is near to them, lest, deceived by the darkness, they fall upon the rocks or be unable to make out the threshold of the entrance.

There are therefore attendants there, by whom, with torches and other piles of wood set beneath, a fire is kindled as a herald of the land and an index of the threatening throat of the harbour, pointing out the narrows of entrance, the bays of the waves and the windings of the entrance, lest a slender keel graze the rocks and at the very entrance dash among the reefs covered by the waves. And so the straight course must be bent a little aside, lest, struck against hidden rocks, the ship there incur peril where an escape from perils is hoped for. For the entrance into the harbour is rather narrow, being constricted on the right side; but on the left it is constricted by crags, with which the left side of the harbour is blocked.

Around the island too there are constructed and cast down masses of enormous size, lest, battered by the constant onslaught of the surging sea, the foundations of the island give way and be dissolved by long-standing injury. Whence without doubt it comes about that, with the waves dashing upon part of the island and rushing back in the opposite direction among the rugged crags and the broken masses, that middle channel is always restless, and the entrance becomes perilous to ships by reason of its rough passage. The amplitude of the harbour, however, opens to a measure of thirty stadia, and even in the greatest storm the harbour within is, by way of compensation, most safe.

because, by the aforesaid narrows and the obstruction of the island, it repels the waves of the sea from itself; for through those same narrows of the harbour-mouth the whole bay of the port is defended, is removed from storms, is calmed from the crashings by which the entrance is roughened. And not without reason is the safeguard or the magnitude of such a harbour, since it is necessary that into it be conveyed those things which serve the use of the whole world. For innumerable peoples of those very places seek the commerce of the whole world for their own use; and the region, fruitful in crops and abounding in the other gifts of the earth and in trades, nourishes the whole world with grain and supplies the globe with necessary wares.

To such a region, which without doubt is in want of rains, the irrigations of the Nile supply rains of their own accord, where both things temper the fields, that is, the richness of heaven and the fecundity of the earth; and where the soil is held abundantly convenient for the use both of sailors and of farmers. These sail, those sow; these are carried about in ships, those till the ground, sowing without a plough, travelling without a wagon. You might discern the region distinguished by its streams, and lofty, as it were, with certain ramparts of ships. Over all the lands wander dwellings, which on either side cling to the margins of the banks of the river Nile. For it is navigable as far as the city which they call Elephantine;

further than this the cataracts—that is, the river-falls of the waters—do not allow a ship to proceed, not by failure of the channel, but by the headlong plunge of the whole river and a certain ruinous rush of the running waters. The holy Arculf's account, then, concerning the situation of Alexandria and the Nile is proved not to disagree with those things which we have come to know by reading in the books of others. From these we have inserted certain things, excerpted in a brief text, set into this present description: that is, concerning the harbourlessness of that city, concerning the difficulty of its port, concerning the island and the tower built upon it, concerning the position of Alexandria bounded between the sea and the mouth of the river Nile, and concerning the rest.

This, without doubt, is the cause why the site of that same city, which is thus strangled, constricted between two parts, extends from west to east in a very long and narrow stretch of passage—which Arculf's narration too demonstrates; for he, as he himself relates, began to enter the city at the third hour of the day in the month of October, walking along the length of the city, and could scarcely reach the extremity of its length before the evening hour. This city is encircled by a long compass of walls, furthermore fortified with frequent towers set along the margin of the river and the shore of the gulf of the sea.

Likewise, to those coming from the part of Egypt and entering the Alexandrian city, there meets them on the northern side a great church of fine structure, in which the evangelist Mark lies buried in the earth, whose sepulchre before the altar in the eastern part of that same quadrangular church is shown, with a memorial set above it, built of marble stones. This Alexandria, then, which, before it was enlarged and built up greater by Alexander the Great, was called No, as said above, to which, as described above, the mouth of the river Nile clings—that mouth which is named Canopic—separates Asia together with Egypt from Libya.

On account, then, of the flooding of this Nile river, the Egyptians construct lofty mounds around its banks, which, if they be broken through by the negligence of the keepers or by too great an eruption of the waters, in no way irrigate the fields lying below, but overwhelm and devastate them. For which cause very many who dwell in the plain of Egypt, as the holy Arculf relates, who passing through Egypt often crossed that same river, dwell above the waters in houses supported on cross-beams.

Crocodiles, as Arculf relates, dwell as aquatic four-footed beasts in the river Nile, not large, but very voracious and so strong that even one of them, if perchance it can find a horse or an ass or an ox cropping the grass beside the bank of the river, emerging in a sudden onset attacks it, or even, biting one foot of the animal and dragging it under the waters, devours the whole animal utterly. CHAPTER-HEADINGS OF THE THIRD BOOK. I. Concerning the city of Constantinople. II. Concerning the founding of the same city. III. Concerning that church in which the cross of the Lord is kept. IV. Concerning George the martyr. V. Concerning the image of holy Mary. VI. Concerning the mountain Vulcan. THE THIRD BOOK. I. CONCERNING THE CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

The oft-mentioned Arculf, returning from Alexandria, lodged for some days on the island of Crete, and sailing from it made for Constantinople, in which he tarried for some months. This, without doubt, is the metropolis of the Roman empire, surrounded on every side by the sea except its northern part, where that sea, breaking forth sixty miles from the great sea, extends as far as the wall of the city. And from the wall of Constantinople as far as the mouths of the river Danube this same sea is prolonged sixty miles.

This imperial city, then, encircled by no small compass of walls for twelve miles, having angles toward the situation of the sea, with walls built along the maritime shore, as at Alexandria or Carthage, and, like Tyre, fortified moreover with frequent towers—it has within the walls of the city numerous houses, of which very many of wondrous size rise up, built of stone after the manner of the dwellings of Rome. II. CONCERNING THE FOUNDING OF THE SAME CITY. Concerning its founding the citizens relate this tradition, handed down from their forefathers, saying: