Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVII, August 1852, Vol. V

A short distance further on, the traveler comes to another branch, where a mule-path turns off to the left from the main road, and leads up the mountain. The ascent is steep, but the path is so guarded by a parapet on the outer side wherever required, that it awakens no sense of danger. The declivities of the mountain, above and below the path, are clothed with trees and herbage, with gray walls, forming picturesque cliffs, and precipices, appearing here and there among them. There is a profusion, too, of wild flowers of every form and hue, which attract and charm the traveler, wherever he turns. He looks off at every salient point that he passes in his ascent, over the bay. He sees the white walls of the city of Acre rising from the margin of the water at the extremity of it, far in the distance – and never ceases to admire the smooth and beautiful beach which lies spread out before him, its broad expanse broken, perhaps, here and there on the side toward the sea, with the wrecks of ships which lie there half buried, and enlivened on the land with trains of mules or of camels passing toward Acre or Haïfa, or by some picturesque group of tents pitched upon the plain – the encampment of some wandering tribe of Arabs, or of a party of European travelers. Further inland, he surveys broad fields of luxuriant vegetation, variegated with every shade of green and brown, and groves of trees that extend along the margin of the rivers, and crown the summits of the distant hills. In a calm and clear summer's morning, the observer looks down upon this brilliant scene of verdure and beauty, as upon a map, and lingers long on his way, to study minutely every feature of it.

THE RIVER BELUS AND THE DISCOVERY OF GLASS

About midway between Haïfa and Acre, the traveler, pausing at some resting-place in the progress of his ascent, may trace the course of the river Belus, as it meanders through the plain beneath him, northwardly, toward an outlet just in the rear of Acre, where it empties into the sea. The course and direction of the stream are delineated upon the map near the commencement of this article. This river is celebrated as the place where, according to ancient story, the discovery of the art of making glass was first made by means of an accidental vitrification which chanced to take place under certain peculiar circumstances, on its shores.[4] Glass is composed essentially of silicious substances – such as sand – combined with certain alkalies by fusion. For sand, though very refractory if exposed alone to the influence of heat, when mixed with these alkaline substances fuses easily, and vitrifies, that is it forms a glass, which is more or less perfect according to the precise nature of the substances employed, and the arrangements of the process. The story of the origin of the discovery is, that a vessel came into the mouth of the Belus from the Bay of Acre, laden with certain fossil alkalies which were found somewhere along the coast, and were used in those times for certain purposes, and that the sailors landed on the beach and built a fire there, with a view of taking supper on the shore. When the fire was made they looked about the beach for stones to use as a support for their kettle; but the soil being alluvial and sandy they were not able to find any stones, and so they brought instead three fragments of the alkaline fossil, whatever it might have been, with which their vessel was loaded. These fragments they placed in the margin of the fire which they had built upon the sand, and rested the kettle upon them; thus by means of the alkali, the sand, the metal, and the fire, all the conditions were combined that are essential to produce a vitrification, and after their supper was ended the seamen found the glassy substance which had been produced, lying beneath the fire. They made their discovery known, and the experiment was repeated. Soon after this the regular manufacture of glass for vessels and ornaments was commenced in the city of Sidon, which lies on the coast of the Mediterranean, not many miles north of the mouth of the Belus, and from Sidon the art soon spread into every part of the civilized world.

THE CONVENT

The time required for the ascent from Haïfa to the convent is about an hour – the buildings of the institution, though often spoken of as upon the top of the mountain, being really only about two-thirds of the way up to the highest summit. The condition in which the various travelers who have visited the spot within the last hundred years have found the institution, and the accounts which they have given of the edifice and of the inmates, varies extremely according to the time of the visit. In fact, after Napoleon's defeat before Acre, the convent was entirely destroyed, and the spot was for a time deserted. The cause of this was that Napoleon took possession of the edifice for the purpose of using it as a hospital, and quartered his wounded and disabled soldiers there. The Turks, consequently, when they came and found the institution in the possession of the French, considered themselves authorized to regard it as a post of the enemy. They accordingly slaughtered the troops which they found there, drove away the monks, and blew up the buildings. From this time the convent remained desolate and in ruins for more than twenty years.

At length, between 1820 and 1830, a celebrated monk, known by the name of John Baptist, undertook the work of building up the institution again. With great zeal, and with untiring patience and perseverance, he traversed many countries of Europe and Asia to gather funds for the work, and to remove the various obstacles which are always in the way in the case of such an undertaking. He succeeded, at length, in accomplishing the work, and the convent was rebuilt in a more complete and extended form than ever before. Since that time, accordingly, the traveler finds, when he reaches the brow of the mountain where the convent buildings stand, a stately and commodious edifice ready to receive him. Like most of the other convents and monasteries of Asia, the institution serves the purpose of an inn. A monk receives the traveler and his party, and conducts them to a commodious sitting-room, furnished with a carpet, with tables, and with chairs. A corridor from this apartment leads to bed-rooms in the rear, furnished likewise in a very comfortable manner, with beds, chairs, and tables; – articles which attract the attention of the traveler, and are specially mentioned in his journal, as they are very rarely to be found in the East. On the terraces and balconies of the building the visitor, wearied with the toil of the ascent, finds seats where he reposes in peace, and enjoys the illimitable prospect which the view commands, both up and down the coast, and far out over the waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

Travelers are entertained at the convent as at an inn, except that in place of a formal reckoning when they depart, they make their acknowledgment for the hospitality which they have received in the form of a donation to the monastery, the amount of which custom prescribes. The rule is that no guest is to remain longer than a fortnight – the arrangements being designed for the accommodation of travelers, and not of permanent guests. This rule, however, is not strictly enforced, except so far as to give to parties newly arriving the precedence in respect to choice of rooms, over those whose fortnight has expired. While the guests remain, they are very kindly and hospitably entertained by the monks, who appear before them clothed in a hood and cassock of coarse brown cloth, with a rope girdle around the loins, and sandals upon the feet – the ancient habit of the order. Their countenances wear a thoughtful and serious, if not sad expression.

THE GROTTOS AND CAVES

The halo of sacredness which invests Mt. Carmel proceeds from the memory of the prophet Elijah, who, while he lived on the earth, made this mountain his frequent resort, if not his usual abode. This we learn from the Scriptures themselves, as well as from the long and unbroken testimony of ancient tradition. The memorable transactions connected with the destruction of the priests of Baal, in the time of Ahab, at the conclusion of which came the sudden rain, as described in the passage already quoted, is supposed to have taken place at the foot of the mountain near this spot – and the ground on which the priests were slain is still shown, as identified by ancient tradition, on the banks of the Kishon, a little way up the valley.[5] The mountain above is full of grottos and caves. It is said that more than a thousand have been counted. The one which is supposed to have been Elijah's special abode is now within the buildings of the convent. Higher up, among the rocks behind the convent, is another which is called Elisha's cave, and at some distance below, in the bottom of a frightful chasm, into which the traveler descends by a steep and dangerous path, and which opens toward the sea, is another cavern, the largest and most noted of all. It forms a large and lofty apartment, vaulted above, and is said to have been the place where Obadiah concealed and protected the company of prophets, one hundred and fifty in number, and fed them with bread and water while they remained in their retreat.[6] This cave is called accordingly the cave of the prophets. The situation of this grotto is beyond description solitary, desolate, and sublime. Nothing is to be seen from within it but the open sea, and no sound is heard but the breaking of the surf, as it rolls in upon the rocky shore six hundred feet below.

THE PETRIFACTIONS

Among the other objects of interest and attraction for the pilgrims and travelers that visit Mt. Carmel, are certain curious stones, well known to geologists as a common mineral formation, but which pass with the pilgrims and monks for petrified grapes, dates, or melons, according to their size and configuration. These stones are round in form, and are often hollow, being lined with a crystalline incrustation within, the crystals representing, in the imagination of the pilgrim, the seeds of the fruit from which the specimen was formed. These fossils are found in a part of the mountain remote from the convent, where a stream comes down from the heights above, and they are supposed to be miraculous in their origin. The legend accounting for the production of them is this.

In the time of Elijah there was a garden and a vineyard on the spot, and one day as Elijah was passing that way, weary and faint with his journey, he looked over the wall and asked the owner of the ground to give him some of the melons and fruits that he saw growing there. The man refused the wayfarer's request, saying jestingly in his refusal, that those things were not melons and fruits, but only stones. "Stones then let them be," said Elijah, and so passed on. The gardener, on turning to examine the fruits of his garden, found to his consternation that they had all been turned into stone, and ever since that day the ground has been under a curse, and has produced nothing but stony semblances of fruit, instead of the reality. These supposed petrifactions are greatly prized by all who visit the mountain. Well informed travelers value them as specimens illustrative of a very singular superstition, and as souvenirs of their visit to the spot; – while monks and pilgrims believe them to possess some supernatural virtue. They suppose that though Elijah's denunciation proved a curse to the ground in respect to the owner, in causing it to produce these flinty mockeries, the stones themselves, being miraculous in their nature and origin, are endued with some supernatural power to protect and bless those who reverently collect and preserve them.

ORIGIN OF THE CARMELITE ORDER

The convent of Mt. Carmel, as alluded to and described by travelers during the last five hundred years is to be understood as denoting not a single building, but a series of buildings, that have risen, flourished, and gone to decay on the same spot, in a long succession, like a dynasty of kings following each other in a line on the same throne. The grottos and caverns which are found upon the mountain began to be occupied at a very early period by hermits and solitary monks, who lived probably at first in a state of separation from each other as well as of seclusion from the world. After a time however they began to combine together, and to live in edifices specially constructed for their use, and for the last thousand years the Carmelites have constituted a well known and numerous religious order, having spread from their original seat and centre to every part of Europe, and taken a very active and important part in the ecclesiastical affairs of modern times. Every religious order of the Roman Church prides itself on the antiquity of its origin, and the traditions of the Carmelites for a long time carried back the history of their society to a very remote period indeed – not merely to the Christian era, but from the time of Christ and the apostles back to Elijah, and from Elijah to Enoch. In discussing this subject, however, one ecclesiastical writer very gravely maintains that the Enoch, if there was one, among the founders of the Carmelite fraternity, could not have been the patriarch Enoch, the father of Methusaleh, since it is plain that there could have been no Carmelite monks among those saved in the ark, at the time of the deluge, for the vow of celibacy was an essential rule of the order from the beginning, and the sons of Noah, who were the only men besides Noah himself that were saved from the flood, were all married men, and took their wives with them when they went into the ark!

These traditions, however, ascribing a very high antiquity to the order of the Carmelites, were allowed to pass for many centuries with very little question; but at last, about two hundred years ago, certain religious historians belonging to other monastic orders, in the course of the investigations which they made into the early history of the church, came to the conclusion that the institution of the Carmelites was founded in the twelfth century of the Christian era. The earliest authentic information that they could find, they said, in respect to its origin was the account given by a traveler by the name of John Phocas, who visited the mountain in 1185, in the course of a tour which he was making in the Holy Land. He relates that he ascended Mt. Carmel, and that he found there the cave of Elijah, describing it as it now appears. He also states that there was a monastery there which had been founded a few years before by a venerable monk, gray-headed and advanced in years, who had come upon the mountain in obedience to a revelation which he had received from the Prophet Elijah, enjoining upon him so to do, and that he had built a small tower for a dwelling, and a small chapel for the purpose of worship, and that he had established himself here with ten companions of the same religious profession with himself; and this was the true origin of the convent of Mt. Carmel.

A CONTROVERSY

The Carmelite monks throughout Europe were every where greatly displeased at the publication of this account, which cut off at a single blow some two thousand years from the antiquity of their order, even supposing their pretensions to go no farther back than to the time of Elijah. A protracted and very bitter controversy arose. Volumes after volumes were published – the quarrel, as is usual with religious disputes, degenerating in character as it advanced, and growing continually more and more rancorous and bitter, until at last the Pope interposed and put an end to the dispute by a bull. The bull did not attempt to decide the question; it only silenced the combatants. Nothing more was to be said by any party, or under any pretext, on the origin of the institution of the Carmelites, but the whole subject was entirely interdicted. This bull, the issuing of which was a most excellent act on the part of his Holiness, proved an effectual remedy for the evil which it was intended to suppress. The dispute was suddenly terminated, and though the question was in form left undecided, it was settled in fact, for it has since been generally admitted that the story of John Phocas was true, and that Mt. Carmel, though inhabited by hermits and individual recluses long before, was not the seat of a regularly organized society of Monks until nearly twelve centuries after the Christian era.

THE MONK ST. BASIL

The Carmelites themselves were accustomed to maintain that the earliest written rule for the government of their order was given them by a very celebrated ancient monk, known in history as St. Basil. St. Basil lived about three hundred years after the time of Christ. He was descended from a distinguished family, and received an excellent education in early life, in the course of which he made very high attainments in all the branches of knowledge customarily pursued in those days. His mind, however, being strongly impressed with a sense of religious obligation, he determined not to engage in the duties of the profession for which he had been trained, but to seclude himself from the world, in accordance with the custom that prevailed in those days, and spend his life in religious meditation and prayer. As a preliminary step he determined on taking a journey into the countries where the practice of religious retirement had begun to prevail, in order to visit the hermits, recluses, and monks, in their dens and caves, and become practically acquainted with the mode of life which these voluntary exiles from the world were accustomed to lead. He accordingly set out upon his travels, and in the course of a few years he explored Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, and other countries still farther east, in order to visit and converse with all the monks and hermits that he could find, in the deserts and solitudes to which they had retired. We can not here give the subsequent particulars of his life. It is sufficient to say that his learning, his high rank, his exalted character, and perhaps his honest and conscientious piety, combined to raise him in the end to a very commanding position in respect to the whole monastic world while he lived, and to inspire many succeeding generations with a great veneration for his memory. He was believed to have been during his life an object of the special and miraculous protection of heaven; for it is recorded as sober historic truth, that at one time, during the latter part of his career, when certain theological enemies had prevailed in obtaining a sentence of banishment against him, and the decree, properly drawn up, was brought to the emperor to sign, the pen which was put into the emperor's hand broke suddenly into pieces as soon as it touched the paper. The emperor called for another pen, but on attempting to use it the same result followed. This was done three times, and at last, as the emperor seemed determined to persist in his design, his hand was seized with a sudden and uncontrollable trembling, and the chair upon which he was sitting broke down, and let him fall upon the floor. The emperor now perceived that he was contending against God, and taking up the decree he destroyed it by tearing it in pieces.

Now the Carmelites maintained that this St. Basil was a monk of their order, that he was one of the successors of Elijah, that they had obtained their first written rule of their order from him, and that the Basilians, an order of monks taking their name from him and well known throughout Europe in the middle ages, were to be considered as only a branch, or offshoot, from the ancient Carmelite institution. Out of this state of things there arose subsequently a very extraordinary controversy between the Basilians and the Carmelites as will presently appear.

RULES OF THE ORDER

The claim of the Carmelites to have received their first written charter from St. Basil is not very well sustained, as the earliest authentic evidence of any written rule for the government of the institution relates to one given them by the patriarch of Jerusalem in 1205, about thirty years after the time when the monastery was founded, according to John Phocas's narrative. This "rule," or charter as it would be called at the present day, consisted of sixteen articles, and some particulars of it may be interesting to the reader as illustrating the nature of this species of document. The first article treats of the election of the prior of the monastery, and of the obedience which was to be rendered to him by the other monks. The second treats of the cells in which the brethren were to live, and prescribes that they should be separated from each other in such a way that there could be no intercourse or communication between the respective inmates. The third contains regulations in respect to the cell of the prior, its situation and relation to the other cells. The fifth requires the monks to remain constantly each within his own cell except when called away by regularly prescribed duties elsewhere, and to devote himself in his retirement to the work of prayer and meditation. The sixth prescribes certain regulations in respect to divine service. By the seventh the monks are forbidden to possess any private property of any kind. The eighth requires the brethren of the monastery to build an oratory or place of prayer in some central place, near the cells, and to assemble there every morning to hear mass. The ninth prescribes rules for the internal discipline of the institution. The tenth enjoins certain fast days. The eleventh forbids the use of flesh for food entirely. The twelfth exhorts the monks to clothe themselves with certain spiritual armor which it describes. The thirteenth enjoins upon them to labor with their hands, in cultivating the fruits of the earth in their little gardens. The fourteenth enjoins absolute silence upon them, from vespers until the break of day on the following morning. The fifteenth inculcates upon them the duty of humility and of devoting themselves to prayer; and the sixteenth closes the series by exhorting them to be always obedient and submissive to the prior.

EARLY MONASTIC LIFE

There is no question that the monastic system of Christian Europe, established originally by such beginnings as these, led in the end to evil consequences and results of the most deplorable character, and we are accustomed, as Protestants, to believe that there is nothing that is not worthy of unqualified condemnation in it from beginning to end. But when we dismiss from our minds the ideas and associations with which the religious history of the last five hundred years has invested every thing that pertains to monastic life, and look at such a community as this of Mt. Carmel as it was in its original inception and design, we shall find it impossible to ascribe the conduct of those simple-minded recluses to any other motive than a desire to withdraw themselves from the world, in a spirit of honest self-denial, in order to live nearer to God, and enjoy the peace and happiness of daily and uninterrupted communion with him. And as to the delusion and folly of the course which they pursued, in order to judge impartially, we must look at the circumstances of the case as they really were, and see how effectually, in the arrangements which the hermits made, all the essential requisites for human comfort and happiness were secured. The mountain which they chose for their retreat was beautiful beyond description; the soil was fertile, the air was balmy and pure, and such was the climate that the season with them was an almost perpetual summer. They had gardens to till, which produced them an abundance of fruits and vegetables, and in those climes the human constitution requires no other food. The grottos in which they lived were dry, and formed undoubtedly very safe and not uncomfortable dwellings. They suffered neither heat nor cold, for in Palestine cold is seldom known, and though the sun is sometimes hot, and the air sultry, in the valleys, the mountain which they dwelt upon rises into a region of perpetual salubrity, where there is always an atmosphere of soft and balmy air reposing in the groves, or breathing gently over the summit. Besides all these natural advantages of their situation, their course of daily duty gave them healthful and agreeable employment. Their hours were systematically arranged, and their occupations, though varied in kind, were regular in rotation and order. Thus, on the whole, though there was doubtless much of superstition and of error in their ideas, still we are inclined to think that there are some usages and modes of life not at all monastic in their character – to be witnessed among the world-following Christians of the present day, in palaces of wealth and prosperity – which exhibit quite as much delusion and folly as was ever evinced by these poor world-abandoning monks, in the caves and grottos of Mt. Carmel.