On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII.
LIFE IN A CONVENT.
We had been musing so long on the past that we had almost forgotten the present, when suddenly a stroke of the Convent bell recalled us to our situation. Our time at the foot of Sinai was drawing to a close. We must go out once more upon the plain, and look upon the face of the Mount that might be touched. "Yohanna, order the camels!" We mounted, and rode out to survey again the plain of Er Rahah; and every time we turned and looked upward, the impression was confirmed that the height above us was indeed the Mount of God. Approaching still nearer, we drew up at its very foot, and looked aloft at the tremendous cliffs which hung over us. Perhaps some knowledge of this was in the mind of John when in his vision of the Judgment he saw the guilty calling upon the rocks and mountains to fall upon them, and hide them from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne. Following a course round the mountain in front, as we had followed one on the other side to ascend Jebel Mousa, we entered the Wady Leja, where are traces of ancient occupation, for thither pilgrims came, and monks made their abode, as early as the fourth century, and there in time arose a monastery, which afterwards received the name of the Forty Martyrs, because of the number of those who fell in a massacre.
The region about Sinai is full of such historical associations, which give it an interest only second to that given by the Mosaic narrative. The Convent itself, as an historic pile, is more interesting than any ancient castle. It is perhaps the oldest Convent in existence. Though founded only in 555 by the Emperor Justinian, yet more than two centuries before, the Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine, had erected a chapel over the site of the Burning Bush. At that early day pilgrims crossed the desert, and monks built their cells in the rocks, and made the valley resound with their anthems and their prayers. Where a church was built, of course a fortress must be built beside it for its protection. The bloody hand of Mahomet could not always protect it against the fierce tribes of the Peninsula. The Convent has always been a post of danger, as it was on the border-line between two religions — Islam and Christianity — or rather, in the territory of the enemy, where it stood as a solitary citadel of the faith. It has often had to stand a siege, when nothing but its walls and towers kept it from destruction. But if those were days of peril without, they were days of prosperity within. Looking round the interior of the Convent, I observed that it was surrounded with a corridor on each story, upon which the cells of the monks opened, and in those days there were hundreds within its walls. Ah me! how the glory of the former dispensation has departed, when now there are but little over a score to keep up its round of services, and perpetuate the traditions of many generations.
As we came back to the Convent after our excursion, it was no longer with the feeling we had the first day, when we were strangers and pilgrims. We now felt that we were coming home, for we had become quite domesticated in the ancient monastery. The good monks had done everything to make us comfortable. Beside our rooms, they had given up to us the large reception-room of the Convent, in which they left us undisturbed. They never intruded upon us, appearing only when they came at our call, but were always ready to respond to any little request we had to make, showing us through the Church, the Chapel of the Burning Bush, and the Library. Of course we did not accept this as a free gift. When it came to the settling, we paid as much as we should have paid at the first hotel in Cairo. But no matter for that: we were none the less glad that we could obtain such accommodation at any price, and recorded our acknowledgments in the Visitors' Book, saying, as we could in all sincerity, that we were "most grateful for their kindness and hospitality." The privilege that we prized the most was the use of the reception-room, where we could sit all day, reading and writing, as if we were in our libraries at home; while we heard just enough of the life of the Convent that went on around us to fill our ears with a drowsy hum, and to fall in with our desire for undisturbed repose. Towards evening we would go up on the roof to watch the sunset as it touched the red tops of the granite mountains, and to inhale the evening wind that came up the valley. Miss Martineau, when she was here some forty years ago, was struck with the wild, strange beauty of this narrow pass — a beauty not unmingled with terror, when she thought of what it must be at other seasons of the year. She writes: "How the place can be endured in Summer, I cannot conceive. The elevation of the whole region, it is true, is such that the season is more backward than that of Cairo by two months; but this elevation can avail little to an abode placed in an abyss of bare rocks. I was struck with this the first night, when I went out into our corridor after ten o'clock to see the moon come up between two peaks, her light being already bright on the western summits. Still and sweet as was the scene — the air being hazy with moonlight in this rocky basin — there was something oppressive in the nearness of the precipices, and I could not but wonder what state of nerve one would be in during Summer and in seasons of storm. The lightning must fill this space like a flood, and the thunder must die hard among the echoes of these steep barriers." "What must the reverberating thunder have been among these precipices to the Hebrews, who [in Egypt] had scarcely ever seen a cloud in the sky!"
This Convent life was not unpleasant, especially when enlivened with social intercourse. Our friend, the Archimandrite, was always ready to come into our rooms, and have a chat over a cup of coffee. Dr. Post had removed a sty from one of his eyes, for which he was very grateful, expressing the utmost satisfaction at the relief he had obtained, "grace à Dieu et à monsieur le docteur." I had half a suspicion (confirmed by what I learned afterwards) that he was in exile for some ecclesiastical offence, perhaps heresy or insubordination to his superiors. He had not been long in the desert; he had lived in cities, and seemed to like to talk of the world he had left behind. There was an old Archbishop of Gaza, perhaps in exile too, but who certainly bore his expatriation with remarkable serenity, for never was a prelate more smiling and benignant. He looked as if he were overflowing with goodness, and always ready to pronounce a benediction.
With the rest of the brethren we had just enough acquaintance to make our intercourse pleasant. We came to know them, and they to know us, and when we met in the court or on the corridors, they gave us a kindly recognition, and seemed pleased with the sight of strange human faces. There are now twenty-four members, who form a community entirely among themselves, being quite apart from the rest of the world. Some of them have been here thirty or forty years, perhaps not once in all that time leaving these mountains. Indeed I was told that several of them had not been outside the Convent in twenty years. All the affairs of the household are managed by themselves. Some of the menial offices are performed by Arab servants, but every species of handicraft is wrought by the monks. Dr. Post, who had the case for his plants broken, found here a very good tinsmith. Any one whose garments are torn, or whose shoes are worn out in scrambling over the rocks, may find a tailor and a cobbler to patch them up again.
But all this is apart from, and subordinate to, their one great vocation, which is to pray. They tinker a little and cobble a little, but they pray a great deal. Their lives are spent in prayer. Seven hours out of the twenty-four are given to devotion. Several times in the day we hear a stroke, as with a hammer, on a nakus [a bent iron bar] — a sound which, like the voice of the muezzin from the minaret, calls the faithful to prayer. The reception-room is near the chapel, so that the voices of the monks come to us distinctly through the open windows; and we should be dull indeed if we could sit unmoved at the chanting of the songs of the ages, and of prayers which in different tongues are repeated in all the communions of Christendom. Nor are these hours of devotion confined to the day-time: fully one-half are taken from the night. At three o'clock in the morning the bell of the church awakes every sleeper in the Convent. It is now Lent, and there are more hours of prayer and special services, which are always open to strangers. To one of these, on Sunday morning, I was particularly invited, and was quite disposed to accept; although, to confess the truth, the service was a little early and a trifle late, commencing an hour after midnight, and ending at seven o'clock! In such a case I did as many do: I came late and went early — that is, I rose at four, and retired at five — one hour instead of six! But what a strange, unearthly, ghostly hour it was! The idea of such a service had taken hold of my imagination. At first nothing could seem more akin to the highest spirit of devotion. To pray in the hours of darkness and of night! So Jesus prayed while men slept. And when I came out on the balcony, and felt at once all the holy stillness of the night, through which the waning moon was shining, and the stars were looking down from that pure sky of Arabia, "so wildly, spiritually bright," it seemed indeed as if this were an hour to forget the world, and draw nigh to God; to think how soon our little day of life would be past, and we "should be no more seen." I descended the stairs, crossed the court, and went down the stone steps (the pavement of the church is below the level of the court), and entered the church. It was dimly lighted. All the monks were there. One, who had been looking for me, conducted me to one of the stalls reserved for the brethren, where I was in the centre of the line. Opposite me a priest was standing at a desk, with his book open before him, on which fell the light from a shaded lamp suspended over it, and out of which he was reading, or rather chanting, in a dreary monotone, to which a younger priest beside me occasionally responded. The service was in Greek, and contained many things which would be approved by Christians of all communions. They read the Epistles and the Gospels, the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed; they chanted the Psalms of David and the Te Deum of Ambrose. All this was excellent, nor could anything be more impressive (were it accompanied by a little of the appearance of devotion) than the prayers of Chrysostom and Basil, mingled with the old majestic strains of John of Damascus.
Suddenly there came a change in the scene: all the bells in the church-tower (there are nine of them — a full chime) began to ring, not to call the monks, for they were already there, but as if to summon the spirits of the dead, or angels hovering in the air, to bend lower to witness the grand ceremony of the prostration before the cross. The curtain which screened the inner sanctuary was drawn aside, and the priest emerged in gorgeous robes, supported or followed by others with lighted candles, bearing on a salver raised above his head a crucifix surrounded with flowers, which was placed on a low stand in the centre of the nave, around which the monks circled three times, and to which they made repeated prostrations. What degree of heart-worship there may have been in this, I cannot tell; but to me it looked only like a sacred pantomime.
As I sat amid such strange surroundings, I almost lost my personal identity. Who was I, to be here at this hour of night in a monastery, sitting in a monk's chair, and listening to these mournful chantings — these prayers for the living and the dead? I was already far gone into the region of shades, and it seemed doubtful if I should ever return to the living world again, if I had not escaped to the upper air, where, in the silence and peace of the night, finding that the world was still unchanged, that the stars were still above me, and the mountains round about me, I recovered consciousness, and my soul entered again into the body. But it is hard to shake off the feeling of unnaturalness which has taken possession of me. I feel as if I were in a dream: I see men as trees walking. Every nook and corner of this old, rambling Convent-Castle is haunted by the spirits of the dead. The place is full of ghosts. I hear them at night when the winds howl and moan amid the creaking timbers, and sigh along the walls, and die away through the passes of the mountains. It seems as if whole generations of monks were coming back to haunt the abodes once familiar to them. Hark! what was that piercing sound? Was it the wind, or was it the shriek of some wretched monk who passed from life unrepentant and unforgiven, and who now has come back after an age of suffering in Purgatory to say a Midnight Mass for his despairing soul?
But if the question be whether this round of religious exercises has any very important influence in making men spiritually better, a candid observer must shake his head. At first one who listens in a musing mood to these midnight devotions, would think that out of such vigils and prayers must spring the consummate flower of piety; that these men, who are so holy that they cannot live with their fellows, but dwell apart, must be better than others; that all their conversation must be in heaven, and their lives be spent in deeds of charity.
But let us see. I observed the next morning that there was a strange silence in the Convent. Having taken the night to pray, they took the day to sleep. These hours of prayer were not then so much added to the usual times for devotion, but only night turned into day that day might be turned into night. Was there in this any spiritual gain?
As to the pretensions of superior sanctity, any such impression is quickly dispelled. It is enough to look in the faces of these men to see that they are, with scarce an exception, of a low stamp. They are very ignorant. The Archimandrite tells me there is not a really learned man among them. One or two I have seen walking in the avenues of the garden who had a scholarly look, but the mass of them are utterly without education. Three or four can neither read nor write.
But how can such men find admission into a religious order? This question is answered by considering how these communities are formed. Men do not always join them from religious motives. Many enter a monastery as a refuge from poverty. In the Greek Church some of the barefooted orders are replenished as the Shakers are replenished in America, by recruits taken out of the poorhouse. Some of the brethren here are not a whit above men who could be picked out of any decent almshouse. I do not see really bad faces, but they are common and coarse — faces with which one cannot associate any idea of spirituality. One or two of the younger ones look as if they were half-witted. These join the Convent, not from any religious impulse or inspiration, but as a security against want. They enter as laics, and are put to do menial offices. Some are mere scullions: they wash the dishes, they clean the lamps: and if, after four or five years, they are approved, they are received as full members of the order. Their priestly functions may depend on something else than learning or piety. One of the novitiates, hearing that Dr. Post was a physician, came to him for medicine to make his hair grow, for he said he could not celebrate the mass till he had a beard! He is now twenty-one, and his beard is but downy. The Doctor, who was much amused at the request, advised him to send to Suez or Cairo for a bottle of Mrs. Allen's Hair Restorer! This is a new qualification for a monk on Mount Sinai!
But there is something worse than ignorance. They are either the most credulous or the most untruthful of human beings: for they are the propagators of the grossest superstitions. Never were there such gross absurdities as those which they gravely repeat as facts of sacred history. Near the foot of Ras Sufsafeh is a granite boulder, which being, as an Irishman would say, "quite convanyint," is declared to be the one on which Moses broke the tables of stone when he came down from the Mount! Another rock is pointed out as the mould in which Aaron cast the golden calf! The Burning Bush Dr. Post finds to be a species of blackberry. If this be not gross imposture, it is childish credulity. But a man may be very ignorant, and even superstitious, and yet from daily communion with spiritual things, may grow into a higher life, which shall show itself in his very countenance. Not a trace of this does one see here. There is no such process of gradual elevation. There is neither natural refinement nor that spirituality which comes from converse with sacred things. Let a monk remain here forty years, and he that was vulgar is vulgar still, and he that was filthy is filthy still.
Nor is their life one of self-denial. Of course they submit to the prescribed fasts of the Church. It is now Lent, when the fasts, as well as the vigils, are kept rigorously. They will not touch a particle of animal food, but they will drink to excess. Almost the only industry which is pursued here, is making a kind of brandy out of the dates of the palm tree; and this not being prohibited, they use freely. We often see them the worse for liquor. Several of them who have been about the mountains with us as guides, before the day was over have been in a state of intoxication. It takes away from the merit of fasts when it leads to this. If they took a little more of simple, nourishing food, they would not drink so much brandy. Of course I am not particularly edified when I see these same old codgers standing in their places in the church, intoning their prayers!
But the gravest charge which I have to bring against the monks, is their utter indifference to the poor Bedaween by whom they are surrounded. To these Arabs they bear a peculiar relation. When Justinian founded this monastery, he endowed it with two hundred slaves, to be, with their descendants, its servants forever — its hewers of wood and drawers of water. The descendants of those slaves are here to-day, and so kindly and wisely and religiously have they been treated by their Christian masters, that they have all turned Moslems! Nor do I wonder. The holy fathers treat them like beasts of burden — their camels or their asses. They dole out to them lumps of bread hard as a stone, such as one would hardly give to a camel. In the cell of one of the monks I observed a rawhide hanging on the wall. One of our party whispered that this was used by the poor man for self-flagellation. O dear, the holy man, thus to do penance for his sins! But a little inquiry drew out the fact that it was intended for no such spiritual office. Indeed the monk himself was much amused at the suggestion of his doing penance, and laughed heartily as he indicated by word and gesture that he kept it to flog the Arabs!
It goes to my heart to wander about these sacred mountains, and see the poverty and wretchedness of the people. The places they live in are not fit for cattle, nor is the food they eat, when they get any, which is not always the case. Dr. Post asked a little fellow what he ate. He answered by naming the poorest and coarsest food. "Well, if you don't have any food?" He answered with a shrug, drawing his poor tattered clout over his shoulders, that "he sat down on the ground and bore it, till God should send some"! The American party of which I have spoken were greatly captivated by the beauty of a little fellow (Mousa) with black eyes and graceful form and pretty manners. Coming down from the mountains, we met his mother (veiled of course), and saw where she lived. Her only house was a rock which projected a few feet, under which she found shelter. A little fire of camel's offal sent up a smoke which blackened the stone above. A couple of goats were lying here as a part of the family. Can human beings live in such a cave? And yet this was their home; and hundreds of such there are, into not one of which does this rich Convent, with all its monks, who pray seven hours a day, cast one ray of sunshine or of hope.
The moral of all this is that a life of entire separation from the world, and seclusion in a Convent, is not the way to serve God, or to do good to men. A life more vacant of all high purpose, or of practical usefulness, I cannot conceive of; and when I went into the charnel-house, where are piled up the bones of whole generations, with a ghastly array of skulls, I felt that I saw before me the mouldering relics of so many wasted lives. Has this ancient Convent done anything to justify its establishment? One service indeed it has rendered to Christendom, in the preservation of the Sinaitic Manuscript, the oldest copy of the Scriptures in existence. But for its influence on the population around it, what has it done? It has stood here for thirteen hundred years, and what fruit can it show? It is rich: it has possessions in Austria and Bessarabia, and is under the special protection and patronage of Russia. But where are its missions? Where are its charities? Has it done anything to convert these tribes? The best answer to the question is the fact that after thirteen centuries it contains within its walls the only Christian church in all Arabia. As for its charities, it has had thousands of Arabs within its reach and under its authority, and yet it has left them as degraded and barbarous as before. Such is the testimony of history, which carries with it the severest condemnation. If the Convent at Mount Sinai is to be kept up for the same purpose as the hospice of the Simplon, or that of the Great St. Bernard, as a refuge for travellers, that is another matter. To the devotion thus displayed I would pay the highest respect. Never did I feel more reverence for any men than for the monks under whose roof I once found shelter on the Pass of the Simplon. If there were the same spirit of self-sacrifice at Sinai as on the Alps, it would be counted worthy of the same honor. Certainly nowhere in the world is such a place of refuge more needed than among these mountains and deserts. But that is quite a different thing from claiming that the Convent which we now find here is an abode of saints, a place of such sacredness that to make a pilgrimage to it is an act of religious merit, and to live in it is to be in the straight and narrow path to heaven.
If I had any secret fondness for the monastic life, a few days in a monastery would be quite sufficient to disenchant me. I feel no temptation to turn monk: the Convent cell would be a prison cell. Indeed a sentence to such a life would be like a sentence to death. The very thought makes me shudder, as if I were descending into a tomb, on which a heavy lid of blackest marble were shutting down upon me. It seems as if one could be driven to this life only by the direst necessity, or by superstitious fear. It is said that Archbishop Hughes was once conversing with some Protestant clergymen in regard to the doctrine of Purgatory, when, after hearing their objections, he ended the discussion by saying "Well, gentlemen, you might go farther and fare worse." This was Irish wit, if it was not argument. Certainly it would require the most lurid prospect of "faring worse" to reconcile me to the purgatory of being buried alive in a monk's cell!
And yet I do not like to part from our companions in the Convent with words of censure. Indeed I feel more inclined to pity than to harshness. Poor old creatures! they do not know any better. At least they have been kind to us. We were strangers, and they took us in. We had spent a few days together in perfect friendliness, and now felt a little grieved that we should see their grizzled locks no more; though we were amused to the last by slight tokens that they were not quite above some touch of human infirmity. The morning that we were to leave, we were up very early, when, as I threw open the door, I saw the Econome, or business manager, with whom we had had most to do, walking up and down the corridor. It was early for the good man to be astir. But he had heard that the Howadjis were to leave, and he could not have them depart without a tender farewell. It were base to indulge a suspicion that his early appearance had anything to do with the napoleon that was presently slipped into his hand. But that certainly did not abate the fervor of his demonstrations. He was not only friendly, but affectionate. He could not leave me out of his sight; he clung to me like a brother. He joked and laughed with me; he clapped me on the back.
The only place in the Convent which we had not yet explored, was the refectory, where the monks take their meals. On our expressing a desire to see it, he led the way. It is in a far corner of the Convent, in a hall, which, with its floor of stone and high arched roof, might have been a chapel, and indeed has an altar in it, and a small pulpit, or reading-desk, from which one of the brethren reads while the rest partake of their meagre repast. The table did not look attractive. The only food was hard bread, with soup of vegetables served in tin saucers, regular state's-prison fare; in fact, it was worse than is served to the convicts in any penitentiary in America. During Lent they have but one meal a day, and at no time do they take meat of any kind, not even a chicken or an egg. We went into the kitchen, where a large pot of lentils was boiling, apparently their only dish. This was the very food for which Esau hungered. I had asked the good brother playfully, if he would receive me as a member of the order? But after seeing this, I thought it would hardly be worth while to sell my birthright of freedom for such a mess of pottage.
As a contrast to this, he took us to the Bishop's room, which was quite grand. Attached to it is a private chapel, which contains a number of small paintings, mostly of saints. But one represented a ladder reaching to heaven, up which monks in great number were pressing their way to where Father Abraham, or the Heavenly Father (for they do not scruple to represent the Supreme Being), with outstretched arms, was waiting for them. Unfortunately some had not strength for the ascent, and were falling off into the reach of devils, who, armed with long forks, like Neptune's trident, stood ready to spear the wretches, and toss them over to the place of burning. This was designed to be a terror to delinquent monks; but the jolly Econome seemed not to mind it, but made himself merry over the picture. Evidently the fear of future retribution did not sit heavy on his soul.
Meanwhile busy preparations were going on for our departure. I had heard the sound thereof from an early hour. As I had looked out of a porthole, I saw a procession of camels at the gate, even before it was opened; and when we descended to the yard, there were lying on the ground camels enough to furnish a caravan. It appeared that, as the supply was greater than the demand, there was a lively competition for the honor of bearing our sacred persons. It is said that there are four families in the valley who do the carrying trade, and as there is not work enough for all, each claims a share. We left it to the sheikh and the dragoman to settle it between them. At length all was arranged. Our friend, the Econome, came down into the yard to see us mount, giving us each a little cup of manna as a token of his regard; the Archimandrite was there also to bid us farewell; while the Archbishop of Gaza, taking his morning walk on the roof, looked down benignantly, and wished us a pleasant journey. Then at the word of command the camels rose up with their burdens, and amid a general waving of hands and mutual good wishes, we filed slowly out of the arched gate of the Convent of Mount Sinai, and turned our faces towards Jerusalem.