CARMELITE
354
CARMELITE
about four yards". Rabbis of the thirteenth and
following centuries make similar references to Elias
in connexion with Mt. Carmel; and it is well known
that in the eighteenth century the Jews used to join
with the Mohammedans and the Christians to cele-
brate the feast of that holy prophet on the mountain
which bears his name, "Jcbel Mar Elias". As we
have seen, the traditional site of Elias' contest is still
held sacred by the Druses. But it is Christianity
which, through its pious pilgrims and its Carmelite
monks, has chiefly contributed to preserve the sacred
memories of Mt. Carmel. The best positions from
which to view the extensive prospect are furnished by
the flat roof of the Carmelite monastery at the north-
western end of the mountain, and by the platform of
the chapel recently erected by the Carmelites at its
south-eastern extremity.
Wright, Early Travels in Palestine (London, ISIS); Robin- son, Biblical Researches (Boston, 1841), III; Guerin, Descrip- tion lie la Palestine, etc. (Paris, 1S76), II; Conder, Tent Work- in Palestine (London, 1SS9); Thomson, The Land and the l!<<"k (New York, ISSl'i.II; Smith, Hist. Geaar. vj the Holy Land (New York, 1S971; Baedeker, Palestine anil Si/ria (-1th ed., New- York. 1906).
Francis E. Gigot.
Carmelite Order, The, one of the mendicant orders. — Origin. — The date of the foundation of the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel has been under discussion from the fourteenth century to the presenl day, the order claiming for its founders the prophets Elias and Eliseus, whereas modern historians, begin- ning with Baronius, deny its existence previous to the second half of the twelfth century. As early as the times of the Prophet Samuel there existed in the Holy Land a body of men called Sons of the Prophets, who in many respects resembled religious institutes of later times. They led a kind of community life, and, though not belonging to the Tribe of Levi, dedicated themselves to the service of God; above all they owed obedience to certain superiors, the most famous of whom were Elias and liis successor Eliseus, both connected with Carmel, the former by his encounter with the prophets of Baal, the latter by prolonged residence on the holy mountain. With the downfall of the Kingdom of Israel the Sons of the Prophets disappear from history. In the third or fourth cen- tury of the Christian Era Carmel was a place of pil- grimage, as is proved by numerous Greek inscriptions on the walls of the School of the Prophets: " Remem- ber Julianus, remember Germanicius", etc. Several of the Fathers, notably John Chrysostom, Basil, Gre- gory Nazianzen, and Jerome, represent Elias and Eliseus as the models of religious perfection and the patrons of hermits and monks. These undeniable facts have opened the way to certain conjectures. As St. John the Baptist spent nearly the whole of his life in the desert, where he gathered around him a number of disciples, and as Christ said he was endowed with the spirit and virtue of Elias, some authors think t hat he revived the institute of the Sons of the Prophets.
The glowing descriptions given by Pliny, Flavins Josephus, and Philo, of the manner of life of the Essenes and Therapeutes convinced others that these sects belonged to the same corporation; unfortun- ately their orthodoxy is open to serious doubts. Taci- tus mentions a sanctuary on Carmel, consisting " neither of a temple, nor an idol, but merely an altar for Divine worship"; whatever its origin may have been, it certainly was at the time of Vespasian in the hands of a pagan priest, Basilides. Pythagoras (500 B. c.) is represented by Jamblichus (a. d. 300) as having spent some time in silent prayer in a similar sanctuary cm ( 'armel, a test iin.my of greater force for
the time of Jamblichus himself than for thai of Pytha- goras. Nicephorus Callistus ( \. i>. 1300) relatestli.it the Empress Helena built a eliureh in honour of St.
Elias on the slopes of a certain mountain. This evi- dence is, however, inadmissible, inasmuch as Eusebius
is witness to the fact that she built only two churches
in the Holy Land, at Bethlehem and at Jerusalem,
not twenty, as Nicephorus says; moreover the words
of this author show clearly that he had in view the
( Ireek monastery of Mar Elias, overhanging the Jor-
dan valley, and not Carmel as some authors think;
Mar Elias, however, belongs to the sixth century.
These and other misunderstood quotations have en-
feebled rather than strengthened the tradition of the
order, which holds that from the days of the great
Prophets there has been, if not an uninterrupted, at
least a moral succession of hermits on Carmel, first
under the Old Dispensation, afterwards in the full
light of Christianity, until at the time of the Crusades
these hermits became organized after the fashion of
the Western orders. This tradition is officially laid
down in the constitutions of the order, is mentioned
in many papal Bulls, as well as in the Liturgy of the
Church, and is still held by many members of the
order.
The silence of Palestine pilgrims previous to a. d. 1150, of chroniclers, of early documents, in one word the negative evidence of history has induced modern historians to disregard the claims of the order, and to place its foundation in or about the year 1 155 when it is first spoken of in documents of undoubted authen- ticity. Even the evidence of the order itself was not always very explicit. A notice written between 1247 and 1274 (Mon. Hist. Carmelit., 1, 20, 267) states in general terms that "from the days of Elias and Eli- seus the holy fathers of the Old and the New Dispensa- tion dwelt on Mount Carmel, and that their successors after the Incarnation built there a chapel in honour of Our Lady, for which reason they were called in papal Bulls " Friars of Blessed Mary of Mount Car- mel ". The General Chapter of 12S7 (unedited) speaks of the order as of a plantation of recent growth (plan- tatio novella). More definite are some writings of about the same time. A letter "On the progress of his Order" ascribed to St. Cyril of Constantinople, but written by a Latin (probably French) author about the year 1230, and the book "On the Institu- tion of the First Monks" connect the order with the Prophets of the Old Law. This latter v/ork, men- tioned for the first time in 1342, was published in 1370 and became known in England half a century later. It purports to be written by John, the forty- fourth (more accurately the forty-second) Bishop of Jerusalem (a. d. 400). However, as Gennadius and other ancient bibliographers do not mention it among the writings of John, and as the author was clearly a Latin, since his entire argument is based upon certain texts of the Vulgate differing widely from the corre- sponding passages of the Septuagint, and as he in many ways proves his entire ignorance of the Greek language, and, moreover, quotes or alludes to writers of the twelfth century, he cannot have lived earlier than the middle of the thirteenth. A third author is sometimes mentioned, Joseph, a I leacon of Antioch, whom Possevin assigns to about A. D. 131). His work is lost but its very title, "Speculum perfectte militia? primitivse ecclesiffl", proves that he cannot have be- longed to the Apostolic Fathers, as indeed he is en- tirely unknown to patristic literature. His name is not mentioned before the fourteenth century and in all probability he did not live much earlier.
The tradition of the order, while admitted by many of the medieval Schoolmen, was contested by not a few authors. Hence the Carmelite historians neg- lected almost completely the history of their own times, spending all their energy on controversial writ iugs, as is evident in the works of John Baconthorpe, John of Chimineto, John of Hildesheim, Bernard Ol- erius, and many others. In 137 t a disputation was held before the University of Cambridge between the
Dominican John Stokes and tin- Carmelite John of Ilorneby; the latter, whose arguments were chiefly
