Title: Arthur and Fritz Kahn Collection 1889-1932
Identifier: arthurfritzkahn_02_reel02 (find matches)
Year: [1] (s)
Authors: Kahn, Arthur and Fritz
Subjects: Kahn, Fritz 1888-1968; Kahn, Arthur David 1850-1928; Natural history illustrators; Natural history
Publisher:
Contributing Library: Leo Baeck Institute Archives
Digitizing Sponsor: Leo Baeck Institute Archives

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«2 HOLY PLACES cont.nuco « are sacred to the incidents of Our Lord's life, death, Resurrection and Ascension. It is moreover certain that the vast majority of the spots venerated today were those identified hy a living tradition in the Fourth Century and have been continuously recognized ever since. Whether this Hving tradition erred occasionally and precise spots were unenthusiastically accepted where a rather vague mem- ory survived, we cannot know. Recent excavations—for example those at the Lithostrotos of Pilate's Judgment Hall—have con- firmed tradition. We now know that our forefathers were wrong in supposing that the Ecce Homo Arch was the building from which Christ was exposed to the people. We do know, however, that deep below the present Via Dolorosa there does lie the actual path He trod to Calvary. We cannot know whether the Stations are the exaet sites of the various incidents. The Holy Places indeed com- prise the whole gamut of credibility from the "Tomb of Adam"— a fantasy, surely—to the rock of Calvary, which no one but an ill- informed bigot would attempt to discredit. Between these two extremes the other shrines could be arranged in a rough order of probability, but the question is primarily antiquarian rather than religious. Suppose, for example—though there is no particular rea- son to do so—that the place of John the Baptist's birth were not where we suppose, but a few yards away, in another street even, of the same village. The devotion of centuries has made the tra- ditional site a Holy Place in fact. This last may be taken as typical of the minor shrines and of the sur- prises that await the pilgrim. He has come to Ein Karim to see the home of the Baptist. He finds a hand- some modern church in the Spanish style. He is led down a precipitous staircase into a small cave where he is invited to kiss a marble boss. This he is told is the birthplace of St. John. His guide is a bearded Fran- ciscan. If they have a language in common, and even perhaps if they have not, the pilgrim will be told at length the stories of St. Elizabeth and of Zachary. He may be shown some pottery of Herod's time found on the spot and the mosaic remains of two Byzantine chapels. But the Franciscans of the Custody are sel- dom archaeologists and never es- thetes. Their first characteristic is tenacity. They inherited the flag of the Crusaders in 1291. When the knights and barons retreated, the friars remained. They have stayed on for more than 600 years with absolute singleness of pur- pose, undisturbed by theological and artistic fashions. They have more than once in all their undertakings seen the füll revolution of the cycle, decay, destruction, restoration, and have learned to avoid undue attachment to their own transient structures. Indeed they seem positively to relish the demolition of buildings which any- where eise would be patiently preserved. Give them the chance to put up something brand-new, streng and convenient and the Fran- ciscans of the Custody jump to it. They have no sentiment except the highest. No association later than the Apostles interests them. There is only one "period" for them: the years of Our Lord. It is not for US to look askance. They have had small help from art con- noisseurs during their agelong, lonely sentry duty. But the cave, too, is not what we might have expected. It does seem remarkably odd that St. Elizabeth should have gone down to the cellar for her accouchement. The explanation, I think, is that she did nothing of the kind. The houses of this district mostly stand over honeycombs of natural and hewn cisterns and store- rooms. These remain when the houses fall or burn. In identifying a site in the Fourth Century villagers would say, "Here, our fathers have told us, John was born." Nothing is more natural than that a confusion should occur and the cave usurp the history of the former house. We may explain in the same way such objects of veneration as the block of stone from which Our Lord is said to have mounted the ass for his entry into Jerusalem. It is probable that the stone was first put there simply to mark the spot and that later generations made it a participant in the actual drama. Concessions such as these are all that need to be made to the sceptic. But when all these small debts to plausibility have been paid in füll, the residual wealth of the Holy Land in authentic gilt-edged association is incomparably large. The supreme treasury is, of course, the great church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

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