BETHLEHEM

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21355, 24 December 1934, Page 2 (Supplement)

BETHLEHEM

(The winter of this article spent many years in Palestine, and writes with first-hand knowledge of her subject.) Last year on Christmas Eve hundreds of people in England, and all over the world, heard the sound of the bells which were ringing over the old houses and narrow streets, the steep hills, and rocky valleys of Bethlehem. Appropriate yet curious music, for to many people the name of Bethlehem is as unreal as the Garden of Eden. Yet Bethlehem is a very real little village, looking probably much as it looked 2000 years ago. On the steep hill slopes are clustered little flat-roofed or domed houses. Many are built over caves in the rock. In these caves under the houses the people keep their cattle and donkeys. Probably it was such a one that was offered as a resting place for Joseph and Mary, when the Inn was too full to hold them. The Church of the Nativity is built over a rock cave, much like others all over Bethlehem, and for 1600 years it has been reverenced as the birthplace of Jesus Christ. The Arab inhabitants are almost all Christians of either the Latin or Greek Orthodox, or Armenian Churches. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the Crusaders had established a Kingdom in Jerusalem many Christian knights and their followers settled in Bethlehem. Their descendants are probably still there, for the Bethlehem people are lighter skinned than their neighbours, and some have fair or red hair. The married women wear a distinctive head dress, similar to, perhaps derived from the high headdress of medieval European ladies. Upon this they sew their dowry money, and over it they throw a white veil. They wear a blue linen dress embroidered brightly on the front bodice, and with sleeves so wide that the ends can be tied behind the back. The principal industry of Bethlehem is the making of souvenirs in mother-of-pearl and olive wood to satisfy the acquisitive instincts of the tourists. Though Bethlehem is full of churches and convents and monastries and chapels, the Church of the Nativity is naturally the most important. It stands on a large space, but instead of the wide entrance and huge gates that we expect to see in our churches and cathedrals, the only entry is a small low door, so low that all except small children must stoop to enter. Neither

IN THE HOLY LAND

(By Sylvia Master man)

unbeliever nor heretic may come to the place where the Saviour was born without bowing his head. The church as it stands still retains the walls and pillars built by the Emperor Constantine when he became a Christian. Upon the walls are traces of ancient mosaic work, and the red pillars are discoloured with age. In the fifteenth century the English King Edward IV. sent a shipload of oak beams and lead for the renewal of the roof. The lead was melted down for shot by the Turks, but the stout English oak may still be in the timber work of the roof. The high altar is overhung with large silver lamps and decked with many ornaments. Dark-robed priests swing censers and chant their prayers continually. To see the cave in which Christ was born you must go down a narrow dark stairway. Under the high altar, lit by fifty-three lamps and many candles, is a cave in the solid time-blackened rock. Around are many tinsel ornaments hung by devout worshippers. The air is heavy with incense and the smell of burning candles. On the ground is a large star, and round it is written in Latin, "Here Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary." This is one of the most holy places in Palestine, and one over which there have been many disputes. Fierce jealousy between the rival churches, the Latin, the Greek Orthodox, and the Armenian —not to mention the Roman Catholic or the Protestant churches—is carried to lengths that seem to us astonishing, ridiculous, and most un-Christian. The Armenians might move their carpet an inch or two beyond the space allowed them, the Greeks might hang a picture too many, the Latins might sweep more than their appointed floor space; each of these is sufficient nretext for a fresh outburst of animosity. This rivalry is typical of Palestine as a whole, for the petty rivalries of Christian sects are as nothing to the bitter hostility of Moslem, Jew, and Christian. Despite this, there is a great beauty in the land ■with its heavy burden of history and its deepfounded traditions and simple people. Here, for three thousand years and more, people have lived, kept flocks, and worshipped God. A thousand years before the birth of Christ. Ruth came to Bethlehem and gleaned corn for her mother, and David watched his father's flocks upon the steep hillsides.