THE HOLY PLACES To the vast majority of Jews, Muslims and Christians, the religious associations of Palestine predominate over every other, and at all ages have attracted pilgrims to its shrines. We need allude only to the centralization of Jewish ideas and aspirations in Jerusalem, especially in the holy rock on which tradition (and probably textual corruption) have placed the scene of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, and over which the Most Holy Place of the Temple stood. The same associations are those of the Muslim, whose religion has absorbed so much of Judaism. The mosque of Omar which is built on the site of the Temple is one of the glories of Islam ; the alleged tomb of Moses and the mosque at Hebron over the cave of Machpelah are famous centres of Muslim pil grimage. Christianity, however, is responsible for the greatest development of the cult of holy places in Palestine.
There is no evidence that the earliest Christians were interested in the sites associated with the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. These were of no special moment to them in comparison with the all-important fact that "Christ was risen." It was not till the clear-cut impress of the events of Christ's life had faded from human recollection that there arose a desire to "seek the living among the dead." The story begins with Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, who became fired with zeal to fix definitely the spots where the great events in the birth of Christianity had taken place and in 326 visited Palestine for that purpose. Her pilgrimage, as might have been expected, was attended with complete success. The True Cross was discovered; and, by excavation conducted under Constantine's auspices, the Holy Sepulchre, "contrary to all expectation" as Eusebius naively says, was also found (see JERUSALEM and SEPULCHRE, THE HoLY). The stream of pilgrimage to the Holy Land began im mediately, and has flowed ever since. Onwards from 333 when an anonymous pilgrim from Bordeaux visited the holy places and left a succinct account of his route and of the sights he saw, there is a continuous record of the experiences of a multitude of pilgrims. It is a pathetic record. No site, no legend, is too im
possible for the unquestioning faith of these simple-minded men and women. By comparing one record with another, we can fol low the multiplication of "holy places," and sometimes can even see them being shifted from one spot to another, as the centuries pass. Not one of these devout souls had any shadow of suspicion that, except natural features (such as the Mount of Olives, the Jordan, Ebal, etc.) and possibly a few individual sites (such as Jacob's well at Shechem) there was not a single spot in the whole system that could show the flimsiest evidence of authenticity.
The growth and development of "holy sites" can best be illustrated by figures. The account of the "holy places" seen in Palestine by the Bordeaux pilgrim in the 4th century of our era occupies 12 pages in the translation of the Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society and these 12 pages may be reduced to seven or eight as they are printed with wide margins and have many foot notes added. On the other hand the experiences and observa tions of Felix Fabri, a Dominican monk who visited the country about 148o, occupy in the same series two large volumes of over 600 pages each. The comparison is made in full realization of the fact that the Bordeaux record is a dry catalogue while Fabri's work is enlarged by much delightful gossip. The "invention" of sites has continued to our own times. In the so-called "Via Dolorosa" is a cave which was opened and surveyed in 1870. It became closed and forgotten ; houses covered its entrance. In 1906 it was reopened, the houses were cleared away and a hospice for Greek pilgrims erected in their stead. During these works some local archaeologists attempted to penetrate the cave but were expelled with curses by the labourers. At last the hospice was finished and the cave opened for inspection. A pair of stocks was then shown cut in the rock where none appeared in the plan of 1870; a crude painting was suspended on the wall above, blasphemously representing the Messiah confined in them.