THE FAHERS OF THE DESERT

THE BOSPHORUS AND THE NILE.

 

WHEN the Eternal Word became flesh, uniting humanity to His Divinity, He became visible, and entering upon His own proper dominion over mankind, He began that battle of the work of redemption in which He was to triumph by dying for all, as well as for each individual. Henceforward, the community which He founded on the groundwork of the Christian faith, and which received for its inheritance the prosecution of His work of redemption amongst men, was to be visible and militant. The work was to be carried on in each individual human soul, for whom our Blessed Lord held in readiness as allies in the warfare all the powers of the supernatural world, and above all, Himself. For as the body is not satiated for ever after having eaten once at the table of the king, but daily feels hunger and seeks to satisfy it, so the soul is not saved for ever by the Saviour having died for her, but that for which He died, sin, must die also daily in her. This is her warfare. All and each of us must wage this warfare which penetrates inexorably into the whole of our earthly life. Its purpose is the deliverance from evil ; its aim, the triumph over evil ; its reward, the neverending enjoyment of eternal good.

But, in this battle, so important to man, and to the community of men which is joined together in the visible Church by the confession of one and the same faith, all do not fight with strength, perseverance, and good will. The work of redemption never ceases; neither does the revolt of the spirit. Many, perhaps the majority, fall, and some desert. But the fallen and the deserters can raise themselves again into the freedom of the children of God.

In the opposing ranks of the enemy stands the spirit of evil, and it creates through sin, a bondage which entails new sins, so that those who enter it become the bounden slaves of the Evil One, and by their unbridled passions corrupt their hearts and pervert their minds. The history of mankind during the four thousand years between Paradise and Calvary contains the account of this slavery. The same slavery in another form has continued through the centuries after Calvary, and even in the midst of the visible Church herself. Those of her children who fall, fight not for the Spirit of God but against Him; they are not living, but dead members of the mystical Body of Christ; but so long as they do not separate themselves of their own accord from the revealed faith upon which the visible Church is built, and reject her teaching, the Church will wait with forbearance for their conversion because that faith can save them even in their last hour, and God has reserved to Himself alone the right of separating the chaff from the wheat in the day of judgment.

Two paths which lead to widely different ends are pursued even by those within the Church ; the paths of grace and of nature. The one leads in strife, through ways of probation and of perfection, to union with God, the other leads into the broad career of self-seeking. The impulse towards both lies in each man who is born in nature and born again of grace; and each has his free choice which path to follow.

In times of great and general calamity, when the paltry joys of this transitory life are as it were encompassed by thorns and bitterness, and none can find secure rest or enjoy real refreshment, because all are threatened with dungeons, with ill-treatment, with poverty and banishment, with martyrdom and death; the mind turns more easily towards heavenly things, and the most frivolous natures are impressed with the nothingness of the goods and pleasures of earth. It is not, then, so difficult to despise riches and comforts, honours and distinctions.

But when the tribulation is past, and the first burst of joy which follows a happy and unlooked for deliverance is over, then many who have a secret affection for earthly things fall into a state of lukewarmness and spiritual debility, in which the desire of supernatural goods is soon extinguished. They make homes for themselves in the world, and seek to be comfortable and peaceful, and to recover all the ease and pleasure of which they had been so long and painfully deprived. If the religion which had hitherto been oppressed and persecuted comes to be supreme, to be preferred and praised, if it acquires power and consideration, and the outward glory consequent upon possessing mighty protectors, it no longer works upon its former followers in all its purity, but becomes intermingled with baser motives and con­siderations of human respect. These considera tions were to many of its new followers of the first importance, so that if the religion did not correspond to their private wishes and aims they troubled themselves very little about it.

This was the case from the time that Christianity was introduced by Constantine into his imperial city of Byzantium. The spirit of the world produced all those effects which it generally causes in those who follow its inspirations rather than the drawing of the Spirit of God. Immoderate ambition and thirst of power, haughtiness and pride, avarice and sensuality, vanity and self-love, presumption and arrogance, took possession even of the Christians, because, as has been said, each one has the free choice whether he will serve Christ or Lucifer. The danger was the greatest on the throne and round about it, and within the limits of the imperial influence, because there the temptation to worldliness was the strongest. The magnificence of the imperial court, the splendour of the establishments and buildings of the city, the marvellous beauty of its situation, and its pleasant climate, all tended to produce the same effect. Everything was there congregated which could dazzle and captivate the senses.

In sailing from the agitated and stormy Black Sea into the Bosphorus, which winds between the coasts of Europe and Asia into the Propontis, (the Sea of Marmora,) there arise in succession pictures, as it were, from a magic mirror, each growing more and more beautiful, to the point where the ancient Byzantium sits enthroned upon her seven hills, like the queen of two regions of the world. The city forms a triangle, one side of which is washed by the waves of the Propontis, another is bounded by the Golden Horn, the harbour formed by a deep bay of the Bosphorus; and the third faces the land where, beyond the uplands of Thrace, lie the Balkan Mountains. On this side was the golden gate through which Constantine and his followers made their triumphal entries. But Byzantium sank gradually lower and lower; and many centuries be fore the Turk metamorphosed it into Stamboul, the golden gate was walled up, lest the people of the West, the Latins, should enter as conquerors through it. On the extreme point of the land arose the palace of the Emperor Constantine, a gigantic and splendid building, with innumerable apartments, halls, corridors, porticoes, baths, and gardens, which could accommodate six thousand inhabitants. It was sur rounded by walls and towers, and formed a small city within the larger one. This most beautiful spot is now called the "Point of the Seraglio", and bears the palace of the Turkish grand seignior as it formerly did that of the first Christian emperor. Its pavilions, cupolas, and minarets, built of white stone, glitter in the sun's rays; and its fantastic architecture is chequered and over­shadowed by the thick foliage of large plane-trees and the dark branches of majestic cypresses. The whole European coast of the Bosphorus, with its deeper or shallower bays, rises into hills from the water's edge, and these hills are covered with a luxuriant abundance of wood. Oaks, planes, wal­nuts, cypresses, chestnut and maple-trees, hang from the slopes over the meadows which border the shore, or dip their branches into the very waves The Asiatic coast is not everywhere so luxuriant, being here and there formed of bare and bleak mountains; but, on the other hand, it possesses a jewel of its own, the Bithynian Olympus, whose snowy peak glitters in the rays of the evening sun.

Above this confusion of palaces, houses, and towers, there rose the gigantic dome of the grand edifice which Constantine had erected in honour of the Divine Wisdom become man, the cathedral of Sancta Sophia, "that wonderful building in which even now the dogma of Christianity, interwoven with the fervent mysticism of the early ages, and penetrated by the glowing faith of the Fathers of the Church, is still quite unmistakable."

A prodigality of riches was expended upon it, and the Emperor Justinian made further additions, when the building had suffered from an earthquake. It is said that on that occa­sion a holy relic was built into the walls between every tenth stone. The doors were made of cedar, inlaid with ivory and amber; the walls were covered with holy pictures and histories worked in mosaic and let into the marble. The marble pavement shone as brightly as a looking-glass. Pillars of porphyry, alabaster, verd antique, and granite, formed galleries above the side aisles. Silver lamps in the form of boats, in which the light was ever burning, hung from the roof. Trees of silver, with lights for fruit, sprang out of the marble floor. The canopy above the ambo bore a cross of gold of a hundred pounds' weight, ornamented with diamonds and pearls. Above the screen which shut off the choir, were twelve columns overlaid with silver, and between them silver statues of our Blessed Lord, His most Holy Mother, four prophets, and four evangelists. The altar stood in the choir upon a base of gold, and the front of it was a mass of precious stones, pearls, and gold, pounded into pieces, and melted together. The bishop's throne was overlaid with ver and gilt, and golden lilies surrounded the silver canopy. Immeasurable riches were stored in the treasure-chamber: 6000 candlesticks of pure gold; seven crosses of gold, each weighing one hundred pounds; 42,000 chalice veils, embroidered with pearls and jewels; twenty-four copies of the Gospels bound in gold, each of two hundred pounds' weight; chalices, thuribles, and vessels innumerable and of indescribable costliness; 950 ecclesiastics performed the services in this House of God. Such was Sancta Sophia, the pride of the emperor, the joy of the faithful, the treasure-house of art, the jewel-casket of Byzantium, until the 29th day of May, in the year 1453, when Sultan Mohammed II rode into it on horseback, and exclaimed, at the foot of the altar, in a voice of thunder, "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet."

Then the Divine Wisdom had to give place to a human delusion, and the Lamb of God to disappear before the "Kismet," or fatalism, of Islam. Then the holy sign of the Cross was effaced wherever it did not happen to be overlooked; and the mosaic pictures on the walls and dome were plastered over with whitewash, which contrasts coarsely and glaringly with their marble frames. But there exists, even to this day, among both Christians and Mohammedans, a saying which expresses the belief that Islam will not always reign here supreme. It is as follows:—"When the Turks took possession of Constantinople, a pious priest was saying Mass in the Aja Sophia. At the moment of the consecration, the bearer of the evil tidings entered the church, and the priest prayed with great fervour, 'May God preserve the holy Body of the Lord from profanation.' Suddenly the wall enclosed both Host and priest, and they will both reappear unharmed on the day in which Constantinople shall be recaptured by the Christians."

Constantine prepared his own grave in the Church of the Twelve Apostles. This church, where the head of St. Andrew was venerated, was also built with lavish magnificence. It was adorned with porphyry statues of the twelve Apostles, at whose feet Constantine desired to be buried, in order clearly to express his reverence for their sanctity, and his confidence in their intercession.

The profane buildings of the city were all in the same style of exuberant grandeur: wherever the eye turned, it rested upon marble, porphyry, and bronze. The marble was furnished by the quarries in the neighbouring island of Proconnesus in the Propontis, which gave to that sea its second name of the Sea of Marmora. The porphyry, alabaster, and granite came from Egypt and the Levant, and the timber from the immense forests in the Bosphorus, and from Taurus in Bithynia. In this respect also the situation of Byzantium was unusually favourable. The Forum of Constantine, which was surrounded by halls and courts of justice, containing many porphyry statues, had for its centre, like the Forum of Trajan at Rome, a column of porphyry eighty-seven feet high, encircled with golden laurel leaves, and surmounted by a statue of Constantine. It is now a ruin, destroyed and calcined by fire, whose remains can hardly be kept together even by tramps of iron, and which is shown to travellers under the name of "the burnt pillar." In the great circus, where the chariot-races were held, Constantine assembled the most celebrated works of art out of the temples and public places of the most opulent cities of his empire. The four bronze horses, the work of Lysippus, which now stand over the porch of St. Mark's church at Venice, and which formerly adorned the port of Athens, were among its chief ornaments.

Rome alone was obliged to contribute sixty of her finest statues, Egypt one of the most magnificent of her obelisks, made of a single piece of rose-coloured granite sixty feet high, and Delphi gave the memorial of the victory of Platea, three snakes entwined together, bearing on their heads the farfamed Delphian tripod. In one word, the riches, the art, and the splendour of the whole world were laid under tribute to Byzantium, nor were Constantine and his followers less careful for the well­being of the city, than they were for its glory and its magnificence. He erected enormous granaries, in which the corn of Egypt was stored, and afterwards distributed gratis to the people; noble aqueducts, which brought water from the mountains of Thrace; numerous tasteful fountains, which distributed the water into all parts of the city, and baths luxuriantly furnished, and free of access to all. In short, with all these tributes from Rome, Greece, and Asia, there entered into Christian Byzantium a certain luxurious element, derived from heathenism, which was all the more dangerous to Christians, because it was so novel. Hitherto they had hardly been allowed to live, and now they were transplanted into the midst of all the enjoyments of life, with the full security of being able to avail themselves of them. And the great mass of the people chose rather to live in luxury, than to tread the "narrow way which leads to eternal life."

However, amid this mass, there were always holy and noble souls, who were not dazzled by earthly goods, nor taken captive by earthly happiness; and some saints, the favourites of God, were found even amongst those born to the purple. For if the kingdoms of light and of darkness meet in every hnman breast, their limits will not be clearly defined in the general working of the world. The threads of life cross and touch each other, and a gold thread may be interwoven with the black ones.

Thus was fulfilled in Byzantium the prophecy which Isaias spoke to Jerusalem, the type of the Christian Church:—"Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles, and will set up my standard to the people. And they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and carry thy daughters upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing-fathers, and queens thy nurses: they shall worship thee with their face toward the earth, and they shall lick up the dust of thy feet." Isaias also prophesied another blessing for the kingdom which Christ should found, and this was fulfilled in the desert, on the banks of the Nile:­"The land that was desolate and impassable shall be glad, and the wilderness shall rejoice and flourish like the lily. It shall bud forth and blossom, and shall rejoice with joy and praise: the glory of Libanus is given to it, the beauty of Carmel and Saxon. For waters are broken out in the desert, and streams in the wilderness. And that which was dry land shall become a pool: and the thirsty land springs of water. In the dens where dragons dwelt before, shall rise up the ver­dure of the reed and the bulrush. And a path and a way shall be there, and it shall be called the holy way: the unclean shall not pass over it, and this shall be unto you a straight way, so that fools shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, vor shall any mischievous beast go up by it nor be found there, but they shall walk there that shall be delivered. Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads ; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away."

A greater contrast can hardly be imagined than that between the smiling shores of the Bosphorus and the peaceful and monotonous banks of the Nile. The Bosphorus is all motion and variety; the sea with its ever-changing play of colours, with its ships and its boats, with its storms and its calms; the projecting and retreating coasts, with their hills and woods, rocks and green meadows, the abundance of light which spreads over the scene such a magnificence of colouring, that nowhere else do the waves look so blue, the foliage so green, the islands so purple, the snowy mountains so rose-coloured, the dwellings and houses so dazzlingly white, or the morning clouds so brilliant; while yet they all blend and melt into one another through a thousand shadings. But in the Nile there is a calm repose and uniformity in its whole course from south to north, from the Great Cataracts on the borders of Nubia, (the ancient Ethiopia,) past Assouan, (formerly Syene,) by Thebes, Memphis, and Cairo, till it empties itself into the Mediterranean Sea, not far from Alexandria, forming the Delta at its mouth. The entire landscape, from the twenty-second to the thirty-first degree of latitude, is perfectly level, and of only two colours, the yellow sand of the desert, and the verdure of the fields.

The Lybian mountains in the west, smoothly shaped, and the Arabian ones in the east, gently undulating, all without points or peaks, lie outstretched on either side. And the palm, that peaceful tree, stands upright and motionless with its coronal of leaves, like a slender column with a capital, and introduces no disturbance into this majestic repose of nature with which the solemn sublimity of the ancient works of art, of the temples and the pyramids, perfectly corresponds. What value it has in the eyes of European merchants or agriculturists, whether the soil could be turned to account or cultivated, are questions which belong to a different province.

The peculiarity of Egypt, and Egypt is nothing more than the broad bed of the Nile, with its characteristics of solitude, uniformity, sadness, and silence, is attractive and grand, grand as the mysterious form of the sphynx which lies embedded in her sand. This great uniformity is caused by the Nile flowing almost in a straight line during its entire course through Nubia and Egypt, from south to north, by the absence not only of other rivers but of even a single tributary stream, and because the hills both on the right and left banks lie very nearly in the same direction as itself. It is only on the borders of Nubia and Upper Egypt, above Assouan, that the river has to force its way through a high bank of granite which crosses the desert from west to east, whose quarries would now supply as fine materials of syenite and red granite, as they did in the days of Constantine, if they were not disused. There the Nile forms what are called the Lesser Cataracts, which are not, however, waterfalls, but only rapids formed between cliffs and massive blocks of stone, round the islands of Phi Elephantine, and Bidscha, with their magnificent ruined temples. Assouan lies under the twenty-fourth degree of latitude, and below it the quiet course of the Nile is never broken.

Its regular yearly overflow is no devastating and destructive inundation; towards the end of June it slowly begins to rise, sometimes more and sometimes less perceptibly, but never suddenly or quickly. Through its rising the canals are filled which are dug from its banks into the country, and from which smaller canals and furrows branch out so as to spread the water as far as possible over the soil and render it fruitful. In the early part of October the Nile has generally reached its height, and has overflowed in many places so far as to form immense ponds. Then the water is stationary for some time, and is carefully and providently carried by sluices from one place to another. Then follow quickly, one after another, the sowing, the growth, the ripening, and the harvest.

Towards the end of the winter the Nile retires back into its bed, and in April and May universal drought again prevails. Without the artificial system of canals from the Nile, and without its regular rising, the cause of which science has not hitherto discovered, all vegetation would cease, and the cultivation of the country would be impracticable, for it possesses neither streams nor rivers, and very few wells of tolerable water. Rain hardly ever falls: at Alexandria, only about ten times in the year, at Cairo three times, in Upper Egypt perhaps once in ten years. In days of yore this system of irrigation was much more perfect and more widely spread than it is at present; Egypt was then the granary of the Roman Empire, and had seven millions of inhabitants. Now, it counts only two millions and a half, and yet it supplies with corn the two holy cities of Islam, Mecca, and Medina. Its desert-like character, however, was even then conspicuous, the moment cultivation ceased. Deserts surrounded villages and even towns, but the largest lay between the right bank of the Nile and the Red Sea, in the province of Thebais. It was principally there that the second prophecy of Isaias was to be fulfilled. Byzantium became the representative of the sensual element which pervaded, and still pervades Christianity, and which may be disguised under the semblance of refinement, genius, prudence, or knowledge. The Thebaid became a general expression of the spiritual element of Christianity, whose fairest fruit is the state of perfection.