1961-12-16 — Page 8

GRUNDIG

merry

Pristmas

FROM THE WORLD'S LARGEST

THE CHINA MAIL SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1901.

The shortest tourist season in the world

BETHLEHEM 1961-

Nobody bothered much about the cave at first,

There had for long

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GR-49

Season's

Greetings

it, of course. But few outsiders ever came to Bethlehem to listen them.

to

You reached this straggling village, if you had to, along the reck road from Aellà Capito- lina, the Roman elty that bad rison from the charred ruins of Jerusalem

You toiled five milestones out, then forked off down a rough track.

Bethlehem was a hamlet of no significance; H minor market for the small grain, fruit and ivestock farmers on the fringe of the Judacan wilderness. A place of not more than 500 souls.

INHOSPITABLE

A place with a local story about a cave.

Most people knew the way the story went that in this rough limestone cieri, barren and inhospitable, had been born the man Jesus who was crucified

150 years before.

This was mildly interesting: for it was etmmon knowledge that some men, calling them - selves Christians, were actually worshipping Jesus as God. from the outer world would Occasionally Bome stranger from the outer world would arrive in the sleepy village. looking for the cave.

But there were many rough openings in the hillside; und perhaps, In the beginning nut every stranger was directed to the right Orle Nor

did ឆរ Justin Martyr offer many char 10 its location, when he wrote The account that became the earliest known reference. 10 k

DESECRATION

cave

The Grotto of the Nativity. The star marks the spot where Christ was born.

where the infant Christ walls of cream-coloured lime cried. the paramour of stone. It was fitted inside with Venus was bewaited

gold and silver oragments, Bul the dim gods of late jewelled rups and vessels. Its Rome

would nut survive long walls were lined with mosaics against the

pure Hame of new and marble slabs. belief. No trappings of that

When the Empress diet, Con- stantine added further precious gifts, and embroidered curtains.

FYT

Simply that is was "n at the rich, robten civilisation could village."

now match the strange com- pelling power of that cave.

But by the time atolber een Lury had passed the legend re hardened; and the chronicler Origen had attached the loosr local tradition enduringly to a particular cave.

BASILICA

two centurics this first sheltered the sacred cave. It sloud to see that firs thin trickle of pilgrims swell to a food-tide, and Bethlehem Another hundred years pass- exped into a busy tourist con- Many more visitors were ar- ed. And by now

the Emperor tre Bu Constantine the Great, shrewdly riving to see it by now remained a cave, No splendid blending polley

and devotion, church stood over the Holy of was erecting over the holy cave Holles yet. Nor were there any the first basilica, S. Maria thing like Christian ceremonies Praesepio.

a

From Britain and India the reverent travellers poured in; from Haly and Ethiopia. There was always a new line waiting

Dollars, devotion and neon stars

by David Ettrick

"AND here," says the guide, "is the spot where

our Lord was born."

A fur-coated American matron falls to her knees at the rich altar, beneath the fifteen hanging lamps and the brocades. Leaning forward, she kisses reverently the fourteen-pointed silver star with its smooth-worn Latin inscription, let into the marble floor of the Grotto of the Nativity.

"Hie de Virgine Maria Jesus Christus Natus Est," it rends. Here Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary.

It is Christmas in Bethlehem, 1961. Queues wait"to file down the few steps from the transept of the big incense-scented Church of the Nativity to the narrow underground cavern that holds the very heart of the Christmas mystery.

Outside neon stars slow from church rooftops, and the liste hillside town pulses with dollars and devotion. The skortest tourist season in the world (from nuon on Christmas Eve to 2 am on Christmas Morning) is in full swing.

Cars and concbes jam Manger Square. There is brisk trade in carved olivewood crosses and locally-worked mother-of-peari. There is carelling led by an Anglican archbishop in Shepherd Fields. two miles away.

"I found a swell shepherd," says the American matron's bus- band. "But whaddya know? He wanted a dollar and a half to be photographed with his flock,"

"And here," the guide begins again, "is the spot v where our Lord was born....

within its uninviting depths. Or rather, according to some golden manger stood. There was

to kiss the holy spot where the ing even in the Holy City could power of Persian invaders tha

in

historians,

the

PILLAGE

Christianity, though, was

On the contrary, by an act

Entperor had

the steady devotion of of calculated desecration, the come to see that in the new always wood in which the cave stood Christianity lay

his best hope che faith. 門診

rial unity had become

he needed early

** imperi the Second Century AD a grove to save his slipping realm, And held sacred to the pagan god it was i fact his mother, the

Empress Helena Adonis.

(an arden! convert) who went with his ap— pruva) to Judaca to choose the site and supervise the building. She had the trees felled, and the pagan grove was no more. Епрегог of the

Then she set about planning Hadrian, the cave became e stage for mysteries connected a building that would shelter with this tragic lover of Venus, and glorify the cave, and leave supposed to have been slain in space for communal prayer the prime of his youth by a

MYSTERIES

By order

wild boar,

And, lamented the great Christain

I crotu scholar St

SPLENDID

TOKE

spreading faster abroad than st home. In 529 Bre and pillage ravaged the country- side as the Samaritans against their Christian over- lords. The basilica crashed about the cave and covered it ir

a thick

layer of ashes, charred wood and shattered tiles.

The King of Constantinople

ach it,

few years later it faced a 'darker Leril: conquest by Arab hordes, When

the envoy reported feared for so long by the people back, the King did not like the of Bethlehem and now sweeping sound of his description of the down on them fred by the new new church. He accused the map religion of Islam

of raising a poor, dark place Arab armies outtought w and stealing money for himself, Christian armies. For the first

time in three hundred years they

dared

ceitbrate Christmas in the Church of the Nativity.

MIRACLE

MECCA

Then he had him beheaded. For the cave of Christ's birth and its church to have survived the strife-toom centuries that followed would have seemed to

And the Caliph Umar Ibn Al require something like a miracle. Khattab, passing through Beth- prayed when the hour Ing. They emerged almost came in the south transept of

the church, his face

The miracle was not want-

unscathed.

lehem,

towards

ordered a new church built. He who lived in Bethlehem, "the It was a splendid building, sent an envoy with a large summ earth's most sacred spot was according to the

old accounts of money, with orders to cree! overshadowed by a grove of of pilgrims who saw it. lis over the Grotto a building af For fourteen years, after 614 Mecca, Thumoruz (Adonis), and in the roof was of angled timbers, its such size and beauty that noth- A.D., the cave lay under the (Continued on Page 20)

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